Secret

Sometimes

when the morning sun streams

through the kitchen window

and I'm washing the dishes

or opening a can of cat food

or sweeping potato peels and onion skins

off the linoleum floor,

I get so taken with the way

my arms move back and forth with the broom

or how pretty my fingers look

all dressed up in soap bubbles

that I just have to jump up

and dance around the house

laughing out loud.

 

Other times

when I'm sitting in my favorite rocking chair

and the clock on my wall ticking

and the evening sky a particular shade of blue

halfway between periwinkle and midnight,

I feel so content with the way

my feet push off gently against the wooden floor

and how my belly moves up and down

with each breath I take

that I just have to sigh

with the sheer delight of knowing

that everything I want is

everything I have.

 

Leslea Newman, journaltherapy.com accessed on July 10, 2024

Mourners

 

After the funeral, the mourners gather
under the rustling churchyard maples
and talk softly, like clusters of leaves.
White shirt cuffs and collars flash in the shade:
highlights on deep green water.
They came this afternoon to say goodbye,
but now they keep saying hello and hello,
peering into each other’s faces,
slow to let go of each other’s hands.

Ted Kooser, Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004)

With Emma at the Ladies-Only Swimming Pond on Hampstead Heath

In payment for those mornings at the mirror

while,                    

                              at her

                     expense, I'd started my late learning in

Applied

French Braids, for all

                              the mornings afterward of Hush

                    and Just stand still,

to make some small amends for every reg-

                              iment-

                    ed bathtime and short-shrifted goodnight

kiss,

I did as I was told, for once,

                             gave up

                    my map, let Emma lead us through the

woods

"by instinct," as the drunkard knew

                              the natural

                    prince. We had no towels. We had

 

 no "bathing costumes,"  as the children's' novels

                             call them here, and I 

                     am summer's dullest hand at un- 

premeditated moves. But when

                              the coppice of sheltering boxwood

                      disclosed its path and posted

rules, our unwonted bows to seemliness seemed

                              poor excuse.

                       The ladies in their lumpy variety lay

on their public half-acre of lawn,

                              the water

                        lay in dappled shade, while Emma

in her underwear and I 

                              in an ill-

                        fitting borrowed suit availed us of

 

the breast stroke and a modified

                              crawl.

                        She's eight now. She will rather

die than do this in a year or two

                              and lobbies, 

                         even as we swim, to be allowed to cut

her hair. I do, dear girl, I will,

                              give up

                         this honey-colored metric of augmented

thirds, but not (shall we climb 

                              on the raft

                         for a while?) not yet.

Linda Gregerson, Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2014 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015)   

Crazy Quilt

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
is cracked. California is splitting
off. There is no East or West, no rhyme,
no reason to it. We are scattered.
Dear Lord, lest we all be somewhere
else, patch this work. Quilt us
together, feather-stitching piece
by piece our tag-ends of living,
our individual scraps of love.

 

Jane Wilson Joyce, Quilt Pieces (Gnomon Press, 2009)

Come, Let Us Dream

Come, let us dream God’s dream again.
Come, one and all, let us ascend
the mountain top where those of old
saw God’s new day on earth unfold.

The lame shall walk, the blind shall see,
the doors swing wide, all prisoners free,
the lowly raised, the proud brought low:
This is God’s dream: let justice flow.

When hatred ends and war shall cease,
so all may dwell in deepest peace,
then be assured the time is near
when perfect love casts out all fear.

But know the cost of claiming sight
of God’s new day, of wrongs made right,
for some have paid the highest price,
their lives for us, a sacrifice.

Prophets are scorned in their own lands
and martyrs slain by righteous hands;
Though dreamers die the dream will live
for we have yet our lives to give.

 

John Middleton, Worship and Song (Abingdon Press, 2011) 

Used

The conspiracy's to make us thin. Size threes
are all the rage, and skirts ballooning above twinkling knees
are every man-child's preadolescent dream.
Tabla rasa. No slate's that clean--

we've earned the navels sunk in grief
when the last child emptied us of their brief
interior light. Our muscles say We have been used.

Have you ever tried silk sheets? I did,
persuaded by postnatal dread
and a Macy's clerk to bargain for more zip.
We couldn't hang on, slipped
to the floor and by morning the quilts
had slid off, too. Enough of guilt--
It's hard work staying cool.

 

Rita Dove, The Circle Brothers Association math.buffalo.edu/~sww/circle.html accessed on June 24, 2024

Shaking Hands

Because what’s the alternative?
Because of courage.
Because of loved ones lost.
Because no more.
Because it’s a small thing; shaking hands; it happens every day.
Because I heard of one man whose hands haven’t stopped shaking since a market day in Omagh.
Because it takes a second to say hate, but it takes longer, much longer, to be a great leader.
Much, much longer.

Because shared space without human touching doesn’t amount to much.
Because it’s easier to speak to your own than to hold the hand of someone whose side has been previously described, proscribed, denied.
Because it is tough.
Because it is tough.
Because it is meant to be tough, and this is the stuff of memory, the stuff of hope, the stuff of gesture, and meaning and leading.
Because it has taken so, so long.
Because it has taken land and money and languages and barrels and barrels of blood.

Because lives have been lost.
Because lives have been taken.

Because to be bereaved is to be troubled by grief.
Because more than two troubled peoples live here.
Because I know a woman whose hand hasn’t been shaken since she was a man.
Because shaking a hand is only a part of the start.
Because I know a woman whose touch calmed a man whose heart was breaking.
Because privilege is not to be taken lightly.

Because this just might be good.
Because who said that this would be easy?
Because some people love what you stand for, and for some, if you can, they can.
Because solidarity means a common hand.
Because a hand is only a hand; so hang onto it.

So join your much discussed hands.
We need this; for one small second.
So touch.
So lead.

 

Padraig O Tuama, journeywithjesus.net June 30, 2024