Shut up, Luther,
Reckless truther!
Stop disturbing public peace and keep your thoughts in line.
Bold reformer?
Crude informer!
Flapping lips like yours unload our priceless pearls on swine….
To All You State Poets: A Poem
To you who collect awards and fellowships;
to you who receive grants because you
drink deeply of the Dakotas,
probe Pennsylvania’s coals and keystones,
and weather the wilds of Wyoming;
to you whose ancestors were anchored in the Ozarks
of Arkansas and harangued hunger in Georgia,
to you heirs of the lyric disintegration of Lousiana
and the ever glad expanses of Florida,
to you who narrate Norwegian silence in St. Paul
and Polish pride in Peoria;
to you who vocalize vocatives to pioneers in Nebraska
and brandish bowls of dust in Oklahoma,
to you lamenters of Los Angeles
mourning manzanilla buried beneath boulevards…
Persimmon Women: A Poem
On the upper floor there live two women,
Sisters, never married, now grown old.
Late in autumn they string ripe persimmon
Out to dry in winter’s bright blue cold…
Too Sweet Pie: A Poem
There was this time
when I was a kid
I ate way more ’n
I wish that I did
I saw & I craved
& I gave it a try
Six huge helpings
of too sweet pie
I musta been thinking
I don’t know what
It started to roil
& boil in my gut…
Mustard Yellow Ballet Flats: A Poem
This poem is dedicated to the woman
who admired my
mustard yellow ballet flats
that were not pink
and not even red.
With regard to these
mustard yellow ballet flats
she said
I love your shoes…
Lutheran Saints #22: The Baltic Martyrs
Hey, remember my Lutheran saints series? It’s been awhile, for which my apologies. But the long absence of this series is not due to neglect of the saints—far from it. In fact, I have taken a detour from writing up hagiographies for an eventual book of Lutheran saints to do the theological background work that I always knew I’d have to do as well.
This scholarly sidestep is not chiefly due to anticipated hostility from fellow Lutherans toward the very notion of a Lutheran sanctorale. If anything, I’d say my church community is positively longing for better acquaintance with its own saints. But there is certainly an ongoing sense that it is vaguely illegitimate. Good Lutherans that we are, we want solid theological arguments before plowing ahead…
Read moreWalking Down Grand Avenue: A Poem
I walked past us
on Grand Avenue last night.
We were seven years ago
sometimes bragging,
sometimes begging,
and we didn’t see me at all…
What I Learned from Agatha Christie, Part 5: Horticulture
Saxifrage
I have already shared two posts on visual vocabulary learned from Agatha Christie… but that doesn’t begin to cover the horticultural entires. Seriously, why has no one ever written Agatha Christie, Botanist?!
Some plants (chiefly flowers in her works) are so common that even a non-gardener like me knows them: roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, yew trees. But I encountered quite a lot of unknown terms in my latest read-through of Miss Marple in particular (the spinster detective is a passionate gardener). Though, as I’ve looked them up, I realized that I know a number of them by sight, just hitherto not by name.
Enjoy this Christieish bouquet…
Read moreWhat I Learned from Agatha Christie, Part 4: More Visual Vocabulary
Lisle thread
My March 2023 issue of Theology & a Recipe deals with “Miss Marple’s Low Anthropology”… which was, of course, a transparent excuse for going back and re-reading all the Miss Marple stories and novels. And, as I’ve documented before, Agatha’s trickily plain prose once again expanded my visual vocabulary. Hence, these fruits of my re-reading for your enjoyment…
Read moreTalus Canon
All praise to thee,
My Lord, for scree,
For deep crevasse
And alpine moss,
For glacial till
And ice-blue rill,
For snowy branch
And avalanche…
Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.