Richard shared 3 poems with us, The Mad Boy by Patrick Lane, He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded, by Alden Nowlen, and Six Apologies, Lord, by Olena Kalytiak, then we were invited to "take the feelings behind the human need to be held, your need to be held and write your poem/prayer to the Lord...But do not let this specific request constrain you, your heart."
This is the poem I wrote and shared - there are days I really miss my mother's touch.
Hold Me, Lord, Hold Me
It’s what we all want,
in the end,
To be held, merely to
be held,
To be kissed (not
necessarily with the lips,
For every touching is a
kind of kiss)…
Not to be worshipped,
not to be admired,
Not to be famous, not
to be feared,
Not even to be loved,
but simply to be held.*
I am 68
and the world today seems no longer safe
not for me
not for my children or grandchildren.
I’m not sure I trust God to hold me.
Whatever God or Goodness I’ve trusted in the past
seems to be like an old wedding gown,
previously worn in joy and hope,
then set aside, folded, put in a box and
placed in a corner of the attic.
It no longer fits.
It’s served its purpose, and it’s gotten old and dusty.
I want something firm, solid, steady, certain.
“I’ll let you know when I need my mother
and when I need a friend.”
That was the pact between the two of us,
my mother and me.
Today, in these uncertain times,
I want to kneel again at her feet
and lay my head on my mother’s knees.
I want to feel her hands kiss my head and shoulders.
“There, there, everything will be ok.”
She was the cleft of the rock that kept me safe.
I need the lap of her faith, her courage, and her certainty.
I want to be a child again.
*From Alden Nowlen’s poem, He Sits Down on the Floor of a
School for the Retarded
After writing our first poem of the day, we took a break and shared a meal - a feast, actually. There was as always so much food: a big pot of soup, salads, sandwiches - and lots of good conversation with old and new friends, then Richard gave us the assignment for the afternoon.
Writing assignment #2, the Light of the World
The Light Of the World by Derek Walcott and Station Island XI, by Seamus Heaney were the two poems Richard shared with us on Saturday afternoon: the first, a very long and sensual poem full of description - really telling of the phrase, "poetry [prayer] is focused attention". Walcott's narrative poem caught every little detail of a simple bus ride - it's amazing how much he saw and how little we normally see. Then, Heaney's poem, like Walcott's, was also anchored in the real, the seen. Our assignment was to write our own poem/prayer, "a poem where through observation and detail we were to bring to life a sense of The Light of the World, a sense of the presence of the divine, the numinous, so clear, all light radiated from it. To bring alive...through word, the tangible presence of God in our lives."
I remembered just such a scene from my recent trip to Christ in the Desert, in northwestern New Mexico.
An Exodus 3 Moment
She and I sat by the river that day
at Christ in the Desert.
Eucharist spread before us:
Lara brownie bars and water, ice cold from the thermos.
Red river below,
desert cliffs above,
fields of blue-green sage and chamisa bushes all around.
Then I saw it,
as if Moses' angel showed me, too, the way.
I climbed to the place where it stood
eight to ten feet towering over my head.
Brilliant flames of azo yellow and quinacridone gold
leapt toward the heavens;
tongues of fire licked the sky,
and I knew what he
saw that day,
a bush that burned and was not consumed.
I took off my shoes,
and I also stood on holy ground.
After sharing our poems, we went to our traditional dinner at Red Snapper Inn an shared a meal out together.
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