poetry

nursing the world

St. Francis Inn mural by Brian Ames, photographed by Jim McIntosh.

nursing the world

Written in response to “Saint Francis and the Sow” by Galway Kinnell, which you can read here or listen to Galway read here. Inspired by a prompt from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Loving the Self: A Poetry Playshop.

Galway Kinnell tells me
how to press a palm
to a flower’s brow
until its cellulose walls
feel, through the warmth of that kind, gentle hand,
the radiant energy of that soft, undemanding touch,
the truth of the flower’s self-realized loveliness.

Oh, Galway, and Saint Francis,
and yes, the flower’s green leaf,
and the sow’s muddy hoof,
press yourself to my temple
until this blessing sings through my limp limbs
so I might do the same.

All anyone wants
is to be enough.
To have warranted the atoms they’re made of.
To have patiently pressed their palm
to another needy being’s brow
and then watched them shine with joy.

poetry

doubt

doubt

typing up the manuscript
one moment it’s
wow!

next minute I hear internal paper crumpling
along with my confidence

is it any good?
does it have any teeth
any heart
any tears?
(I’m decidedly uninterested in brains)

sometimes I feel like
I’m removing my insides
polishing them up
artfully plating them for consumption
then nervously waiting for them
to be sent back to the kitchen

other times I feel
I’m just spinning candy floss
making a big sweet pastel globe
of fluffy nothingness
good on the tongue
but nothing to bite into
nothing to stick to your bones
and keep you going
when you’re out chopping wood

I don’t know
what the world wants
from what I can do

all I can do is trust
keep learning and growing wiser
keep giving what I manage to make
and take pleasure watching
my work leave my hands
not worrying so much
about where it comes to rest