Lord, I have lived
like a house that has forgotten
its windows, its door painted
black, closed. Only now
am I brave enough to claim
this feral loneliness.
I look for you in the wind-
tousled, red-tipped grasses, in the violet
concourse of the sky streaming
new stars I will never see,
but I am skin and bones and desiring
and the shapes of darkness are endlessly creative.
Still, I burn with love for this world.
Cast me into your coldest waters.
Let snow fall on my lips.
The miniseries is full of big ideas about freedom and self-determination.
reflected in the eye of an angel
Are they not the most angelic of beasts? Bright
white & mighty of limb though hardly suited for flight
One thousand pounds of hypercarnivorous bear
O fragile child what do you think of the cub
seeing for the first time their diminishing arctic icescape
stumbling after her mother from their winter lair?
After Maurice Duruflé’s Messe ‘Cum jubilo’
There’s a moment in the Gloria
when the Father simply leans down,
down to the shepherds, fruit pickers, gleaners,
down to the pregnant, the children, the sick, the injured, the lame,
down to believers, agnostics, artists, scientists, poets—all
abiding in the field in pens like a huge factory-farm flock
with the son now in its center
where the father leans down,
A to B,
and like the worst pain
the mighty organ halts all motion.
those poor poor
shepherds on
My Son’s
frightfully frigid
natal night
brought to Him
a gift,
their single
solitary best
begotten present
a newborn lamb, a
living sacrifice
holy, acceptable
while all I
could think of
before offering
my thanks
to their giving
was, oh, that
poor poor
ewe
If your secret Santa were a Century editor, here’s what you might be getting.
A cellphone’s flashlight beam selects your face
watching from a high branch skeptically—
We’ve found you now, ghost owl, lodged cryptically
above us, grim observer. Fixed in place,
With a prayer, I lower my face in a cloud of ginger tea,
inhaling the promise of its sinus-clearing, herbal fire.
I’m learning the names of trees in this quiet township
past those days of girlhood greenery drifting sideways,
maple, elm, oak, cottonwood, then the nameless ones
autumnal, where the weight of all things sway together
to savor a moment of peace. In a crisis, let us be still
in the presence of sweet revelation, of the blessed
In her speech accepting the nomination for vice president, Kamala Harris honored past generations of civil rights activists and a new generation standing on their shoulders. Artist Pamela Chatterton-Purdy has long painted works focusing on those women and men on whose shoulders so many now stand, whose stories and struggle inspired new generations.
Sean Gandert’s novel asks us to decide if a man is a saint or a sham.