Poetry
Micael Nussbaumer/Shutterstock
There’s a photo he carries for long journeys
like this one, for trips on loaded market lorries
where the passengers take their seat, perching
on top of cargo, or sitting on crude benches
inside the buses coming from Sudan with names
like “Best of Luck” or “Mr. Good Looking.”
(Duybox / Shutterstock)
The Greeks know how tightly coiled
are circumstances with many windings
before tragedy’s spring snaps.
The horse bolts flame-like from the gate;
we do not see its years of training.
So too, the thunderhead today slow bloating
and thickening with muffled rumblings.
The steeds were restless, but the reins
held tight, until a crack of the whip
unleashed the pummeling flood.
(Zurijeta / Shutterstock)
You hear a voice speaking
about a bird dragging its dark universe
of feathers across your yard,
and you realize it must be you
telling the boy how you carried its body
beyond the ambit of your dogs.
One eye, round as a coin,
fixing fear upon you, the other,
half shut. How the bird hauled
its body back into your yard,
dying with a will you could only
admire. Am I the bird?, the boy asks.
(R. Gino Santa Maria / Shutterstock)
Mother, mother / There’s too many of you crying / Brother, brother, brother / There’s far too many of you dying —Marvin Gaye
then they stomped
John Willet
as he lay on the sidewalk
hands cuffed behind his back
and shot
Michael Brown
who was on his way this fall to college
Stop and frisk
Stop and frisk
and used a chokehold to kill
(nito / Shutterstock)
The tale of nails and wood
is retold on the BBC from Winchester,
with hymns about a balm in Gilead,
a wondrous cross, and the choirboys’ echo
of the Fauré Requiem. Cardinal Newman
sends blessings from the grave,
and the organ grumbles “Amen.”
When it comes to living small,
you were ahead of your time,
which is why I nominate you
patron saint of tiny homes. So
you haven’t heard of them?
(VladisChern / Shutterstock)
I.
The wailing and the murmured prayers,
the animal ruckus, and coin against coin,
smoke hanging in the temple spaces—
offerings that bear our love to the seat of heaven.
For sixty years my soul has leaned
so hard toward the Almighty, I’m open
like a flower drenched with light
that blossoms into words.
(Rawpixel / Shutterstock)
Wizards! Caspar! Melchior! Balthasar!
Why fly straight to Fox Herod? Through
Unbounded night—! Bringing only news
Ripe for bloodletting. How black a star
You follow. Herod knows. How bizarre
A kingly claim. Will he oppose? Muse
Like Mary? Ha—! Mothers’ sons lose
Heads to swords & axes. Herod bars
The throne to Jesus. Who kills first?
(Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock)
Boys on a beach,
women with cookpots,
men bombing tender patches of mint.
There is no righteous position.
Only a place where brown feet
touch the earth.
Maybe you call it yours.
Maybe someone else runs it.
What do you prefer?
(murengstockphoto / Shutterstock)
the young rabbi, earnest and intense,
forgot to read your requested scripture passage
then, a shovel had to be asked for,
so each of us could cover you
with three mounds of warm earth
your daughter fussed a little but later went for shiva at the house
the sermon was almost too simple:
the greatest good deed is to bury the dead
(Roxana Gonzalez / Shutterstock)
The first time we visited my sister in her monastery
Was just after one of our sons had survived massive
Surgeries, before and during which all the monks &
Nuns in the monastery, not to mention thousands of
Other generous souls, had prayed constantly for him
And it turned out that they had gone over the million
Prayer mark for our son, which, according to the law
Of the monastery, gave him lifetime privileges. He’s
No dolt, this kid, and he took off running, to hammer
On drums, and eat the cookies on an altar, and pursue
The grim local peacocks, who were deeply aggrieved.
(Ricardo Reitmeyer / Shutterstock)
On the monastery walk,
in the clear daylight after
the night of heavy rain,
I consider the moonflower:
how the big spent blooms look like
three linen tea towels rinsed and wrung out,
three yellowed towels someone meant to
pin to the line to dry.
"Elevation of the Cross," by Peter Paul Rubens
The back-lit morning wave
Clarified emerald suddenly in olive,
Then gone; forever the cry of the Christ's torso
In Rubens' "Elevation of the Cross";
A glass pepper shaker filled to overflowing
By a finger of fallen sun at the close
Of a most mundane afternoon.
Obsessed is perhaps too strong a wod
From white villages Easter bells resound.
Rejoice! Give thanks! I raise my voice
Evil disappears from the world.
And that means somewhere God must be.
(Mila Supinskaya / Shutterstock)
Yes, his blood was on us once,
making us famous blades within the blades
community. I mean, many of us
had taken blood and sweat before
from lions and dogs and even fallen birds
or lovers and killers and the killed
but this was the first time we took both
at the same time, from the same creature.
You humans have that saying,
Blood, sweat, and tears. By this you signify work.
Consider the lilies of the field, he said
of our cousins. They neither work nor spin
but I tell you that not even Solomon
in all his glory was clothed like them.
(Trakan / Shutterstock)
Chiamaka tells of women who plant seeds
of peace in tribal towns, pot-banging with spoons
to call men off their game of raid-and-rape.
A girl named Hope intercepts the hands
of crowing children trading blows
and coaxes them to shake their hands
although her own are quaking. At school
my shy daughter stuffs notes in friends’ lockers,
imploring playground harmony.
“Belief is as hard as a hickory nut
that cracked holds many mansions.”
—Pat Schneider
If my belief were a hickory nut
I’d keep it safe in my pocket
easy to find with fumbling fingers.
When challenged
I’d take it out
say here, see this.
This is what I believe.
(Fotografiecor.nl / Shutterstock)
Night.
The sheep huddled against this big rock.
Jake keeps watch while I wrestle with sleep:
—wool prices down, third year
—owner talks of selling out
—Jake and me—Where do we go?
—Martha’s carrying our fifth child
—rumors that Herod’s at it again,
—this time killing babies.
—Same old story:
the Empire trades in fear.
Where can we run?
Like papa says, “I hate being poor.”
Image by K. J. Snoes
The clouds, pregnant with rain. No light
but an inkling of light. If Advent is a time
of waiting, of joyful anticipation, why are we
so often troubled? Consider Mary, the unknown
future she holds. Or Amy, staying the day
with D—, expecting in January, alone and now
spotting with unexpected blood, baby not yet
ready. What was our life before children? Years
of memories now include the children—as if they
already were born, only we could not see them.
(Jerry Sharp / Shutterstock)
And fallen, fallen light renew!
—William Blake
Thou, this humid cloak at dusk, a blue
Air flattened, smoldering the same
Field for years. Oh, Thou—this hardened name
For You not joyously sprung, not grown to grace