Poetry Page

By cutting to the truth of our experience, poetry shakes us and awakens us. Through it we open our eyes to what Robert Frost called “the pleasure of taking pains.” And what is gratitude besides this playful engagement with life as it unfolds in all its challenges and delights?

Watching the Birdwatcher
by Richard Schiffman
This study in perspective captures the space between moments by the reverse feat of not trying to grasp it.  Then it chides its own inherent contradiction!  What cannot be seen -- the bird -- comes through as the strongest presence in the poem. (PCC)

The Call
by George Herbert
This prayer-in-poetry, set to music by Vaughn Williams, calls to us all that is lasting, healing, and worthwhile.  Isn't a love that "none can part" what we long for most?  How rare to be given the words to articulate it and the strength to come into the Presence that makes it possible. (PCC)
Remembering the poem's 1633 publication, please alter the pronoun if needed so that it follows your own heart's language.

Tea
by Amy Uyematsu
What appears as simple grace is exactly that which demands the greatest labor of love, as Amy Uyematsu's poem – and the life of peacemaker Thich Nhat Hanh, whom it honors – shows.
(PCC)

Desire Change (Sonnets to Orpheus Part II, #12, stanza 1)
by Rainer Maria Rilke, transl. by Br. David Steindl-Rast
Let change be your guiding star.  We ought to love the turning point.  Whenever you want to complain, remind yourself, “I’m at a turning point.  What is it turning to now?”  And be enthusiastic for it. (Br. David)
See also: "Letting change guide you" (video) and
Die Sonette an Orpheus (all of part II, #12, in German).

Infinity and God
by Richard Jones
A five year old's grateful wonder can carry us all the way up to infinity and back down to the simplest feather, drawing our attention to the divine presence that permeates our world. (PCC)

Jitterbug
by Joyce Holmes McAllister
Although we may think of them as impediments, life's contradictions are often exactly what save us, allowing us to fly beyond limitations.  In this poem, Joyce Holmes McAllister plays contrasts off each other:  brittleness and speed, refusal and abandon, limping and flight. Through it all, she both defies the body's slowing process and affirms the prowess of age.  (PCC)

The Priest Writes His Desire
by Jessie Dolch
"I would like it noted," writes J. Dolch in a message to Br. David, "that the poem is really Fr. Hand's, as so much of it came from and was inspired by a letter he shared with his friends and which Ruben Habito posted at the Maria Kannon Zen Center. I merely imagined the scene of its writing." That is one powerful "merely," in our opinion.

The Spoon
by Richard Jones
This poem draws you into the realm of imagining all you can do with the simplest of objects, a spoon:  everything from taking your medicine to digging a tunnel to freedom.  Could it be that creative imagination plays a substantial role in being grateful?  (PCC)

Luminous Jealousy
by Patricia Campbell Carlson
What on earth (so to speak) is the moon up to on the day after an eclipse, and why is she taking all the credit?  This poem sheds a little light on jealousy, which is perhaps sometimes warranted.  (PCC)

Presence
by Katherine Lansing Davis
"When there are no words, how can there be a poem?" wrote Katherine Davis to our longtime friend Terry Pearce after the unexpected death of his vibrant and beautiful daughter Jodi Wilson Ehrlicher at age 31.  Married to Jason Ehrlicher and mother of two young children, Jodi will be remembered by everyone for her smile, sense of humor, and zest for life.  We are grateful to Katherine for finding words when we all know none can suffice.  We have only our hearts, captured in poetry, to offer. (PCC)

Lösch mir die Augen aus
by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Br. David Steindl-Rast
Every now and then we let ourselves imagine the worst that could happen to us: How could we survive?  This testimony of dedication and trust attests to an enduring relationship that goes beyond our vision, our hearing, our speech, our mobility, and even our ability to think...a relationship which cannot be extinguished. In the sureness of this relationship -- and our ability to surrender to it -- lies consolation beyond measure. 
(PCC)
Read Rilke's original in German.

