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Category Archives: Poetry
Leave your robe
I try to gather traveling instructions for the “nice lady” I met at the coffee shop
Find those who sell the oil and stick with them closely until the bridegroom comes
Leave even your best robe behind
Be willing to sell all you have for the treasure in the field
Do all this for the least of these
Because narrow is the path to life (and few there are who will find it)
Call on the name of the Lord to be saved
If you don’t already seek and find him in
Ordinary wonders
Matthew 25:11-14 KJV
[11] Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. [12] But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. [14] For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
Lanterns to release in air
She wore a soft, pink sweater (her sister bought) as though the cool chill of October could touch her anymore and the small group of people gathered at her ad hoc memorial are floating up as the sky darkens
The ashes and the pink sweater and the flash of inexplicable light get me again and again
I have to conjure some litany for this–
Sprite, fly
Luminesce
Alight upon yonder shore
Mermaid
Grief been here before–Target was closed and we drove
In my presbyopia I could not identify the man or his freaked out dog
Who can tell between Sirens and mermaids? They are both capable of artifice and the old-fashioned waterborne howl in
Such dark waters
I swim back to the day
The park
Beauty all around
And fast food wedding feast
Pregnant bride vomiting while
Someone took money from the medic’s bag
How did we drive back across that precipitous bridge?
All I can do is elide the best of you with
What will be
What must and shall
Be.
John 2:5 KJV
[5] His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it .
Shibboleth
When Mary talks now on the Fisher-Price phone of loss, she speaks with a five year old’s falsetto. She is breezy, upbeat even, and we exchange pleasantries through the medium of her daughter’s voice.
Mary, the girls have your laugh, I try to tell her before the line cuts off. Mary, I always wanted to be your real mom, I tell her before the line clicks off. Mary, that last day haunts me. The girls talk as though you still have the giant carnival unicorn, as though you tucked it under your arm and carried it right through
The earth will soon dissolve like snow/The sun forebear to shine/But God who called me here below/will be forever mine
Mary’s New Name
We discuss names.
Her name was Shriver, then Lee, then Baker.
But that is not what her name is anymore, everyone in Heaven has a new last name,
I tell her oldest daughter
What is it? she asks
Beloved, I say
In Heaven everyone’s last name is the same–beloved
Urn for ashes, woman
Apparently you can buy anything on Amazon I think as once again I am in a club I don’t want to belong to
He says what do I do now without her? And I tell him, she is not there. That is not where she is
Echoing the conversations between angels and other Marys
I tell him what I would tell you, or me or anyone–a dog on the street if I had to–
She is eternal and the pain we feel is that verification that we must seek eternity
Seek the one who can
Get us
Past our terrible selves
Mary Joanna Lee
Mary was born on January 1, 1993. She was born to ________ and _______and is survived by _____________________________________. She had kids with__________, who preceded her in death by a handful of months, days, minutes, hours.
Her children are bright little lights, and I want to gather all of them to me, sing with them, raise them onto strong shoulders, proceed with them in a march more wedding than funeral, acknowledge that no life is actually just a handful of years, months, days, hours, minutes, things smaller than that, things that can only be measured by Hands torn for
For her, for me
He precedes us in life, in death, in life again
Walk out of that grave, girl, walk into life
All because of Him
Restraint
What if there was no other choice? Or if the pain were even more protracted than this? This, after all, is mild
The woman in the windowless room notes there are no children in the pictures from the Kabul airport–where are all the children?
And in my attempt to swim off my fear and grief and anger, the lightning storm descends
So close to water, no rain
Songs from the Nerdy Guy
I have friend who is an aficionado of romance. I am too old for that stuff myself, but I tell her that
Jesus is like the nerdy guy who likes you at the lunchroom table you should sit at but what will the cool kids think?
Yep. I am way past cool kids and would argue that if that were a thing, the guy who pays it all for us would have to be the coolest one of us all
But he is ok being
The nerdy guy who
Sends us love songs
All the time
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