theodicy

Ash Wednesday. The press of gritty ashes on my forehead in the smeared shape of the cross. The words "You are dust and to dust you shall return." I love it. I love the fact that the tradition in which I practice my faith has a day and an entire season for us to consider our mortality, to ponder those things in our lives, our world, and our selves that we ought not be complacent about. Lent, the season which follows Ash Wednesday, is an invitation to wrestle with our faith, to take on the hard struggle of reconciling our world and our God.

the cross was once for all
suffering lifted high
Death's chains broken

this exclamatory mark
held up in and out of history
and still, and still

I see in the eyes of one
laying next to me, suffering,
and mirror back my own

written 12/5/07

we laughed

This poem was easy to write and is nearly impossible to lead into. I think it's because, the poem, the day, none of it was about me. So there is little I can say here. It was beautiful and I am delighted I was there.

We laughed,
in air made, however briefly,
thick and sweet.
Solemn words were spoken;
truth given voice and voices.
My friend with her friends knelt,
change indelible to be solemnized,
and then rose, different
and all the same.
And there,
in celebration of the journey,
in a moment stretched thin,
with the joy of the Spirit,
there we laughed.

written February 2008

tomorrow morning

One of the things I love about reflection is that time becomes more and more of a construct. The actual sequence of events is less important than how or why they are connected. The story that is important today can have happened yesterday or 5 years ago; what matters is that now it is important. This, though, is actually about tomorrow morning.

tomorrow morning

on tomorrow morning
two years ago
I barely had to wake up
the excitement
had kept me from sleep
it was still dark and quiet
as I gathered my things
and left for work
the outfit was new
and I had to learn
how to move in it
the work was new
and strange with
odd things I handled clumsily
on tomorrow morning, two years ago

tomorrow morning
I will rise early once more
the outfit is not new
and I find it comfortable now
a second skin, another identity
the work is familiar
the things common
the patterns beloved
and it will still be dark and quiet
tomorrow morning

and the morning after that,
it will be someone else's turn
for new clothes
and new patterns
and odd things
on the morning after tomorrow
someone else will rise early
while it is still dark and quiet
just as it should be

written 1/30/08

every now and then

So I'm actually not that big for 'causes', but this one I'll make an exception for. This isn't about morality. It isn't about when life begins. Morality and when life begins are important topics that are related to abortion, but Roe v Wade was about privacy and the right to choose. So today, for this post, I did something I never thought I would. See I have several folders for my writing. One is things I'm working on, one is things that are done, one for things I've posted, and one is for the poems I don't plan on sharing. This is from that folder. Every now and then we do things that surprise us.

every now and then
my arms will ache
for babe never cradled
my hands will stray to stomach, not flat
but not to swell with new life
I watch parents cuddle, chase, chastise
and think, "Not Me"

How empty the consolation
of another's child
How different the love for child
carried, caressed, tucked in
How I still love them, even though
I lack the chaotic clutter of parenthood

I can love every child
and see in them my hope for the future
I can go home to a house, empty and still
and not hear the clatter that isn't
I can know that this is right
and still wish for that other life,
every now and then

written 9/13/07

Coming Home

I don't know what to say other than, this is not a bad thing. It was time. It needed to happen.

Coming Home
I was coming home but found
a house not my own
familiar people, places, things
but not where I belong
not my room,
not my kitchen,
not my church,
not my town
home had moved
though all else stayed
I came home and found
just another place
beloved, fondly remembered
but just another place
so I'm still
coming home...

written 1/15/08

Reflecting

The question I most often ask myself is why I started this blog. I know the cause. I just don’t know why that poem needed to be shared. I never saw myself as blogger: too private, too much of a perfectionist, too scared about who might read it. But then I was. And not only was I blogging, I was posting poetry—something I’d almost never shared before, with anyone. Poetry, so often the expression of my deep fears and least hopeful thoughts; out on the web, where I can’t guard them or explain them (without naming myself). The truths with which I most often wrestle on display, veiled in suggestion and metaphor, the only way to speak of them, leaving them open to all interpretations.
So I still wonder why. I think I will for a long time.
Reading through what I’ve posted, I am often amazed at the note of hope, the vision of a better world that continues to be there. It’s just not how I would first characterize my work. I’m also amazed at how much I’ve written about writing/language/communication. I think most people who know me would read what I have posted and see ‘me.’ But there are aspects of my life that aren’t here, yet language is recurring theme.
More than anything, I’ve been shocked at how much I’ve been willing to post. I never really thought I’d be able to post something every week, which I pretty much have. There are one or two poems I still wonder about posting, but overall, I’m really happy with what’s up here. Before this I’d rarely revisited my own work, so I think I mostly recalled the situation and emotions that were behind the poems. The chance to go back and read and rethink the poems as they fit into the larger arc of my life has been a wonderful gift to me.
As for what happens next, I don’t know. Which is pretty much true of everything right now. My life holds some fairly significant changes in the next few months, with graduation leading off the list. I may not know why I started this “side project” but I don’t think I’m going away anytime soon. I have found I like it here.

Truth

Final word count from last week was over 16,000, or about 32 pages. And the good news is that now I'm done.
Some reflections about the blog are still upcoming. I have a draft sketched out, but some serious revising is called for. Also, I'm still considering Christine's Invitation to Poetry this week. We'll see.
So, until then, here's a poem about truth, which is almost always appropriate.

Truth

truth
words that strip bare
my heart, my soul
full of fear and doubt
fear of how my
weakness will be met
doubt that I can ever be
whole or strong

truth
words that rattle in my mind
challenging how I know my world,
my self
seeking out the fire
in my bones
sounding out the skeleton
that compels me to act

truth
words I let fall reluctantly
words of pain and fear
words of joy and hope
words grounded somewhere else
words that must be spoken
passing between
you and I

Written 12/5/07