At altitude on scaffolding to uncover art
Poetry
I could swim in this sea, this sea of Black helix hair and fleecy locks, waves of caramel,honey,Blue Black,Red brown chocolate faces...
May Sarton-poet, novelist, feminist, journal keeper, and Sojourners member-died this summer at the age of 83 (see "May Sarton: Years of Praise," September-October 1995).
I could not presume even to speak of it,
were we to meet, were we to be trapped
"I am mooring my rowboat
at the dock of the island called God."
Anne Sexton
The Awful Rowing Toward God
She folded herself
into a small package, legs and feet
under her body, words
even smaller.
She carries
a message. In a language
I don't understand,
she tells us about parents,
about their small, folded children
all burning, red-orange and pink.
Of course, somewhere in all this
there is a flag.
My dearest aunt, Butheyna, is chopping beets,
chopping the shamander. Klush, klush
she wields
a gutting knife, the chopping board
is a plank from a dhow. Klush,
The saint descended
From her carriage to stretch
Her forefinger to a peasant girl
Whose face was covered with sores;
This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed upon the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Light a candle for my memory
in a quiet chapel by the sea;
as day drifts into dusky night,
cup it in your hands and hold me tight;
And then there was the day the angels arrived/To collect all the medals from all the wars