Do These Poems Speak to You?
You gave me a book of poems ~
Felicity, what
does it mean?
apt and pleasing
expression in
writing
but why the caution
when headlong might save a life?
“They are her love poems you know.”
No, I didn’t know.
From Mary through you to me?
You speak of longing
then point out the poem on page 15,
the one that contains death?
and one of the poems contained a tree…
I am pleased to tell
you…
Mary loves trees,
as do you and I, too.
But do trees love us
even with our saws and hatchets?
Why do we cut down what we love?
You told me you read this book cover to cover
like a novel, a love story.
“You know how the
climax
comes in the
middle?”
I want to cheat and peek at the middle poems
get right to the
essence of Mary, of love, of you.
I want quick answers
to those questions
that have no ready
answers…
Do these poems speak to you
or speak of you between the lines
like the space
between
rings in a tree
stump
like the years between
your beginning and
end?
These poems are short,
potentially a quick read,
but I will take my time.
Upon your mother’s death
I search for a poem about fireflies
to send you maybe
Mary Oliver wrote something
about fireflies
so I don’t
have to it’s too hard
to write you too
hard to open
my heart
your grief
I don’t know
so I look
for a poem about fireflies
and find golden head Gannets,
Whelks, Ghosts
but can you
catch them in a Mason jar
at dusk or in your fist
at nine years old
I don’t know
I didn’t know
you then or even now
but I know fireflies
and that quick swipe
on a muggy night
to catch
the light cupped
between my palms I can
crouch low on the freshly mown
lawn and peer
into the tiny cottage of darkness
I know
so I look again
for a poem about fireflies
and find Starfish,
Rain in Ohio, Rage
and When Death Comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
but it is summer in Michigan
and a firefly
that lights on your wrist
as you cry it’s too hard
to be grown up these days
to be big all the time stand tall
and write you I don’t know
what to say
and it’s too hard
to write
about fireflies
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And most recently:
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And most recently:
A New
Psalm
for the 20th Anniversary of
Bridgeport UCC 1998-2018
Do you think I know what I’m
doing?
That for one breath or
half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what
it’s writing
Or the ball can guess where
it’s going next.
~ Jelahuddin Rumi[1]
They
asked her to do church differently.
So,
the Word was Revised
and
the Messenger was Mary,
“One
day you finally knew
What
you had to do and began…” [2]
Do you
think I know what I’m doing?
Yes,
they agreed:
the curious
the wounded
the
sinners
the seekers
the fallible
and the discontent
all God's
children, wonderfully made:
the chosen ones
the delivered
the pacifists and warriors
the black, the brown
the young, the old
the men, the women
and all those in between.
They
came together under one roof.
First to one house
then to one school
to one room
and finally to an empty white church
that they painted a hopeful
yellow.
And
they filled the pews until the “they” became a “we”
and
the Word was Rumi:
We
are “folded into union
as
the split-second when the bat meets the ball
and
there is one cry between us.”[3]
Do you
think I know what I’m doing?
As
much as the ball can guess where it’s going.
She said,
“Believe the good news
of the gospel.
And as
fallible as we are, we are no mistake.”
So we began to make a bridge and a port
for the lonely
the questioning
the marginalized
the other.
Again,
the Word was Rumi:
“If
you’ve not been fed, be bread.”[4]
So we
made bread
and soup
protest signs
and gardens
we made silk banners dyed with daffodils
and we made music, so much music.
“We are
clay,” we sang
until
the “we” became I.
And
as fallible as I am
I am
no mistake?
And I
am loved unconditionally?
And I
am welcome at your table?
And I
matter?
I
sang “Testify to Love” until “I” became “you”
and
you sang “…like eagle that Sunday morning…
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you...”[5]
Do you think I know what I’m doing?
She said, “Be responsible, but
carry no guilt.
Be mindful, but carry no shame.”
And again the Word was Mary:
“You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred
miles through the desert repenting.”[6]
And again the Word
was Rumi:
“Out beyond the
ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there”[7]
as fallible as you
are
because you are no
mistake
and you are loved
unconditionally by God
Beloved
Creator
One.
Time passed.
And the Word was Mark,
“…there are no wrong turns,
The
“you” became “they”
and
they found courage for renewal.
He
said, “Bridgeport? Yes!”
and
the “they” became “we” again.
Time
passed
then she
said, “We are the church.”
We are the right and the wrong
We are the right and the wrong
the pain and the balm
the shouts and the song.
We are
the death and the resurrection
the thorn and the bloom
the
soil and the seed that will sustain us.
We are
peace where there is war
and we are a sanctuary where there
is none.
We are
the church
and “We
are God’s children, wonderfully made.
As
fallible as we are,
we are no mistake.
Be responsible, but carry no guilt.
Be mindful, but carry
no shame.
Believe the good news
of the gospel —
you
are loved unconditionally by God.
May the peace of
Christ be with you.”[9]
~Wendy Thompson, 6/10/2018
