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Tag Archives: poem
Haiku, Japanese Garden
The shrine within me. Dew on the blades of grass shines on my dream lake. A feather drifts by, aimless wanderer stop here. Oh, it is a moth! The koi opens his mouth, all the colors of his … Continue reading
Famine
Even desperate for water in the desert the dead must be washed, every part, to stand before God clean. Hands bound, feet bound, the child lies on the ground, the skull too big for stick-bones. Quiet the child, … Continue reading
New life in dying Aleppo
The newborn, screaming, red-faced, held by his feet, upside-down, slapped, pinched into that first cry, his first breath angry, the mother unconscious, gutted on the table, her leg broken, her arm broken, hauled in 9-months pregnant, shrapnel in her belly, the … Continue reading
Shrine for Don
Crowned “king of the gods” in high school, caped with scepter in hand, a gentle smile, the basketball star in our tiny world, at 21, a lieutenant in Vietnam. Bombs fell on the green villages perimeters strafed and over-run maimed … Continue reading
Posted in Poems & Photographs
Tagged Grief, In Memoriam, Memorial Day, poem, VietNam War, VietNam War Memorial, War
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Giant Pacific Octopus
If this octopus escapes an open tank, look carefully around, then worry. It can scuttle over land. Longer than a car, it squeezes through an orange-size hole. The beak? In its crotch or armpit, take your pick. Ignore the … Continue reading
A Church Burns
We gather before the burned-out building our aged container of our times together in prayer, sermon, song both in joy and in sorrow. We have gathered here for years, over generations, taught our children, shared hot-cross buns, coffee, tea, … Continue reading
Sr. Antoinette at the Monastery
Now is her quiet season all the contemplation a meditation within all turned inward, a divina lectio. She said, everything we do must be spiritual, bloom with intention, a deepening of the spirit, the singing of the psalms, the … Continue reading
Posted in Poems & Photographs
Tagged Benedictine, contemplation, eternity, love, monastery, nuns, poem, spirituality
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At the Nursing Home
As I walk in, a woman straightens the chair on the patio outside her room. Her Easter lily, parched, sits untended, one bloom left. As I pass she says, I’m nuts, and blows me kisses, her fingers touching her lips … Continue reading
Posted in Poems & Photographs
Tagged demenia, elderly, Grief, love, nursing homes, poem
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For Encouragement
I send you my daughter who could not be her body magical as fog rising in wisps among the grasses playing dress-up laughing wrapping herself in parachute silk dancing free in the hills of cedar FEWalls
The Folly
If I were young in Wales, and studying Chaucer in Swansea with students from Llanelli or Carmarthen or Merthyr Tydfil, I would hear the cleaning woman who chatted as she worked near my room that overlooked the gardens not the … Continue reading
Posted in Poems & Photographs
Tagged advice, cleaning woman, folly, gardens, poem, students, Swansea
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