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?

A Dream of Trees
by Mary Oliver
Given the political environment in the United States and the world at large, is it any wonder that we want the kind of refuge Mary Oliver describes in “A Dream of Trees”? Who could blame us for longing to be "a little way from every troubling town" as we ponder the vexing questions before us? But Oliver reminds us of a great paradox of the human condition. She calls us back from disengagement, through the depths of our sorrowful hearts, into a grateful involvement that uses the sharp edge of crisis as a guide. Disengagement and re-engagement belong together like breathing in and breathing out. (DB)

Under the Walnut Tree
by Lynn Martin
The first time i read Lynn Martin's "Under the Walnut Tree," her lines "unable to tell anyone, not even the night, what I know" made a sudden bridge from sorrows i could not express to the universality of this heart-stricken aloneness. A "deep listening" unites us. In its shelter we can open our arms gratefully to the rushing darkness just as we would to the comfort of light. (PCC)

Tasks
by Patrick W. Flanigan
Why do we undertake projects that nearly overwhelm us, such as hauling a huge pine cone, like the crow in Patrick Flanigan's poem "Tasks," or facing a blank page that awaits our creativity? The other crows in the poem sense the value of even this "meaningless" task and caw out their confidence that it can be done. As we readers reach the last line, we find ourselves grateful that Flanigan, even in the midst of any doubts about purpose, didn't leave his page blank. (PCC)

Woods
by Noelle Oxenhandler
How does letting go lead us towards gratitude? Noelle Oxenhandler's poem 'Woods' portrays a quiet realm of nature which utterly ignores human preoccupation. It can only be reached when we stop tallying our loves, our hates, our memories, and even our progress. Then we discover the elemental joy we share in common with Earth and all her creatures.

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