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?