More than Cleromancy

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Elea Lee

2 Samuel 5:24 KJV

[24] And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines.

I will leave you to imagine a woman who slakes her insomnia with Sarah arranging flowers around her beloved Daisy, each a sign of constancy, piety, love

While God speaks

Says such specific things

Who knew each tree before it

Was anything but

An inkling in the palm of his hand

Luis, I…

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Elea Lee

Luis, I once lived in a country where the money I earned was worthless outside the country but could buy beautiful, irreplaceable things inside the country. I had a gigantic blue suitcase, a backpack. I took treasure home, but not enough. I should have emptied my bags of all the replaceable things and brought home treasure.

You are home treasure

You are Home, Treasure.

The Dish Washer

Posted on October 23, 2019 by Elea Lee

He was a tall boy with a faint southern accent and I shrugged him off as a summer thing because he did not feel like home, how many of them did? Things you don’t know until youth is gone

I am home now

And the dish washer

The Last Normal Day

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Elea Lee

We are eternal, they are eternal, I tell her, but I know that there is something else, the purest kind of paradox, or is it tautology? Etiology? The woman in the park, on the streets, flagging down motorists, in the parking lots of churches, where people congregate like flocks of birds, always, always asking this uncomfortable question–

When was your last normal day? When was your last normal day?

When? When the truth

Stalks in

Wide awake

Alpha Centauri

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Elea Lee

An old lady sits in the light-filled atrium, says there is a special place in Hell…a special place in Hell, there is a special place in Hell..there are bombs going off somewhere and she refuses to watch, she says she will not watch while behind her emphatic form, the nearly full moon slips its moorings and floats across the pierced blue sky.

Lorentz Transformation

Posted on September 26, 2019 by Elea Lee

She dots the house with sticky notes scrawled with litany reminders–cupped in His hands, asleep in the boat, keep your eyes on Jesus, you are my “Wonderwall,”

As the preacher men go silent, as they are oft to do, in their complacency and fear

As though any of us can escape the

Light-blast of the Divine.

Coffee with Tara

Posted on September 20, 2019 by Elea Lee

I can’t have coffee with Tara, the stuff she drinks is way too strong for me now, but I wait for her anyway, keep glancing out smudgy windows at the passing clouds, shafts of light, signifying every

valley filled, hill made low, road made straight, and all these rough, rough ways, smoothed at last.

Luke 3:5

Tara B.

Rocks Cry Out

Posted on September 15, 2019 by Elea Lee

Luke 19:40 NIV

[40] “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

I supplicate

Raise hands heavenward-

(Where Thou art)-

Give me stones and pebbles, hands-full-anything-anything

I can lift up to you,

Tell you, breathe on us, breathe us all into

Sharp shafts of light

Because she does

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Elea Lee

The bed roll is rectangular, perfect, filled with a mixture of water fowl feathers and synthetic fill. When I remove the soft duvet to wash it, I find each corner has an anchoring point where the duvet has been tied to the downy quilt. A human had to tie each, the reverse operation of what I do, untying each.

In China a woman like me sews and ties

Sews and ties comfort

And I feel fragile

Because she does.

Small Boats

Posted on September 6, 2019 by Elea Lee

I want to tell them you will miss the leaves curled into small boats, miss the trees, the river, the way water carries our voices

Our eternal voices

Beyond

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: Poetry