Illumination {poetry for lent}

Malinda is a Creative Writing student at Taylor.  What I love about this brief poem is its simplicity, its powerful image, and the way it makes me wonder.  What does it mean to really see someone?  And how do we help each other see more clearly?



Illumination
by Malinda Patterson

It was dark.
But then she struck a match.
And while it burned,
there was just enough light
to see the other’s face.

an explanation of {poetry for lent} 

 

an invitation to join (this friday!)

Marked by Ashes {poetry for lent}

Walter Bruggeman is not as known for his poetry as for his rich theological scholarship and pastoral service in the kingdom of God.   But I love this poem, its awareness that "all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes," and that we can only face our ashenness with confidence because our "every Wednesday of ashes" anticipates Christ's Easter victory "over that dry, flaky taste of death."  

On this Wednesday, I'm feeling pulled in half and not enough in any direction.  

But Easter comes.


Marked by Ashes
by Walter Brueggemann

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon. 

from Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008)

an explanation of {poetry for lent}

an invitation to join (this friday!)

Upon the Death of Someone I Do Not Know {poetry for lent}

I would flunk Kinsley Koons, if I could, if I were her professor, so that she would be unable to move to Chicago. So that she and her deep thoughts could stay and keep me company on the prairie. I'm thankful she's shared this poem with us.

Is it possible that every death beats in our bones? And can we feel every birth in our own pumping blood, too?

Upon the Death of Someone I Do Not Know

By Kinsley Koons

To be great, you said, is

a torturous kind of beauty—

A moment of deep sorrow,

married to regret.

I think that if a tree falls

when no one is around

it has to make a noise.

It is a silent kind of sound,

one that shakes the ground.

(I hear it in the falling

of your feet

heavy in rhythm. 

I hear it in the voices

of others who barely

remember your name.)

The sound, it fills my bones

giving each its own little heartbeat.

With each stinging thump

I feel your absence.

The Midwestern skyline is emptier

than I can remember.

To live

is a torturous

kind of beauty.

Can you hear it?

an explanation of {poetry for lent}

an invitation to join (this friday!)

Spring in the Rockies {poetry for lent}

Here's a poem my aunt emailed me to share here.  It's appropriate for this season, and lovely to remember the way life and death intermingle.

 Spring in the Rockies

Is spring a joke?

 I ask this with each passing day,

One bringing snow and wind,

The next one sunny skies, and Robins in our yard.

Yesterday, driving home from the mountains,

Clumps of new snow graced the rocky crevices,

That yesterday were bare and sun drenched.

And, tomorrow will be both again.

Clouds, the most beautiful images

Of snow and rain, oozing out

From containers which can not hold

Another drop for another moment.

One curve, and the sun in all it’s splendor

Shone more brightly than the lights

of the city that it graces ever will.

And the temperature in the air around us,

Rose 20 degrees in the next ten minutes.

Today, I miss the mountain snow, and fog

The patterns snow makes on the highway,

as it blows on the pavement in front of me.

And the flakes, first scattered,

Then steady as the sunshine, only colder.

“For everything there is a season”, and

In the Colorado High Country, all seasons

Greet us in the cycle of one day.

That is the Rocky Mountain Spring.

We know that summer will come,

Blooming with life, and mud, and sun,

And parched earth, begging again for winter snow!

We cannot spate life and death here.

Each one leading the way to the other.

One sacrifice bringing new life,

And seeming death bursting forth in Life adbundant!

                                                Julie Dufford 2014

Archeology of Hope {poetry for lent}

Archeology of Hope

Last night it struck me

after the first day warm enough for bare feet

and the swingset skeleton erected in the yard

after the snow melt revealing the remains of

our ancient civilization:

plastic gardening tools

a pink baseball bat

a carrot (this is the carrot

that was his nose)

stones tumbled

where once they marched straight

after the hens rejoiced

pecking through the green and muck

after the ice skating rink became a river

and the newly planted pines

bowed to the wind

after this archeology of hope

reminded me that another world existed

it struck me

that we’d have to die again

next year.

Prayer (I) {poetry for lent}

In this poem, Herbert experiments with metaphors for prayer, concluding simply that prayer is "something understood".  

What strikes me about this poem is how positive all these metaphors are. I think the only metaphor for prayer I've used in my writing is "arrows hitting a blue bowl of sky" -- 

But what I love about the optimism of these metaphors is the reminder that prayer, rather than being a chore to check off a list, can be gladness.

Prayer (I)

by George Herbert

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,

         God's breath in man returning to his birth,

         The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,

         Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

         The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

         Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

         Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

         Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

         The land of spices; something understood.


an explanation of {poetry for lent} 

Signs {poetry for lent}

My dear friend Beth, who moved to Upland the year after we did, wrote this poem about the move.  I love it, and identify with it, so much.

The only way to wake up on a new shore, Beth writes, is to spend three days in the belly of the whale. 

Is that what Lent is about?


Signs

by Bethany Bowman

They know they’ve arrived when they see trees.                
Trees mean water, timber, game. They unload the wagon,
eat flapjacks. Pa plays fiddle, Phoebes sing.
Much later, our family drives five-hundred miles
from upstate New York to northern Indiana.
Vineyards line the Great Lakes; we don’t stop.
Before long, it’s soybeans and corn and no hills.
Somewhere near Columbus, the kids sample conies
with Cincinnati chili, and I wonder if I wrinkled my nose
the same way when my husband took the job.
Una counts buzzards while our youngest finally naps.
We listen to C. S. Lewis on audio book: The Problem of Pain.
Una’s eyes close, and we discuss the new house, 
afraid the wallpaper might be ancient,
that the roof, which has four layers of shingles,
might not hold off tornado season rain.
We wonder if we’ve made the right decision,
uprooting the kids from their grandparents, the Valley,
to follow a dream that rubs legs and wings together
like locusts in the Midwest, and if there will be a sign
we’ve made the right choice, and if we’ll recognize it
if it hums and snaps at dusk, or flies with transparent wings.
Pa could read the signs, but still, some nights, trudged home
with a rifle full of shells, empty pockets, no meat.
We wonder if it’s right to look for signs,
knowing there’s just one sign, The Sign of Jonas,
and the only way to wake up on a new shore
is to spend three days in the belly of a whale.
But there are signs: A doorbell that chimes Auld Lang Syne,
garden rife with onions, stray cat asleep on the porch.
Inside, the walls are damask, ceilings high,
and the staircase may lead to a magic wardrobe.
Best of all, there’s room for the piano,
which I will teach our children to play
just as my mother taught me, and I will read to them
the books of my childhood, and pray,
in the spirit of Ma, who, miles from anywhere,
washed muslin and calico as though it mattered.

Originally published in Ascent 

an explanation of {poetry for lent} 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front {poetry for lent}

I was talking with one of my best friends this morning.  She's facing a move and a tough career decision, and she wants to make the right choice.  I reminded her that sometimes making the wrong choice is ok - Be like the fox, who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.

Maybe you've read this a hundred times already. It's worth reading again.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
 

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage