Poetry

Lacunae

Aug 10, 2004 by Nola Garrett

I praise the button hole’s accomplishment,

praise trash cans so rusted and broken,
they puzzle the garbage man,

praise the water-well dowser’s uncanny walk
as he extends an iron rod or a beach branch:
which ever will most surely remember
the dry land’s hallowed grief.

I praise the woman who thought to embroider
upon an altar cloth both cutwork angels
and Containing within itself all sweetness.

I praise the Calusa Indians of Charlotte Harbor
of whom it has been said: If their hands and noses
were cut off, they took no account of it.

Who can say if the pleasure of acceptance
is better than the power of denial?

O, reader, in the midst of this, our conversation
here in our paper garden, I praise our silences.

El plato especial

Jul 27, 2004 by Lisa Marie Sandoval

Chisme, oh that succulent dish sold
and served with a side of snide
words wrapped in caring concern
for your health. People urge you to unpackage
your heart. They slop it, boiled or roasted,
on a plate of I-told-you-so’s, sumptuous
and steaming. They plunge their teeth into chile
picante comments, those juicy and spicy words.
They wound and scrape, sticking to forks,
pitching tongues. People munch their meal,
this food. You, too, relish it. Each morsel
you savor. Until the flavor floats and reaches
your stomach. You chew and wonder
why the special of the day tastes so familiar.

The doubter

Jul 27, 2004 by Jeanne Murray Walker

Not that you couldn’t reach Him if you tried
(maybe you couldn’t) but that you no longer try.
Your last real prayer? In a plane, beseeching
Him, don’t let me die. How actual He seems at
30 thousand feet, how passionately you love Him
in your hope for solid ground. Not unlike that day
you first felt Him ripping through your heart,
you driving fast, believing you’d foiled gravity,
dendrites of rain flowing up your windshield,
the sting of joy like spearmint in your mouth,
and now how improbable He seems. That Whoever
made the stars would even notice. You! A word
in His mouth? And yet you miss Him. If it
could be true! You think of trying to reach Him,
tell Him you’ve reconsidered.

When we first told you

Jul 27, 2004 by Paul Willis

Gail, remember the boy that broke
his neck on the campus lawn—
just kidding around, turning flips
with his college buddies?
He got his diploma this afternoon
and a standing ovation that had to stop.

When we first told you about this boy,
your face turned lost, you thought
of your own at twenty-one,
somersaulted into a field by a Mack truck.

That was a moment I could love you,
though sons-in-law are poor in love.
That was a moment love lay
languishing before you, bleeding
from a crown of thorns
and once more giving up your ghost.

From Lindisfarne

Jul 27, 2004 by Ann Horn

The route wends rock
to slippery rock, round
seaweed clumps bared

by ebbing tide, from
ruined priory to sunlit
isle lush with flowers

and blowing grass—
hermitage for pilgrims
hastening on. At the

cathedral light filters
into Saint Cuthbert’s
shrine, where sculpted

stone lauds the Christ,
who twines all storied

with his.