A Stitch in Time
by Marian SkottMyhre
Here Marian SkottMyhre touches upon the life of a woman she came to hear about decades ago at a major museum exhibit, the Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts. The carefully stitched details of the poem culminate in the last line, which tells us about the quilter’s age and even socioeconomic status, as well as conveying the increasing difficulty of her work due to deteriorating eyesight.  More common in older black people than in older people of the dominant American culture, cataracts were frequently left untreated in the rural South. Sometimes, in advanced stages, the affected eyes appear 'blue' and are for all practical purposes completely blind.  Sometimes only one eye is affected...or affected to that degree. (MS/PCC)

Weeding
by Peggy Billings
Why is it my shoulders straining at burdock?  Why is this my job?  Sometimes back-breaking work that we would just as soon pass on to someone else brings us – along with aches and pains – unexpected gifts.  We can carry this image even further, to our interior landscapes that need constant tending.  (PCC)

Incarnation
by Penelope Duckworth
“When the Holy One stepped from endless order into the chaos of our days…the cold stayed.”  This nativity poem has no illusions about the difficult predicament we’re in, and yet it conveys joy:  Not mere merriment, but rather the heart-stirring knowledge that warmth and Presence can focus right down into the coldest of our winters. (PCC)

Autumn Day
by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell
“Es ist Zeit,” writes Rilke:  “It is time.”  Each word punctuates life the same way summer’s passing punctuates the seasons.  Can we invite the Divine to “let the wind go free” -- that cold, winter wind that is to come – and so take part in what we cannot avoid?  Can we call for fruition of all that we have sown over the months gone by, urging our efforts to their finish even though we do not have final control?  Can we accept that what we have not done will remain undone, once its time has past?  Within this way of being lies the essence of gratefulness which carries us over our winters.  (PCC)

Aimless Love
by Billy Collins
Equal in affection towards the mouse his cat deposits under the table and the lavender soap which washes away death's scent, Collins basks in spontaneous appreciation for all that comes to us without demanding anything in return.  (PCC)

Portrait in Black and White
by Catherine Garland
The magpies in this poem may be black and white, but the poet’s questions are not so clear cut.  Both address a grand mystery:  What is it that keeps us alive?  The first looks at the question from a personal point of view; the second, from a predator’s perspective.  Things don't always turn out as badly as we might imagine.  Sometimes danger actually runs away from us! (PCC)

The Cat and the Moon
by William Butler Yeats
The mystery and magic of Minnaloushe the cat -- who dances with the moon -- challenges our reluctance to face each new phase of our lives.  At first, like Minnaloushe, we find the coldness of constant change troubling.  But what happens if we discover, change by change, the chance to initiate new dance turns?  (PCC)

For the Children
by Gary Snyder
Simple instruction in principles we all know at heart makes some of the finest poetry.  May we arrive in peace at safe pastures with the help of clarity like Gary Snyder's. (PCC)

The Bird
by Glenn Colquhoun
New Zealand poet Glenn Colquhoun spent time living in the Te Tii Maori community, learning their language and, more than that, their way of perceiving.  This poem about his grandfather describes shapeshifting, a power which integrally connects shamans -- and all of us, to a lesser extent -- to the natural world.  Our ability to shapeshift, Colquhoun suggests, allows us to remain near to those we love even after death. (PCC)

Sabbaths 1998, VII
by Wendell Berry
"Whatever happens, those who have learned to love one another have made their way to the lasting world and will not leave, whatever happens."  So begins Wendell Berry's "Sabbath's 1998," and this seventh section gives us a taste of the quiet sufficiency of that timeless place. (PCC)

On Being Called to Prayer While Cooking Dinner for Forty
by Patrick Donnelly
Anyone who barely has a moment to pause during a busy holiday season will find comfort, connection, and a keen penetration into the soul of the matter through Donnelly's words.  As brilliant as the poem's immediacy is its integration of Islamic imagery into a scene familiar to almost all of us, bringing minarets and imams as fully into our scope as church steeples, menorahs, prayer wheels, pastors, priests, and rabbis. (PCC)

The Offering
by Laura Foley
The approach of winter means the approach of emptiness:  bare branches, denuded fields, the lonesome departure of geese.  Sometimes that very emptiness allows us to notice gifts which we would otherwise pass by unawares. (PCC) 

