Free Breakfast

The Springhill Suites free breakfast area
was filling up fast when a man carrying his
disabled young son lowered him into his
chair, the same way an expert pilot’s airplane
kisses the runway when it lands. And all the
while, the man whispered into his boy’s ear,
perhaps telling him about the waffle maker
that was such a hit with the children gathered
around it, or sharing the family’s plans for the
day as they traveled to wherever they were
going. Whatever was said, the boy’s face was
alight with some anticipated happiness. And
the father, soon joined by the mother, seemed
intent on providing it. So beautiful they all
were, it was hard to concentrate on our eggs
and buttered toast, to look away when his
parents placed their hands on the little boy’s
shoulders and smiled at one another, as if
they were the luckiest people in the room.

Terri Kirby Erikson, A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53, 2020)

Three Gratitudes

Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I’m grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It’s a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight, and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend,
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father’s good health,
My daughter’s new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it.
Decent coffee at the airport,
And your quiet breathing,
The stories you told me,
The frost patterns on the windows,
English horns and banjos,
Wood Thrush and June bugs,
The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond,
An old coat,
A new poem,
My library card,
And that my car keeps running
Despite all the miles.

And after three things,
More often than not,
I get on a roll and I just keep on going,
I keep naming and listing,

Until I lie grinning,
Blankets pulled up to my chin,
Awash with wonder
At the sweetness of it all.

Carrie Newcomer, janicefalls.wordpress.com July 19, 2017

Blackbirds

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn’t know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be.

 

Julie Cadwallader-Staub, janicefalls.wordpress.com June 10, 2020

At Table

When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. Luke 24:30

We are taken:
gathered up in God's grace,
belonging not to ourselves now, but God,
taken out of our lives, and made part of something
greater -- infinite, gracious, and unendingly good.

We are blessed:
God's love and delight poured out upon us,
God's mercy filling us,
so no matter what our circumstances
our lives bear grace and the power of healing.

We are broken:
sinful and incomplete, brokenhearted in love,
perfectly weak and flawed,
we are broken open
so the love poured into us may flow out
into the world.

And we are given
to the world,
resurrected, vessels of blessing,
given to love,
bread of life for others.

God, in your mercy
take, bless, break, and give us,
raised, renewed, imbued with your spirit,
full of beauty, love, and courage,
the Body of Christ.

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net, April 23, 2020

I Married You

I married you

for all the wrong reasons,

charmed by your

dangerous family history,

by the innocent muscles, bulging

like hidden weapons

under your shirt,

by your naive ties, the colors

of painted scraps of sunset.

 

I was charmed too

by your assumptions

about me: my serenity—

that mirror waiting to be cracked,

my flashy acrobatics with knives

in the kitchen.

How wrong we both were

about each other,

and how happy we have been.

Linda Pastan, Queen of a Rainy Country (W. W. Norton & Company, 2006) 

I Love You

Early on, I noticed that you always say it
to each of your children
as you are getting off the phone with them
just as you never fail to say it
to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call.
It’s all new to this only child.
I never heard my parents say it,
at least not on such a regular basis,
nor did it ever occur to me to miss it.
To say I love you pretty much every day
would have seemed strangely obvious,
like saying I’m looking at you
when you are standing there looking at someone.
If my parents had started saying it
a lot, I would have started to worry about them.
Of course, I always like hearing it from you.
That is never a cause for concern.
The problem is I now find myself saying it back
if only because just saying good-bye
then hanging up would make me seem discourteous.
“But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to
say it so often, would prefer instead to save it
for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped
into the red mouth of a volcano
with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,
or while we are desperately clasping hands
before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,
which are only two of the examples I had in mind,
but enough, as it turns out, to make me
want to say it to you right now,
and what better place than in the final couplet
of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.”

Billy Collins, senortao.com March 6, 2020

Long Shot

                   for Rich Strike

I have been the player benched

at tip-off, game by game, watched nets dance

with leather, felt the storm and wrench

of clumsy. I defied it. Made my chance

in cones lined up on pavement. Only

the sun to coach my feet, my hands.

I have been that lonely.

 

I have sought bouquets of crimson roses,

hid beyond the slides and swings at recess,

played in fields, held my princess poses

among the calves. I have worn a dress

and asked a boy to dance, as Sony

speakers belted love. He didn’t say yes.

I have been that lonely.

 

I have drained a three point shot, the one

that glitters memory like waves curl to sand,

felt all of that and more in a man’s hand.

I kicked, slapped, not knowing I had won

everything. When the long shot bites the pony

after he wins the roses, I understand.

I have been that lonely.

 

T. R. Poulson, Poems Respond rattle.com May 15, 2022