After reading the compelling and poignant poems in A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry, I have written three poems of my own that in one way or another tie into my own experience growing up in the Mennonite faith. Enjoy!
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What I Learned from My High School Choir Director
after a poem by Julia Kasdorf
I learned from my high school choir director how to laugh
early in the morning when I’d rather be in bed, how not to be
the “flotsam and jetsam” that holds everybody else down. I learned
that when a teacher can reveal his heart, his joys and concerns,
to his class, that class becomes a family. I learned that a choir
is greater than the sum of its parts, that if you all sing in a racquetball court
and listen carefully, tones ring out that nobody is uttering.
I learned how powerful it feels to be young, full of dreams and
potential as you dance into a retirement home chapel.
I learned never to judge a song until I’ve sung it a hundred times
with people I love. I learned what it feels like to know a song for years
but not understand it until one day, without a warning, your heart
lunges into your throat and your eyes get hot and wet as you
look across a congregation and choke out the words,
“Know that the God who sent His son to die that you might live
will never leave you lost and alone in his beloved world.”
I learned that when bombs explode in subways, when a boy
comes to school without a mother, when a community loses a teacher
and friend, the only thing you can do
that makes any sense at all
is join together
and sing.
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Chicken Coop
I stick an old milk jug under the faucet,
hear a satisfying squeak as I twist the tap.
It takes all of my strength to battle the weight
of a stream spilling into the bottom.
This is my favorite part of the day:
time to feed the hens.
I step out into the frosty morning.
The chicken coop is the only piece
of “farm” left in our farmhouse.
We keep chickens simply because we can
but I like to believe that I am a true farm girl
who has to work if I’m going to eat.
I pry open the crooked door, inhale that unmistakable
musky odor of wet straw and bird poop.
Past the ancient rusty restraining funnel that was used
to massacre chickens daily, three hens greet me eagerly.
The biggest struts right up to my outstretched hand.
Strangely, that beak that appears sharp as a pitchfork only tickles.
Another hen runs for cover to miss the pellets I scatter with my small iron scoop.
She is half-naked; Cinderella given only rags and abused by two evil stepsisters.
I, too, would be ashamed to be seen like that.
When the chickens have been fed and watered,
I steady myself on the rail of a feed trough,
and peer into the each of the ten nesting boxes.
Aha! I glimpse a white treasure shrouded in shadows.
I grab for the egg.
Mine. I turn it over in my chubby palm.
No one can admire an egg like a seven-year-old.
It’s perfectly smooth, aside from a few miniscule and endearing warts,
but not a blemish against its pallid armor.
Holding it, I marvel at the novelty
of this something that was nothing yesterday.
Neither Dad, nor Santa, nor the Easter Bunny
planted it for me to discover.
But now it is mine,
to do whatever I want with.
feed to the cat, crack into a frying pan,
adorn with a face, play house.
God has the best ideas.
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Sweetest Hours
We sing proudly, as though
we are the only little girls in the world
who can sing in three-part harmony.
The crowd is not a lively bunch,
but we know better than to take it hard—
they’re so old that clapping probably hurts.
Pop sits among them, eyes closed.
He’s heard this one before.
Perhaps he’s remembering the way his father’s
deep voice lay down the bass line on Sunday mornings.
Perhaps Pop whistled the tune while riding his great
John Deere over fertile fields on his way to a well-deserved dinner.
Watching him, the serene look on his face tells me
that he’s probably back there right now.
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care…
Years later, the three of us stand at the foot of a bed,
looking down at a body withered to almost nothing,
barely an outline beneath the thin yellow sheet.
Four of us together in one room,
the same blood pumping through our veins.
No one has a thing to say.
So once again, but this time not because
we are proud or even a little bit sure of ourselves,
we let our innocent voices blend.
In seasons of distress and grief,
my soul has often found relief.
And I learn right there that miracles do occur.
Because up from the covers floats a ghostly white hand,
and it dances in four to the lilt of our song.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”
Beautiful poems.
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