Rowena Zuercher: Birth of Yellow
Yellow is the first to bleed into the clusters of green
that canopy the sidewalks, tidy lawns, and porch stoops
and the edges of golden harvest fields are ribboned with
mullein, yarrow, and dandelion that feed shy rabbits and curious deer. Continue reading . . . “Rowena Zuercher: Birth of Yellow”
Daniel Hess: Necessary Pleasure
What were the senses sans smell?
Transient terrors they.
Taste gone, sight short, feeling fell,
hearing hard, for who could weigh Continue reading . . . “Daniel Hess: Necessary Pleasure”
Because our long impoverished race
has nothing more than straw to bring;
because we’ve lost the keys and maps
to doors away from suffering, Continue reading . . . “Advent XXIV”
Silly, silly, grown-up soul,
You take yourself so seriously
Eleven months out of the year.
Now that Christmastime is here, Continue reading . . . “Advent XXIII”
We wake to sleep, we breathe to cry.
Our mothers dreamed and brought us forth to die;
For every cradle opens up a grave,
And every child is one we cannot save. Continue reading . . . “Advent XXII”
He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on—
He stuns you by degrees—
Emily Dickinson
The beautiful St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh, North Carolina has a superb organ.
In this church, the Choir of Clare College once sang three ancient hymn texts to contemporary chorale music (complex, dissonance-rich, odd) composed by Jonathan Harvey. Continue reading . . . “Advent XXI”
One nation under God, our country stands.
The blood of a billion babies stain these hands
that push poor huddles of humanity
from golden shores where tired men breathe free Continue reading . . . “Advent XX”
Mottled heart my own
these many years
like a piebald lamb
a memento of all things Continue reading . . . “Advent XIX”
The daylight that I wished so long
has come at last, after
the upstairs indoor silence
of my Grandma’s house, Continue reading . . . “Advent XVIII”
Now hear me hail the heavens above,
where in fires fermented, a foam of the sky
distills in stars to be stirred by comets.
It fills the cosmos, and floats the planets, Continue reading . . . “Advent XVII”
Life is worth but little,
we live and die, our skin becomes
the crumbs of earth, or dissipate into the sky
forming clouds of rain. Continue reading . . . “Advent XVI”
Oh shame, to raise your face and
say “Yes, Lord” to will so wild, for one
would never dream of such
unwanted fate, be found with child, unwed, Continue reading . . . “Advent XV”
The fire of heaven fell upon
a dew-globe drooped
to a world-wet branch.
Light Continue reading . . . “Advent XIV”
I dreamt of the mountain air
the night that heaven centered
all earth’s anchor in this worried womb.
The wind was new, and ever in its arms Continue reading . . . “Advent XIII”
That Life was manifest, the Life divine
That soars in nature’s heights, and fills her deeps;
The Life that weaves the infinite design
That makes all lives and natures intertwine; Continue reading . . . “Advent XII”
Holy mother
pregnant, silent. Who is it
turns within your womb? Continue reading . . . “Advent XI”
Lord of Heaven,
I thought I was afraid You’d come
cold and commanding,
but now I know I fear yet more You’ll come Continue reading . . . “Advent X”
As ceaseless as the wind whistling through the wire,
day unto day we’ve poured out speech,
wells of words taking the wings of the morning.
We have strained our necks with Continue reading . . . “Advent IX”
Old sky, how high you lie
up there, in your complacency
your faceless dome
your eyeless spread Continue reading . . . “Advent VIII”
I meditated on the wrath of kings,
the right of sovereigns, that they own all power
and seize their glory, that their passions tower
to fall on us in vengeful thunderings. Continue reading . . . “Advent VII”
