The Ordinary Time
By Poetry Issue 68
Goldfish in the horse trough nibble at morning’s surface. They are not busy; they are breathing. The sparrow threading straw under the eaves lifts whips of time to his mate’s music. This is the opposite of business. Birds, even singing, can be the architects of our silence. Would you be healed by being? Then be…
Read MoreThoughts Without Order Concerning the Love of God
By Poetry Issue 68
The kingdom of my kitchen invites one snail to measure a carrot peel with the full length of her body. Of Christ and necessity this snail says nothing. The celery shines. By morning, my countertops, my floor will glisten with the star road of her meanderings. It measures a universe of dark and light in…
Read MoreAnd If Jesus Asked You to Breakfast?
By Poetry Issue 79
Today I saw a man who looked away when he asked the clerk where he might find pepper- corn sauce in a packet. He held a muscled bit of stringy steak. Both man and meat had the gray look of shades swept from a cave. Sent to aisle three, the man wandered, head down, on…
Read MoreThis is Not About Looking Like a Success
By Poetry Issue 79
I’m reading The Little Flower on the train out of London: a book that says we can only do small things with great attention. Next to me, a suited, stiletto-heeled commuter hides her title. But when she leaves for coffee, I look. Chapter one: Focus on your core genius now! Reject rejection! Sort out incompleteness—Now!…
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