Friday, November 13, 2015

Recent Poetry




Don't Bother Me

Please don't bother me.
I've just discovered
I know nothing
And am reeling
With the news.

Though,
On second thought,
As it seems
This ignorance
May not end soon,
Go ahead.
Bother me.

May your bothering
Find a home
In my not-knowing
And provide
Some consolation
As I reel.


Theology

It's the smile
The baby offers
To the grandmother
In whose arms he's held:
A bearing-of-witness
To that perception of
What he'll later
Come to call
Love.
And she smiles back,
At that honest
Articulation,
So incomplete
And beautiful.

When, later,
His theology expands
To include
The first, angry
"Mine!"
She smiles again,
Hoping he'll
Get over it,
But knowing
There's little
She can do.


Robert Lax (1915-2000)

Like the leaf
That falls
And then,
Powerless as God,
Finds the journey
Earthward
Complicated
By waves
Of atmosphere,
So fell Lax.

If it weren’t for
The famous
Friend who called
Our attention to it,
This leaf-fall might
Have gone almost
Unobserved,
In the midst of
Worthier matters.
For such leaves
When noticed
At all, are
Quickly
Categorized:
Dreamy,
Naïve,
Mystical,
Impractical,
Even holy;
So that our worthier
Matters aren’t
Threatened.


But, in this case,
Upon recommendation
Of his friends,
We looked,
And thus observed the leaf
drift down lightly,
Grazing the categories
Without touching them,
In a gentle suggestion of
What life
Could be:
Every complication of the
Earthward ride
An occasion of wonder
And gratitude,
With as much
Rejoicing in
Arrival at the
Destination
As there was
In every moment
Of the way down.

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