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Category Archives: poetry
The Visitation
I love that, for a moment, you embraced, neither wondering how the other came to be in her loosened state, knowing next to nothing of the contractions to come, spasms of envy slaughtering the innocents and the barely belated, cruel blows which would fell them both, … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer
Tagged Luke 1:39-56, Luke 1:44, the visitation
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Ascension (2023)
With skin like an apple streaked with red, weathered toward ripeness, her hair a wood-stained frame for the pearl earring, moon to her sun, the woman in the seat in front never turned her face to me but from the … Continue reading
One or the other
One says, Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb; another, Thou shalt not covet the livestock. One says, Give as good as you get; another, Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. … Continue reading
Many dwelling places
There was a hill covered in cloud that resisted the imprecations of the wind that tossed the crows about and hurried us to shelter beneath a bare crag, eroded by the dwelling of the centuries, bodies it had harbored, of … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged John 14:1-14, many mansions, Year A Easter 5
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Unhinged
I am a gate, I swing this way and that, inviting you to step into my dance, leading with the song you have heard before: creak and sigh of hungry humanity herded like sheep by fear and faith by turns. … Continue reading
For all the alleluias
For all the alleluias that fall into the empty grave before the earth is cast down; alleluias that burst like a disappointed balloon upon the tongue; alleluias that took a wrong turn and never came home; for all of the alleluias that become ululations for the still dead and dying; alleluias gasping; … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry, prayer
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Blessed
He breathed on them the scent of grave-clothes, myrrh, and aloes, the stench of forgiveness; I imagine that smells of olive oil pressed from the groves in the Garden of Gethsemane, drowning out with unction the fetor of betrayal and blood. All day long they shed … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged Easter 2, John 20:19-31
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Sirens
Time was when the siren was a singer of sea mist; her music has hardened, staccato,and her figure, smooth and long like steel; still, she kills, and from a distance the echo returns as a wail falling and rising like smoke foreshadowing the ashes of the dead
Posted in gun violence, poetry
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A special place
To celebrate the day of its harrowing, and because the phrase came up again just the other day … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, poetry, prayer
Tagged Holy Saturday, repentance, special place in hell
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Good Friday
The cross is a mirror. It shows us what we are not, as well as what we are; the embodiment of God, the epitome of humanity: images mundane and immortal in one body.The cross is a mirror. The cross is a mirror. The hammer falls and innocent flesh … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, poetry, prayer
Tagged Good Friday, gun violence, Holy Week, Lent, mercy, the Cross
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over the water 