Featured Topic: Dreams
Featured Product: Seasons
Featured Writer: poets better and more famous than me
Featured Form: Rondel
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Womb by Rusten Harris
Void space and darkness Before the universe was formed Mysterious knot of nots Untie-able Before the beginning Heavy breath Gently brooding In waiting The virgin chaos And deep waters Hover and begin The ordering of all things borders set Heavens and earth Sea and...
Magi by Rusten Harris
Ancient gathered wisdom Heavenly celestial maps Long forgotten rites Codices and scrolls Strange fire Incense and embers A star unlike any have seen Oracle of the coming King A small ossuary emptied Then filled with tribute: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh A long...
Temple Trough by Rusten Harris
There is a trough where the beasts feed Under cover of a stables roof Assembled from leftover wood Filled with hay and lifted up A kindness to the animals It's architect unknowingly built A humble tabernacle - holy of holies Awaiting Shekinah glory The meeting of...
Advent by Rusten Harris
Advent, a season of memory A season of hope A looking backwards to an old hope fulfilled Feeds a hopeful looking forward Memory and hope A strained set of fellows As hope looks forward And memory looks back So often the two divide A memory of joy In the midst of loss...
Lord’s Day by Rusten Harris
The light of the day's first sun Beginning ascent, cresting the horizon Kneeling, as it were, to shine upon faces Meeting the eyes of all those who dwell With foot, hoof, paw, and root Planted firmly on the surface of the earth That warm heavenly immanence Searching...
Far as the Curse is Found by Rusten Harris
"He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found" Where has the curse not touched or spoiled? Where are his blessings bound? Pestilence, thorns Pollution and greed Infest and choke the farmer's soil With tired movements against high currents The table...
The Massacre of the Innocents by Rusten Harris
In December My memory returns To a small room Near a stairwell The Galleria Uffizi in Florence Alone and in the darkest Of the galleria's chambers Benefial's "The Massacre of the Innocents" Hangs Set apart from the well lit halls The painting: a darkness within a...
Liturgical Time by Rusten Harris
Behold in liturgical time Both natural and ecclesial The bowing of the trees The lifting of the hands The giving of the leaves The enacting of nativity The gowning of the ground in white The singing of the old hymns The fasting of the daylight The reciting of ancient...
The One by Luke Schreiber
Who designed the universe Holds the stars and spins the earth? Who has covered Adam's shame Clothed him with a costly grace? Who destroyed the world by flood, Buried multitudes in mud? Who reached out a saving hand, Lifted Noah to dry land? The One Who has made the...
Jubilee by Rusten Harris
In Matthew's gospel Three sets of fourteen generations wait for jubilee - The final freeing of the slaves. Will the debt that buries the brow of every seed of Eve in sweat and blood be paid? Will the exiles be brought back -and restored? The mystery of the jubilee of...
The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to public view, Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened...
Numbered Numbered Weighed Divided: a Rubaiyat concerning Belshazzar’s doom
The plates were full and all the wine provided by the levies of the King, misguided though he was, until the finger wrote "you are Numbered. Numbered. Weighed. Divided." You dress in purple and that garotte of golden chains weighs heavy on your royal throat. You have...
Hymn 101 by Joe Pug
I stumbled across Joe Pug many years ago and he remains one of the most compelling lyricists that I know. When I look at his words lined up below, it's obvious to me that this man is a poet, and it makes me hope that there remains a place for poetry within the social...
All Sad Thoughts Are Banished: reflections on Roethke’s death at the Bloedel Reserve
The woman at the counter said she could not tell me where the poet Roethke drowned. The Bloedel Reserve wanted to put on a happier face, a garden in the wood and clifftop eyes above the grey-blue Sound. The pool where they discovered him was gone; the dying place torn...
After Walking in the Rain
I need to find a place to dry my shoes and a fresh towel after a hot shower, then clean sheets tucked tight beneath the corners of the bed. I've been too long in the wind, too long among the tree limbs all thinned of leaves and life. While winter's bare mourners rake...