By Sit
empty cupped hands
outreached in supplication
for the daily bread
that feeds and sustains you.
Everyday you must
acknowledge your own hunger,
acknowledge your own emptiness,
acknowledge your own longing…
in this weakness
lies your strength.
Freed from all you cannot do
you are released to do what you can
and it begins when you sit
empty cupped hands
outreached in supplication.
Tag: poetry
Wild Lectionary: No Fence Can Hold
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17(22)B
Song of Solomon
By Cheryl Bear
he said, oh lovely one
follow my deep, ancient footprints
you will find me
you will track me until i catch you
i will always stand up for you
you remind me of a spirited young appaloosa
no fence can hold you
you’re blinding, dazzling
like trying to look at a river
flashing with sunlight Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: No Fence Can Hold”
Kings Bay Plowshares- a poem
By Kate Foran
Dissent without civil disobedience is consent. Philip Berrigan
Our friend Mark sits in a jail cell again
and I stand in the lunch hour line
under fluorescent lights
at the post office with my toddler
to buy a stack of pre-stamped postcards,
the only kind acceptable to mail,
written only in blue or black ink,
no stickers, glue, glitter, or pictures,
no letters or packages. Continue reading “Kings Bay Plowshares- a poem”
Veteran for Peace
By Kate Foran
For my father at the start of the second Iraq War, 2003
You enlisted thinking
you were protecting something,
thinking maybe even
you were protecting me
when I was just a “twinkle in your eye”
and the crossfire lit the night
and missed you.
You did not know then
that you’d want to protect me
not from some enemy
but from the question,
Did you kill anyone, Dad? Continue reading “Veteran for Peace”
when I see you saying
By Sarah Holst
when I see you saying
that women marching
is embarrassing
all I want is for you to
listen
to the indigenous
communities crying out
for their missing and
murdered women Continue reading “when I see you saying”
Advent Song
By Kim Redigan
this advent i need a woman’s space.
a dark space.
a silent space.
somehow i’ve got to find my way
back to the womb of my own life.
this advent i need shawls and songs.
the sacramentals of ceramic mugs
and solitary candles
standing like sentries
throwing shadows on the darkened walls
of my winter heart. Continue reading “Advent Song”
Cradles Unsuppressed
By Bill Ramsey
December’s first day dawns,
presenting an unexpected sketch
between my beaten path’s margin
and a recently resurgent river’s bank.
A patch of park is neatly etched
beneath a tree’s elongated umbra.
The tall rusty cypress unknowingly
casts a silhouette of a Christmas tree. Continue reading “Cradles Unsuppressed”
How to Grieve
By Kill the crows
encircling your head
save for the one with the blackened mouth
–he will guide your soul later on.
Pluck the feathers;
swallow half,
quill and all,
and with the rest create a bed. Continue reading “How to Grieve”
We Know We Grow
By Bruised, abused
living in unloving soil
hold tight, take flight
escape from this crippling coil
wild youth, forsooth,
kept finding myself in hostile places
despairing, heart tearing,
will I ever find welcoming spaces Continue reading “We Know We Grow”
Suspended
By Denise Levertov (1923–1997)
I had grasped God’s garment in the void
but my hand slipped
on the rich silk of it.
The ‘everlasting arms’ my sister liked to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight
from falling, even so,
for though I claw at empty air and feel
nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummetted.
Passed on by Journey with Jesus
Radical Discipleship 