True Poetry

you will not find poetry unless you bring some of it with you

In this fateful hour...

In the Words of Madeleine L'Engle:

In this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with it whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness,
All these I place
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness.

" ' ...my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.'
' Even at a time like this?'
' Especially at a time like this. We don't know what the next twenty-four hours are going to bring, and if it should be what we fear, then the peace and quiet within us will come to our aid.' "

--A Swiftly Tilting Planet"

on waiting

I'm in this waiting place
An idea thought of by God
Breathing the stale air of man
Each day a discovery of new joy, new hope
Forgotten past pain yet felt
Learning to be satisfied with the unseen
Seeking the unfelt
The heart cries from depths undiscovered
Only known by the earthquake of pain
Will the tremors cease, will the end be found
I'm here on earth seeking a God I've never seen
Believing in promises not yet breathed
Holding onto dreams not yet uttered
The battle is being fought, the war already decided
The would heal, scars fase, stories disappear with time
"I won't give up" I shout with courage
yet I find my heart shaking in fear
I show the world the strength in my stance
The hope in my eyes, the joy in my heart
Is it the true me that's exposed, the me that cries for help
The me that asks will I ever be the one
Days and nights fade away
The future, just a glimmer as far as the eye can see
The strength in my stance
Nothing more than learning not to fall
The hope in my eyes
Nothing more than light catching last night's tears
The joy in my heart
The only strength I have left
So here I am in the waiting place
An idea thought of by God
nothing more to do but wait
hope and hold on
- Sena Woodall

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry (Psalm 40:1)

on a matter of probability

A Matter of Probability

Truth is only that which is taken to be true. - Tom Stoppard

I remember you most when I am home:
cracked brown leaves on my lawn,
retired blue shirt in its drawer,
accidental photos carelessly pressed
onto pages behind cheap cellophane.

but your name is pselled out here:
the street signs state it calmly
as though it were mere coincidence
that brought me here.
I pass you last name three times a week
and I wonder must i must be like
to live on your street,

remember how my teacher once said
in this room of thirty, in one of our sixty lungs
rested a molecule that Caesar exhaled when he breathed his last.
It was a statistically inescapable fact.
How then must molecules last
forever unchanged
and what it must be like
to be this kind of truth?- able to be
proven mathematically,
but no other way.

-- Sara Yenke
Rag & Bone, May 2007 vol.17 no.1

on darfur/sudan

I wrote a poem or song for Sudan last spring and recently found it in my songwriting notebook during my period of purging. there was some good elements to it. so i edited and here is the new version:

what happened to yesterday
we're somewhere between sleep and awake
tell me what happened to her to the land of the sand
but no such luck, she's lost in sudan
and she's marching to where none return

i closed my eyes, i made a wish for her and blew my candles out
that she may enjoy cake of her own, and friends milling about
i wished her many birthday gifts, but time in unfair and fast
she never knew which day would be her last
that she would be marching to where none return

next day the soldiers came and took them all away
forced the town to get up and march for miles and mile a day
she held her head high, there were tears in her eyes
for gone are her friends, and gone are their smiles
for no laughter dwells where none return

tell me, where is her birthday cake
and where is she, if you can
somewhere 'twix sleeping and awake
but no, she's lost in darfur, deep in the heart of sudan

killings every day, can you see the slain?
the girl is dying, cna you feel her pain?
the piles of bodies, can you smell them burn?
who knew that sudan would become a place from where none return