Poems

The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

Listen by Alla Renee Bozarth

There is no difference between
healing your body and healing the Earth
or helping another to heal.
It is all the same Body.

There is no difference between
healing Earth’s body and healing your own
or helping another to heal.
We are all the One Body.

Begin anywhere.
Begin with one tree,
or a bird.
Begin with your own heart
or skin, clean out your liver,
clear your mind.
Begin with the growth of a child,
your family’s food.
Then continue to include
one small part at a time.
You will be healing the Whole.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Gratitude by Rev. Molly Bolton and M Jade Kaiser of enfleshed

We are grateful for children
teaching us that gentleness, care,
play, and imagination are our birthrights.

We are grateful for elders—
human, flora, & fauna—
who hold stories of our belonging.

We are grateful for the wisdom of the land
who shows us there is enough for all
when we take only what we need.

We are grateful for those who mend, lend, and collaborate
their way into abundant living—
teaching us the richness of divesting from corporate greed…

The Summer DAy by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Meanwhile by James A. Pearson

Meanwhile the world’s still doing spring
like nothing’s happening. There was sunlight
on the forest floor today, and the sounds of birds

welcoming themselves home to another place
they still belong. My fear found no corroboration
in the old growth Douglas firs, who seemed

as steady as ever. Not even the swarms
of little hemlocks clawing towards the light
echoed my alarm. They all just let me be there

with all the hornets buzzing in my chest.
Some mirrors are big enough to show you
how even the end of the world really isn’t.

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

Sabbath I (1979) by Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Welcome Morning by Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.

The LANTERN AND THE wILDFLOWER by Kaitlin Curtice

If only I could give you
the gift of Adventure.
If only I could box her up
for you,
That big red bow on top,
glimmering.

But this cannot be.
Adventure is not
given or earned.
She is a breath that is prayed,
a force that is found,
found in the soul of everyone
and everything…

Sabbath VI (2007) by Wendell Berry

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good
and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
of the future, which surely will surprise us,
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself…

A Trace by Rumi

You that give new life to this planet,
you that transcend logic, come.

I am only an arrow.
Fill your bow with me and let fly.

Because of this love for you
my bowl has fallen from the roof.
Put down the ladder and collect the pieces, please.

People ask, but which roof is your roof?

I answer, Wherever the soul came from,
and wherever it goes at night, my roof is in that direction.
From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground,
from wherever searching rises in a human being.

The looking itself is a trace of what we are looking for,
but we have been more like the man who sat on his donkey
and asked the donkey where to go.

Be quiet now and wait.
It may be that the ocean one,
that we desire so to move into and become,
desires us out here on land a little longer
going our sundry roads to the shore.