Five Precepts on Happiness
by Bonnie Thurston
Hold tight to happiness, try to maintain it, and it slips from your grasp.  In this poem, Thurston points to perennial truths through their paradoxical nature.  (PCC)

Beginning Autumn
by Jeanne Lohmann
The mourning in Lohmann’s poem emerges without bitterness.  She reminds us that disappointment can carry an element of surprise which helps ferry us through our losses.  As we’re ferried, we’re reminded that seasons turn and turn again, bringing us back around to the Spring for which we long. (PCC)

From Blossoms
by Li-Young Lee
It's late summer, and the sweet juice of peaches reminds us of their impossibility, the impossibility of nectar lasting, the impossible yet delicious joy of those fleeting days we live "as if death were nowhere in the background."  Can we take in the dusty skin as well as the succulence? (PCC)

We Only Need
by Patrick Flanigan
Playing with paradox, this poem tenderly points out our need for felt awareness of the Divine Presence, while not for a moment neglecting that Presence in the intimate infinity of grasses, waves, sky, and the miraculous sparking of our own minds. (PCC)

Comfort Food
by Joyce McAllister
In this sensitive rendering of grief, memories of shared food become the vehicle for expressing nuances of anger, denial, and humor that are easy to bypass when one thinks "sorrow." (PCC)

Primary Wonder
by Denise Levertov
How many times a day problems jostle for our attention, sidetracking us from the great mystery in which we live and move and have our being!  Levertov’s poem brings a smile of recognition about a forgetfulness we all share. 

An Appalachian Wedding
by Thomas Berry
This celebration of Paul Winter's 1991 wedding drenches us "in a deluge of delight."

Pax
by D.H. Lawrence
Lawrence's poem reassuringly rocks us back and forth until we find ourselves resting upon the heart of God.  Amidst such gentleness, how remarkable to wind up in a place of mastery!  (PCC)

Winter Rain Storm
by Dale Biron
Awestruck gratitude for a winter storm reminds us that prayers can wend their way backwards through time and knit it together with what's to come.  (PCC)

Seasons
from Buddhist classic texts, translated by Eido Shimano Roshi
With a shift in viewpoint, the exclamation "Oh no, more shoveling!" becomes "In Winter, snowflakes accompany you."  A radical appreciation is available to us year-round. (PCC)

Thoughts
by Ryokan, translated by John Stevens
Gratefulness springs not only from what we're given, but from what we're able to let go. (PCC)

No Solicitations Allowed
by Dale Biron
Have you ever paused to be grateful for the wonderful things that almost did not happen? This poem shows how the slightest turn of a moment can lead to life-long celebration. (PCC)

Vessel
by Patricia Campbell Carlson
Here is a love poem that drops us quickly into a sacred place of gratefulness. Part praise, part wake-up call, it invites us to freshly appreciate the "ordinary beauties" that surround us. Ah, but there is also a fine bonus in this poem which captures a conundrum often found within the heart's mysterious landscape. (DB)

Where I Found the Women
by Noelle Oxenhandler
Who among us would not be grateful to have our lungs knocked “full of hope”? Here is a poem of literally uplifting images: high-tossed hay and a suddenly arising ocean view, crafted carefully into the idea of belonging. (PCC)

A Prodigal Son
by Christina Rossetti
Knowing the punch line of parables numbs us to their meaning. Rossetti bypasses this familiarity and creates a gateway to gratitude by immersing us in the prodigal son's uncertainty. She does not bring him safely home. He does “arrive,” though, when the sight of his Father’s face becomes his greatest desire. (PCC)

Inversnaid
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Have you ever discovered a stream so fast that it reminded you of a galloping horse? Writing about Inversnaid on Loch Lomondside, Scotland -- famous for its rushing waters -- Hopkins' rhythms race and flow along with his images. If you find his words puzzling, you can follow this key. The last stanza sweeps in with a power that needs no interpretation. (PCC)
(See also "The Ecstasy of Gerard Manley Hopkins.)

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Poetry Editors: Patricia C. Carlson (PCC), Dale Biron (DB), Brother David Steindl-Rast (Br. David)