Stories of Yearning

Here is part two of the creative project I posted about yesterday – Elizabeth Giger, Bethany Sanders, and I wrote poems to meditate on thankfulness, giving thanks in times of suffering, and our personal thanksgiving. In writing these, we each tried something new:

• Elizabeth Giger wrote a lovely meditation using a series of contrasts both within the language used and the number of stanzas chosen.
• Bethany Sanders wrote from a new perspective, incorporating Biblical and natural imagery.
• I tried a rondeau, a French verse form with a refrain and a specific stanza and rhyme scheme.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

by Elizabeth Giger

Thanks be in the shimmering and shining,
In the comforted and cherished,
In the bright and the beauty.

Thanks be in the lovely and loved,
In warmth and wholeness,
In joy and justice.

And in the dark and doubt,
In the sinking and sorrowing,
In the broken and the bent?

And in the murk and the mire,
In the unknown and unfulfilled,
In the loss and in lament?

Where is the thanks in these?

It is in hope and help,
In peace and provision,
In love and liberty.

It is in the Spirit and salvation,
In the cross and cleansing,
In restoration and renewal.

Thanks be in the lovely and ugly,
In the dancing and mourning,
In the feast and in hunger.

Thanks be in the rich-robed and sackcloth,
In the surrounded and the lonely,
In the made-new and the shattered.

This is our sacrifice of praise.

Thanks be in all things.

To read more of Elizabeth’s writing, visit her blog, Made Sacred.

House Sparrow

by Bethany Sanders

Look there! A strip of paper.
Sun-bleached and frayed,
but soft as the edge of a feather.
I wing back to the house eave
with the paper rustling against
my shoulder as it ribbons in the wind.
Another lining for the nest.

This spring I weave by myself.
My mate and I sang with the flock
Until a shadow glided between us.
Hawk! Scatter-scatter-scatter!
But then she never returned.
Creator, remember us,
lest we fall alone.

The house eave is quiet and dry.
In here is the whorl of my nest.
I prick at the brim of the nest’s bowl,
then snake the paper into the weave.
Pluck here, tug there, hem the edge.
I sit. Warm and soft. Come time,
my future brood will be secure.

To see more of Bethany Sanders’s work, see her online webcomic, The Pelkern Cycle.

Remaker

by me (Alicia Pollard)

You are the God who remade me
Through silent days when the earth turned slowly,
When cubicle-caves were empty and gray,
And pale screens replaced the light of day,
In two years of waiting, longing to be free.

Through two iron winters, you sent sparks of glory:
Laughter at the hearthfire, deep talks over coffee.
You gave me dreams like the northern lights at play;
You are the God who remade me.

Golden lake-days, musings in that silver valley,
Nights of exile, wondering who you called me to be:
You kindled a blaze that burned my thorn-hedge away
And grew wildflowers where the ashes lay.
In that green country and the tower by the sea
You are the God who remade me.