By Talitha Fraser
you give
and you give
the emptying
is what fills you
you give
and you give
stretched and
outstretched and
enfolded
you give
and you give
and there is more
there is always more
Tag: poetry
St. Thomas Didymus
By Denise Levertov
In the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,
and thought him my brother. Continue reading “St. Thomas Didymus”
Challah’s Hands
By Bill Ramsey
Our hands eagerly drape
a shear cotton cloth,
a delicate canopy
over an unassisted rise,
warm tent of challah.
Underneath, tepid water
raw sugar and new yeast
compose an unheralded
first hint of challah. Continue reading “Challah’s Hands”
Other lives
By Talitha Fraser
A pigeon and I shared morning tea,
Coconut rough and brine of the sea
Our feet rest on yellowed moss over stony cement
I think he talked, or perhaps I dreamt
“see these clouds, this sky, the fountain,
The roads, the houses and there a mountain
…these are connected but you cannot see
These must co-exist in harmony
You affect I and I affect you
In the ways that we go and the things that we do
Some have plenty and some not a lot,
It seems that we ought to share what we’ve got
It is as clear as the water, firm as the ground
Certain as sunrise, at least, I have found.””But pigeon,” I ask, “”What can we do?”
“Next time,” he answered, “You might buy two.”
Blessing of Hope
—Jan Richardson, from The Cure for Sorrow
So may we know
the hope
that is not just
for someday
but for this day—
here, now,
in this moment
that opens to us:
hope not made
of wishes
but of substance,
hope made of sinew
and muscle
and bone, Continue reading “Blessing of Hope”
The Rim
—Rose Marie Berger
The meaning is in the waiting. —R.S. Thomas
Like a silver goblet, Advent
slips round again passing through heat
and the End of Days a darkness
too searing for the lip. Smiths
engrave the old year beneath
the rim. Tradition keeps memory
gradual. The pedestal base round
as the new year full of what lies
ahead. Is it hope? Or simply
the exodus of this generation
into the flames of the one coming.
A Letter to Judge Wynn: Meditations on Breaking the Law
By Rose Marie Berger
If we could split ourselves
like a crack in the cement
(children’s names written when wet
a heart a flower a handprint)
like that mystical bread
(calloused hands holding up hunger
and night sweats and the one we once loved)
then we would say in our first voice: Law
and Order out of Chaos
we would listen and obey
teach our children hands up, look both ways
(pack them bubble-wrap safe
for shipping from this world to the next) Continue reading “A Letter to Judge Wynn: Meditations on Breaking the Law”
Dad and Dan
By Bill Ramsey. May 1, 2016.
Dad and Dan, an unlikely pair
to walk across heaven’s threshold
a week apart, a world apart.
Way back when Dan’s burning action
kindled my conflicted conscience,
radically realigning my course,
Dad foresaw impending danger,
a tableau of “G-men” ascending
his steep suburban driveway
in pursuit of his willful son. Continue reading “Dad and Dan”
The Color of Orange
By Dee Dee Risher
My son, sixteen, knows her son, eighteen.
My (white) son, sixteen,
knows her (black) son, eighteen.
So we all know that what we are
reading in the paper–
the statement by the school district–
is a lie. I am a poet, so I want to write
something true
even though it is not official and will not be believed.
(I am white, and I finished college on a full scholarship from a top university,
so I have been conditioned to expect that what I say
will be listened to.
This is the background of this poem.
This is the foreground of this poem.
This is why the school district spokesman will be believed
and her son (eighteen, black, five feet four, eleventh grade) will not be believed
even though his body carries the evidence.) Continue reading “The Color of Orange”
Radical Discipleship 