Bookmobile

 

I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.

It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.

Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,

because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.

Joyce Sutphen, Coming Back to the Body (Holy Cow! Press, 2000)

The Hot Dog Factory (1937)

Of course now children take it for granted but once

we watched boxes on a conveyor belt, sliding by,
magically filled and closed, packed and wrapped.
We couldn’t get enough of it, running alongside the machine.
In kindergarten Miss Haynes walked our class down
Stuyvesant Avenue, then up Prospect Street
to the hot dog factory the girls got to go
as the boys were too wild.
We stood in line, wiggling with excitement as the man
talked about how they made hot dogs, then he handed us
one, and Jan dropped hers, so I broke mine in half.
This was the happiest day of our lives,
children whose mothers didn’t drive, and had nowhere
to go but school and home, to be taken to that street
to watch the glittering steel and shining rubber belts moving,
moving meats, readymade. I wish I could talk with Jan,
recalling the miracle and thrill of the hot dog factory,
when she was alive, before it all stopped—
bright lights, glistening motors, spinning wheels.

Grace Cavalieri, Writer’s Almanac September 24, 2021

Equip One Another

 The gifts God gave were that some would be apostles,

         some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
         to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
         for building up the body of Christ
                   —Ephesians 4.11-12

And some would be listeners, and some good humorists,
some lovers of babies, some survivors, some singers.
Some are hopers, some healers, some encouragers.
Some are dreamers, some organizers, some workers.
No two sets of gifts are alike. None are inferior.
All are for building up, not tearing down,
all for the whole body, not themselves.
And no one is without. To be is to be gifted.

They are not talents, skills, privileges, or obligations.
They are gifts. To be received. To be given.

Listen, believer, for the echo of your own calling,
the song of your own gifts. Listen, and follow.
Listen for the voice of one another's gifts,
for everyone you meet is gifted.

We equip one another for love.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net July 29, 2021

Almost a Conversation

 

I have not really, not yet, talked with otter
about his life.

He has so many teeth, he has trouble
with vowels.

Wherefore our understanding
is all body expression —

he swims like the sleekest fish,
he dives and exhales and lifts a trail of bubbles.
Little by little he trusts my eyes
and my curious body sitting on the shore.

Sometimes he comes close.
I admire his whiskers
and his dark fur which I would rather die than wear.

He has no words, still what he tells about his life
is clear.
He does not own a computer.
He imagines the river will last forever.
He does not envy the dry house I live in.
He does not wonder who or what it is that I worship.
He wonders, morning after morning, that the river
is so cold and fresh and alive, and still
I don’t jump in.

Mary Oliver, Evidence (Beacon Press, 2009)

A Marriage

 

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

Michael Blumenthal, Against Romance (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2006)

Foley Cathether

I clean its latex length
              With kindliest touch,
    Swipe an alcohol swatch

From the tender skin at the tip of him
              Down the lumen
    To the drainage bag I change

Each day and flush with vinegar.
              When I vowed for worse
    Unwitting did I wed this

Something-other-than-a-husband, jumble
             Of exposed plumbing
    And euphemism. Fumble

I through my nurse's functions, upended
              From the spare bed
    By his every midnight sound.

Unsought inside our grand domestic
              Intimacy
    Another intimacy

Opens -- ruthless and indecent, consuming
              All our hiddenmosts.
    In a body, immodest

Such hunger we sometimes call tumor
              In a marriage
    It's cherish. From the Latin for cost.

Kimberly Johnson, published in Poem-a-Day on January 15, 2020,
by the Academy of American Poets.

What to Do

Wake up early, before the lights come on

in the houses on a street that was once
a farmer’s field at the edge of a marsh.

Wander from room to room, hoping to find
words that could be enough to keep the soul
alive, words that might be useful or kind

in a world that is more wasteful and cruel
every day. Remind us that we are
like grass that fades, fleeting clouds in the sky,

and then give us just one of those moments
when we were paying attention, when we gave
up everything to see the world in

a grain of sand or to behold
a rainbow in the sky, the heart
leaping up.

Joyce Sutphen, janicefalls.wordpress.com/blog July 28, 2021