Category Archives: preparing for Sunday with poetry

The well

Fed by generations, torrents of history running wild within the earth, the holy ground shaped and watered by the tears of war and weddings, piety and pity. Still waters run deep within the earth, seep between the shoulders of the land, shrugging off the stories that we … Continue reading

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Nicodemus has insomnia

He couldn’t sleep for the moon light streaming through creation, for the sound of the wind sighing over a sea too deep for words, for the shiver when he heard him speak liberty as though it were at hand,the shock of justice overturned, the taste of mercy … Continue reading

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Stay (Transfiguration)

Less a trick of the Lightcondensing out of the cloud, each droplet its own world of shapes and shades, ghosts of the martyred, those sidekicks of salvation, dissipating with their breath than the Light of the world condensing creation, ancestors and angels,witnesses and wantons in one bright moment … Continue reading

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Wise

By the time you reached the star-struck place 
you were ready to crawl in on bended knees 
and babble your praises like a newborn; 
for the foolishness of God’s incarnation 
was wiser than you or I ever could imagine. Continue reading

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Advent I

It is not as simple as the poet makes it sound to transform the form of metal, a sword into farm equipment. Just hit it with a hammer, the prophecy implies, and all will fall, seeds into their furrows and … Continue reading

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Seven

And then, imagine it from her point of view: seven lifetimes of love, regret, loss, laughter. Seven lifetimes of abuse – pray not. Seven lifetimes of blessing, despite the woes, hope despite it all. Seven lifetimes and here, in eternity, … Continue reading

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All hallows

It took so long to get the fire lit, even though the wind blew as though the Holy Spirit fanned the flames of Pentecost herself. The children in their costumes came and went without judgement, candy-sweet. When the tinder finally … Continue reading

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Foundering

As though created in mid-air and surprised, the lamb fell without foothold down the cliff and into the stream where we, speechless, sandwiches halfway to open mouths watched it pick up and shake itself back to life , quiet waters … Continue reading

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To count them

A meditation on verses from Psalm 139

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Fire

Storm that breaks the sealon the dome that holds the watersof the heavens apart from watersthat brooded life into creation Storm that breaks the heateven as fire is splitting the sky,falling to the ground wrappedin quenching rain Mirrored against the … Continue reading

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