When I forget that the whole world is holy

When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.

 

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, ahundredfallingveils.com July 17, 2024

The Fair

The fair rolled into town surprisingly intact, like a plate unbreakable because it has been dropped and glued so many times that it is all glue and no plate. The fair was no fair. But, oh, it was a thrill! The fair slid into town just as a clown slides into pants. The fit was loose but right. The sheriff  had a job directing traffic. The barber was the sheriff  for a night, and people paid to see a human ape. They frowned to find her happy and alive. The fair spilled into town like a box of tacks. Later that month, in with the rest at church, were people no one knew, though none could tell exactly who was who.

 

Joshua Mehigan, Poetry May 2014

Six Inches

One minute I’m meandering down
a country road on a magnificent fall day,
lost in thought, radio playing,
and the next minute I feel my wheels

on the loose gravel of the shoulder,
there’s a deafening bang and I’m
climbing out of what’s left of my car.
The cop who came to investigate

was pretty sure I’d been speeding
but settled for lecturing me about how lucky
I was to walk away from such a crash,
that I’d be dead if my car had hit the tree

just six inches further to the left.
Anyone could see that what he said was true,
but it also struck me as I stood there
watching his car flash red and blue

that it was equally true the accident
would not have happened at all
if a raging storm some sixty years ago
hadn’t blown an acorn six inches closer

to the road than where it would’ve landed
on a day as sunny and calm as the one
we were in. It was a point I thought deserved
serious exploration—though perhaps

not just then, I decided, with a hundred birds
singing their tiny hearts out overhead
and the sky raining down yellow leaves,
and definitely not with the cop.

 

Jeff Coomer, A Potentially Quite Day (Last Leaf Press, 2015) 

When we still had forests

I was a feather collector.
The hundreds I’d gathered
affixed to yellowing pages:

-goose quills left along riverbanks,
-gull plumes from fast food parking lots,
-down preened by mourning doves.

Now impossible to find. I’m tired
of scanning skies in vain. After
I refresh birdbath water, discard
moldy seeds, refill the feeders, in case,
I’ll hike the once treed escarpment,
scrapbooks snuggled in backpack.

Swallow, sparrow, warbler, killdeer—
feather by feather. I’ll release each one
from the page. Let the wind
lift them into wings again.

 

Kimberly Peterson, poetrybreakfast.com August 8, 2024

Hamburger Heaven

Tonight we find them again,
parked under the stars
(no one ever
eats inside in Heaven),
beeping the tired carhop
with her pageboy and mascara
for a paper boat of French fries
drenched in sauce,
a smashed hamburger baptized
with spices.
They’re sixteen and in love;
the night is hot,
sweet and tangy on their tongues.
Why do we stop?
They’re in Heaven, after all,
listening to the fry cook
in the kitchen
with his savory benedictions,
the AM radio playing
“Love Me Tender,” “Peggy Sue,”
unperturbed by the future with its
franchises and malls, its
conglomerates and information
highways. Is there something
we would tell them?
Here in Hamburger Heaven where
the nights go on forever,
where desire’s resurrected
and every hunger’s filled?
Wait! Do we call out?
But now they’ve seen us
close behind them with our
fervent “Thou Shalt Nots,”
our longings glaring in
the rearview mirror.
And they’ve turned on
the ignition
and they’ve floored it
and are gone.

 

Ronald Wallace, For a Limited Time Only (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008)

Build Up the Ruins

They shall build up the ancient ruins...
                         —Isaiah 61.4

When you are surrounded by broken things,
when you find yourself in a barren place
of devastation and discouragement, take heart.
Blessed are you, for you have been sent by the Spirit
to do the work of love among ruins.
Blessed are you who mend the shattered,
who build up what's been torn down.
Blessed are you who accompany the broken,
who stand with light and hope amid the rubble.

We don't understand the stitching of wounded flesh,
the mystery that knits strands of death into life,
but in the splintered night you can hold the lamp,
you can bear, or at least bear witness to the love
that makes whole, that creates again,
that makes of these disappointed pieces
a new thing of beauty and glory.
The mystery is hidden in your being there.
Build up the ancient ruins, beloved;
the Spirit will guide and strengthen you.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes. unfoldinglight.net December 13, 2023

Taking Out the Trash

I remember as a child
watching my father take out the trash
at the frozen crack of dawn, cursing
as he dragged the stinking cans to the curb,
and thinking, that's not something
I'm ever going to do.

In other ways I was a model son,
standing at the mirror as he shaved,
dabbing the warm cream on my cheek,
dreaming of a razor
and whiskers of my very own.

Watching him light up
as he read the Sunday paper,
one eye squinted against smoke
and bad news, had me reading the funnies
before I could even read, my eye
squinted against nothing.

And the deft, one-handed way
he straightened his fedora's brim,
while at the same time
adjusting the coordinates
of rake and tilt,
makes me regret that the hat,
like my father, has vanished,

along with the strop and razor,
and lathery bowl of curds.
Even smoking, and the Sunday paper
are on their way out.

These are the losses I'm mourning
this morning as I drag the stinking
trash cans to the curb.

 

George Bilgere, writersalmanac.com July 31, 2013