Poetry

Alone in the desert, Hagar meets the one who sees her.

Before Sampson's birth his father encounters an angel of the Lord.

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…

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

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…

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,…

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…