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National Poetry Month 2017
For the month of April, I have committed to writing a poem each day. I am not following any stricter rule than that one. Others in the poetry blogging community are doing themed poems. You can see everything that’s going on at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
On Monday, my young student Jacob wrote an acrostic poem on the word faith. He was surprised by his own wisdom. I told him that I think there is a whirl of ideas in the universe and he was open for it.
Finding
An
Invitation
to
Hope
Thinking about Jacob’s inspiring poem and the ideas from the universe, I felt a pull to write a found poem from Bishop Jake’s blog post from Sunday. Jake Owensby is the Bishop of the Western Louisiana Episcopal Diocese. He writes beautifully at Looking for God in Messy Places about how to live a life of love and hope. His post this week “Dry Bones and Living Flesh” inspired this poem.
Dry Bones
uprooted
nothing familiar
fleeing home
to stay alive
they leave behind
bonesEzekiel had a vision
of those very dry bones.
The victors leave
the dead in an open grave,
a goldmine
of artifacts.This was personal.
The baker’s daughter
he knew by her fragrance of yeast,
the grandmother rocking her grandchild,
the old stooped mason.War is always the same.
Death, senseless, helpless
“collateral damage” No, this was personal-
husbands, wives, siblings, grandchildren.Homes left in ruins,
People without community,
Dry bones
watered with survivor’s tears.God takes these bones
clothes them
gives them breath.
God promises
through us
to be a new home
for the exiled.
Hear the call.–Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 