One of the books of poetry I've been consuming slowly over the last few weeks is Second Sky, the latest volume from Tania Runyan. If the idea of "Christian poetry" makes you wary, read Runyan. Or if you're a fan of poets like Luci Shaw, read Runyan. Or if you're an average suburban woman wondering how the holy is at work in the quotidian details of life, read Runyan.
In this book, each of the poems connects to the life and writings of the apostle Paul, but in unexpected ways, with strong images and honest emotions. The poem I've chosen to share today leaves me imagining what a world made whole will be. It reminds me of the brokenness that somehow, incomprehensibly, God allows to exist; and it convicts me of the brokenness within my own desire to be a savior.
God's Folly 1 Corinthians 1:25
A dozen children pose on a hill of garbage in Indonesia,
gap-toothed little girls in sundresses linking arms in the front,
boys with hair in their eyes waving peace fingers in the back.
It's hard to accept their smiling in the sludge midway
through a twelve-hour shift picking for cans and cardboard.
We want the smudged faces, the flies swarming around crying mouths.
We want to save them from the feces and gristle steaming
in the sun, the syringes and carcasses under their bare feet.
Oh, to swoop them from the bulldozers and wrap
their rat bites and rashes, to give them bowls of spaghetti
and tuck them in lavender sheets! But for now, this boy will have
none of it. A few pieces of scrap metal in his burlap sack,
he takes a moment to celebrate, kicking a rotten grapefruit
through two table legs. Goooal! His brother tags him
with blackened fingers, and they run off, their tattered shirts
flying like kite tails. Behind a truck, a little girl bounces as she pokes
through a fresh heap with a stick. She unearthed the arm of a doll
this morning -- the best find in four years of scavenging.
She keeps it in her pocket and all afternoon strokes its melted
plastic fingers. As the sun goes down, she takes it out
and rests it in the crook of her arm, imagines it whole.
A dozen children pose on a hill of garbage in Indonesia,
gap-toothed little girls in sundresses linking arms in the front,
boys with hair in their eyes waving peace fingers in the back.
It's hard to accept their smiling in the sludge midway
through a twelve-hour shift picking for cans and cardboard.
We want the smudged faces, the flies swarming around crying mouths.
We want to save them from the feces and gristle steaming
in the sun, the syringes and carcasses under their bare feet.
Oh, to swoop them from the bulldozers and wrap
their rat bites and rashes, to give them bowls of spaghetti
and tuck them in lavender sheets! But for now, this boy will have
none of it. A few pieces of scrap metal in his burlap sack,
he takes a moment to celebrate, kicking a rotten grapefruit
through two table legs. Goooal! His brother tags him
with blackened fingers, and they run off, their tattered shirts
flying like kite tails. Behind a truck, a little girl bounces as she pokes
through a fresh heap with a stick. She unearthed the arm of a doll
this morning -- the best find in four years of scavenging.
She keeps it in her pocket and all afternoon strokes its melted
plastic fingers. As the sun goes down, she takes it out
and rests it in the crook of her arm, imagines it whole.
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1 comment:
Poetry for Lent. What a beautiful idea. An outstanding poem. I'm certain God whispers his secrets to Tania, and she makes art. Thank you for this!
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