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Category Archives: poetry
Mother of sleepless nights
You are the Mother of all sleepless nights. Before the light was bound over to keep the peace till morning, you neither slumbered nor rested your eyes; before the darkness fell from sheer weary excess of hours; as long as … Continue reading
Unbabel
Slab-flat vowels like a block of dough slapped down on the kneading board; sibilant aromas of spice and fruit from afar off mingle with crisp consonants. Syllables roll like oranges through the early morning marketplace; polyphonic strangers drawn by the … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, meditation, poetry, prayer
Tagged accents, Acts 2:1-21, Babel, comfort food, expatriate, Genesis 11:1-9, homesickness, language, Pentecost, unity
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Graduations
A Mother’s Day poem for a grown daughter graduating college There was a time measured in the skipped beats of a sonogram machine when you were mine completely to hold; you ate my food, shared my blood, before the cord … Continue reading
Ascension (inversion)
Precipitous falling land & water at the shore where dust turns to clay, matter moulded to our humanity. A low fog confuses earth with its firmament; the mud holds its breath until the star breaks, rising in the east.
Posted in holy days, poetry
Tagged Ascension, fog, Genesis 2:7, Incarnation, mist, prayer, star of bethlehem, weather
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Leaning
I cannot stand straight. My body shapes itself to air that falls away beneath its drooping head and arms. Once so solid, with you no longer there, I drift as though weightless, of no substance; I lean against the empty … Continue reading
Year C Easter 6: Down by the river
Silt sinking to your shoes, knee deep in ooze, you lose your stream of thought way down by the river to pray. Tripping, tickling trout tumbling upward, hope lifts labour over falls, life runs down by the river to pray. … Continue reading
Spring in Michigan
It’s day two of the Festival of Faith & Writing. So much to think about, process, reflect upon, enjoy. But halfway across the parking lot at lunch – in the middle of a day that began in the freezing temperatures … Continue reading
Posted in other words, poetry
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Savasana
Empty clothing, deflating dust with bone fastenings, faded and stained, deeply wrinkled enough to bury life within the folds, rolled up like a mat and carried out when the last breath fails and the softness falls upon itself.
Bearing
Smattering laughter, sundry small-talk dies away. Grasping brass handles, shoulders square. The slightest stumble, scant genuflection; the body pays its respects to the shocking weight of mortality.
over the water 