The Road to Emmaus

Our eyes falling down to the ground,

Our hearts dry as the dust we trample.

A stranger joins our journey to despair.

Teasing out the details of what our hope had been,

He listens on and on until our grief can tell no more,

Only then can his words water our withered spirits.

Gently chiding, strongly guiding, weaving a story

Of glory hidden within fabled prophecies of faith.

Later will we recall how fiercely our hearts did burn.

But now it is our turn, the time to beg him to linger,

A request he can never refuse, for his very presence

Is sacred space, every home he visits his sanctuary.

For those who have eyes to see, his bread blessed,

Broken and shared -- so much more than merely a meal.

His visitation no longer confined to history.

This road we walked with him still beckons --

To journey back from where we once despaired,

Our hearts now open in hopeful recognition.

J. Michael Sparough, S. J., Hearttoheart.org, 2017

Remember

Remember the sky you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.


Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth,
brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their history, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice.
She knows the origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people are you.

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses (W. W. Norton & Company, 1983)

"Important"

"We hurry through the so-called important things
in order to attend to that which we deem
more important, interesting.
Perhaps the final freedom will be a recognition that
everything in every moment is 'essential'
and that nothing at all is 'important.'"

Helen M. Luke, medschool.uscd.edu

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment,
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves
with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda, Extravagaria: A Bilingual Edition (Noonday Press, 2001)

Aphorisms at Seventy

Now "when" becomes "if."
The horizon starts to lower.
You realize you have a sell-by date.
And the deer are always going to win
        the battle of the garden.
You will never be reconciled
        to losing friends.
You are not going to lose the weight
        from that last baby.
Or finish your reading list.
Still, red wine goes with everything.
There is always chocolate.
Spring never gets old.
You don't need a partner to dance.

Barbara Crooker, poem first appeared in The Paterson Literary Review

Dear Death

Death no longer has dominion.
                              Romans 6:9

Ah, Death, poor Death, we respect you
and the empire which you have established;
we honor your wide jurisdictions
and observe your feasts and seasons.
But we don't belong to you.
We don't believe in you.

We don't fear you or your armies
and their horrible weapons, their wars,
their plagues and pandemics.
For Jesus, bearing our souls,
has walked through you like smoke
and out the other side.
Our Christ, in love, has taken you in chains.

With him we have already died --
we have already died -- and been raised,
and passed beyond your power.
Come early as you may, you are too late for us!
Our funerals are acts of happy sedition
in your sad, decaying empire:
for every funeral we hold, dear death, is yours.
We live not under your sway, but life's
and love's eternal breadth
crammed into this brief span.

We mean no disrespect
when we sing joyous songs at your wake,
when we dance on your grave,
our precious, departed Death.
We tell you plainly our power:
in love, poured out in us,
we are free even in your pallid grip
to love, to sing, to rejoice.
Ah, Death, dear Death, come take our hands
and join the dance of life.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, April 13, 2020

Schwinn

One day my mother astonished me
by getting astride my bike,
the heavy old balloon-tired Schwinn
I used for my afternoon paper route,
and pedaling away down the street,

skirt flying, hair blown back,
a girl again in the wind and speed
that had nothing to do
with pulling double shifts at the hospital,
or cooking meatloaf, or sewing up my jeans,

the old bike carrying her away
from my father dead of booze,
and her own nightly bottle
of red wine in front of the news.

She flew down the road so far
I could barely see her,
then slowly pedaled back to me,
and stepped off the bike, my mom again.

George Bilgere, Blood Pages (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018)