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Poetry

Poetry

Refracted

by Debra L. Freeberg What happens at the end of life to the stored treasures of knowledge and memory? To the books of language fruit dripping with meaning, consequence, and flavor. To the closely held memories of touch and kiss and embrace. To snapshot beauty: a flicker of creation glory stored across decades of memory. What happens to the sum of our experiences, gifts so essential to the vital force of the breathing world but rendered inaccessible by a final…
July 26, 2019
Poetry

The Return of the Prodigal

after Henri Nouwen’s studyof Rembrandt’s paintingof Christ’s parable I look at the handsembracing            clutching               caressing                 the hands I can only seebecause Rembrandt saw them for me  the hands as seenin the light            Nouwen shone on themhis power of suggestion  & insightmaking me wonder how I’d viewthem on my own The younger son in meabsorbs their reassuring firmness the elder                only considers my place & the father I am                though a faintimitation               is dancing
April 29, 2019
Poetry

Crevices & Crannies

for the Sons of Korah (Psalm 84) Swallows swoop across the courtyard well above the notice of those alonefacing stone robed in black They flit & fly & loop back disappearing into gaps in the wall well above the reach or concern of those pushing paper prayers into every crack Before Mohamed’s people built their domebefore his Jerusalem dream Rome had destroyed the temple not one stone left upon anotherBefore Herod built on the rubble Nebuchadnezzar had knocked the temple…
April 12, 2019
Poetry

How Like Manna

Bright May—but Sober, somber, alone. Scored By razored circumstance. Emptied. So retreating To the soothing shade of the sweet gum tree, A few pieces of stale bread in my hand (The meager offering of the poor in spirit). Broken, the crumbs are cast upon the plush grass. I close my eyes to breathe a morning prayer. When I open them, the birds are there. How like manna For the birds – to awake and cry, Small bellies with bottomless hunger,…
January 1, 2019
Poetry

Insomnia Lines

Life is such weight! That is what you suddenly thought Lying awake in the enormous silence that isThe focus of the insomniac’s pained consciousness.So in that pain, rising to the near window, spying The city’s stillness with street lamps intensifyingThe nightlong gloom, you once again remember the girlWith the crystalline eyes who made you believe inLove at first sight, and the curve of a child’s smile –Softer than kitten sleep – which recalls to you howA child ages to inspire…
January 1, 2019
Poetry

Shadow Line

Night shadows are the feast of awakenings. The outskirts of compassion, absent of spiritual thresholds. They are the counterparts without conversation; the willing partner in an imperfect sphere. They are unassuming. Their intension is directed, visually controlled, a bondage of motion; their gifts are weightless, failing to intrude. Style is choreographed without independence or expression. Roger Singer is a chiropractor practicing in upstate New York. Photo by anastasia on Unsplash
October 31, 2018
Poetry

Searching

Disturbed waters are the evidence of youths seeking a smooth belonging; searching to square off the circle. They are dreamers between rocks, pushing from a hard place, attempting to re-create the beginning without pain, escaping the fires between the lines. Fingers bait the eyes into corners. Second chances come at a cost. Seek to endure without the loss of soul. Roger Singer is a chiropractor practicing in upstate New York. Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
October 31, 2018
Poetry

Striving

When the kitchen table becomes a confessional and the combat with demons in the heart hears conversation turn toward tired despair, How many more years, Lord?; I’ve tried to overcome, my spirit scrambles to defend motivation by considering itself a hero from Homer, say god-armored Achilles, some mother’s son once immersed in immortal streams who might famously vanquish the mightiest foes with a blade whetted true upon the Word and protected by a shield of faith, but then I remember…
September 1, 2018
Poetry

The Active Voice

After Camille Pissarro’s Haymaking at Éragny   Pissarro clumped, sculpted, plowed his oil paints to produce this hayfield: fertile pigments mixed, molded, together like squelching mud to cultivate such an agrarian landscape sown with greens, blues, yellows, browns; his passion raising pregnant berms with color on this canvas. Here, between trees, a breeze combs through wheat-sheaves where a woman works a pitchfork in the grasses, ordering, processing, a year’s plenty beside fellow peasants, harvesting what’s needed for unseen hungry mouths…
September 1, 2018