Category Archives: Poetry

May I Have a Word With You?

Posted on by
Reply

When I am writing, I roll words around in my mind like I am tasting something. Reading a word, speaking a word,hearing a word, or writing a word may be as breathtaking as holding a lovely piece of glass to the light. As a mother, I delighted in a baby’s first word. The first word a child reads for himself brings a sense of accomplishment for him and encouragement from others. Of course, we find meaning as we begin to string words together in thoughts and sentences, and the words used in the craft of story telling are amazing tools, but a single word when considered alone can be a source of amazement.

My husband, Joe, and I  had the same  English teacher in high school.  Mr. Everett  loved the word murmur . A musical friend’s favorite word is alleluia. I love the words dappled and  candlelight. Author and world traveler Francis Mayes says that two of her favorite words are linked together: “departure” and “time”. Poet Molly Peacock says she first fell in love with the word joy because it had a circle inside!

I think I fell in love with poetry because I love tasting the words and looking at them through the light.
I think Gerard Manley Hopkins may have felt that way, too.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—                                                                                     
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

Eden to Eternity

Posted on by
2

  Included in my writings for Lent, these words are taken from two hymns written for the same hymn tune, Morning Has Broken and Child in a Manger. The original melody was noted by Alexander Fraser from a wandering Scottish Highland minstrel. Mary McDonald (1789 – 1872) wrote the words of the nativity hymn. Later, Eleanor Farjeon wrote words for the same tune which were originally printed in 1931 but not copyrighted until 1957 under its correct title, A Morning Song for the First Day of Spring.

 Until today, I had never considered the two sets of words together and when I did as I listened to the haunting tune, I felt a connection between the thoughts of the two women. My heart filled as I considered the continuity and the depth of holding God’s work of creation, nativity, death, and resurrection in my own thoughts. First Eden, then Bethlehem, then on to Jerusalem.

 Morning has broken,blackbird spoken,

First morning, first bird.

Praise singing and springing.

Sweet rainfall

Heavenly sunlight

First dew, first grass

Praise garden and path.

My sunlight.

My morning.

Newborn Eden displayed

Praise Creator and created.

Then, Manger Child.

Outcast and stranger,

Transgression swaddled,

Wrapped in my wrong.

Child once most holy,

Living that lowly,

Now filled with glory

In salvation story.

Prophesied Wonder,

Royalty revealed.

Word defined… Atoned,

I am His own.

Mary Ann Parker April 12, 2011

A Spiritual Journey

Posted on by
2

Every time I enter my front door, even before turning the key in the lock, my eyes rest for a moment on the small engraved stone nestled in the feathers of foxtail fern planted in an urn beside the door.  I take the word into the house with me, breathe deeply, and am grateful once more for being home.  The house itself is only a container for this awareness, though tucked into baseboards and behind walls throughout its rooms are small scripture cards which we placed as the house was built.  The walls are only reminders, with their glad burdens of family pictures and framed statements of faith and hope.  Home is God-given surety inside me.  I love coming home.

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.”

-Wendell Berry

Seed Time

Posted on by
2


A gardener’s fingers push a hard dry seed into damp earth… patting, putting it to bed.
Covered in a quilt of soil and sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Awakening and swelling, a wrinkled husk cracks. A living kernel curls and stretches.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.

Covered in a quilt of soil, sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.
Reaching for light, unfolding, greening.

Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf
Awakened and swollen, a wrinkled husk cracked, a living kernel unfurled and stretched.
Reached for light, unfolded, greened.
A gardener’s fingers pushed a hard dry seed into damp earth and marveled at its waking

~Mary Ann Parker, March 29, 2011

Sundial and Delphinium

Posted on by
4

Hours and days mark Lent’s  journey.

Wilderness days, nights of shadows –

Shaping time, shaping me.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude.

Wilderness days,  nights of shadows –

Grow green, moss.  Bloom, bluest Delphinium.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude

Kaleidoscope of green and blue.

Grow green moss!  Bloom bluest, Delphinium!

Shaping time, shaping me.

Kaleidoscope of green and blue,

Hours and days mark Lent’s journey.

~Mary Ann Parker

In the form of French Pantoum, this is one of a set of Lenten poems.

Cracked Voice

Posted on by
2

I found a dry gray twig that cracked when I broke it between my fingers.
Without color, without life, only a brittle reminder of green glory past.
An unlovely stick, broken away from its family of branches, useful only in its decay.
Only one of many made by Winter
Without color, without life, only a brittle reminder of green glory past,
Reminder of growth, reminder of beauty, reminder of shade and rest.
Only one of many made by Winter
Rhythmic pointer of season to come, singing a silent song of Spring
Reminder of growth, reminder of beauty, reminder of shade and rest
An unlovely stick, broken away from its family of branches, useful only in its decay?
Rhythmic pointer of season to come, singing a silent song of Spring!
I found a dry gray twig that cracked when I broke it between my fingers.

What Each Morning Brings

Posted on by
Reply

I almost missed it.  I nearly overlooked the cobalt and cloud blue ruffles of this tiny iris that seems to have bloomed overnight.  Three years ago, I gave Joe a garden gift for Father’s Day:  a mail order collection of iris bulbs in all shades of blue and purple.  Eleven  came up that year, all  but one.  The next year only three or four dusky green blades pushed through.  Last year, none.  So I wasn’t expecting to find this lovely offering.  I am grateful to notice what this morning brought to light.  Richard Wilbur’s poem adds to my note to self:  notice what each morning brings!

In the strict sense, of course,
We invent nothing, merely bearing witness
To what each morning brings again to light:
Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment
Of panes, the turbine-vent which natural law
Spins on the grill-end of the diner’s roof,
Then grass and grackles or, at the end of town
In sheen-swept pastureland, the horse’s neck
Clothed with its usual thunder, and the stones
Beginning now to tug their shadows in
And track the air with glitter. All these things
Are there before us; there before we look
Or fail to look; there to be seen or not.
~ from Lying, by Richard Wilbur

Hush

Posted on by
4

“Hush”, the baby in my arms says with a proud smile, feeling power in using a word that produces result.

She has no malice, no judgement of my singing.

She only learned “hush” yesterday and is exercising cause and effect.

Will I do it again?

Happy work, this making music and hushing.

“Hush”, I hear God whisper.

Do I obey?

Is there compliance in this dance, too?

I begin a different song.

“Hush”,  I once more hear the prompting.

Then, when I have understood,

He begins the song and we sing together.

Labyrinth Meditation

Posted on by
Reply

I  step on one stone which draws me outside in,

Centripetal propelling of self toward center.

One step, then another, a walk on a labyrinth path.

Seeking, finding

A center for refilling, refueling, refreshing.

Then reverse, return.

Stepping in an outward spiral,

The centrifuge which slowly spins and scatters this gathered grace,

Inside out.

   ~Mary Ann Parker, January 19, 2010