They have no more wishes
Do they remember, that girl /
treading water in her cabin /
or the mother who held on /
for a long, last hour, praying /
until the tree itself gave way?
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Assisi
Of all the towns offered /
in the Italian countryside /
the weight carried /
by the star /
of Umbria /
casts the longest shadow. -
I go down to the river to pray
I go down to the river to pray. /
Its water tumbles to the Mississippi, /
a major artery, open to the open sea . . . -
Hide and seek
I’m remembering church picnics. It’s summer nostalgia, of course. The wind in the trees outside my window and the sound of kids playing. I’m leaving church after the service and thinking about watermelon, remembering the tote bag my mom put the thermos in and the way she folded a travelling rug on top and the…
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Driving north on Highway 21 to a doctor’s appointment
A blindingly bright January morning. /
In the distance ahead, to the east, /
a wink, /
a glint of metallic shimmer. -
(2017, Virginia)
On the day that hate rode into town /
We visited our neighbor in her new home /
She is over 90 years old -
Thirteen ways of looking at the garden
After the city, the garden /
is quiet, the leaves green /
enough to absorb every cry. -
Of death and pascha
WHAT PERSISTS /
there is the void /
there is the heavy immovable stone . . . -
Resurrection among the ruins
Can there be resurrection /
among the ruins? /Dare we imagine new life /
rising from these streets of death? -
Blue Psalter Hymnal #379: Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow
Children crack palm nuts milked of fats, / stripped of orange. They smack / nuts on rocks, split out the kernel of ndika . . .
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The ruined career
I believe in the great discovery.I believe in the man who made the discovery.I believe in the fear of the manwho made the discovery . . . This is the beginning of the poem “Discovery” by the Nobel laureate, Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (pronounced ShimBORska). It was first published in a 1972 collection. Poland was…
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Three hundred years after a forest burns,
it grows back fully / Six days after the flames / black bears return for berries. / The restoration / of the world leaks /through a broken dam
