I wrestled with this prompt quite a bit; several pages of my notebook are filled with half-formed ideas that may someday yield poems. This one just popped into my head as I was putting away groceries at the end of the day.
Out of phase
the kingdom is all
around, so close it touches
each cell, each moment
deeper than air
or water or light, thicker
than blood or bone
or grief – it saturates
everything, if only
we perceive it
This is my poem for the fifth day of Lent.
Transgress (verb)
usually transitive, the act of stepping across
the line (most commonly) to go beyond
a limit of some kind, a boundary
violation
but sometimes intransitive, a sort of yielding
where the earth’s surface gradually sinks
beneath the level of adjacent ocean
and drowns
I have one quibble with this list of Lenten prompts: it includes Sundays, which is confusing, if not downright misleading. Sundays that fall during the season of Lent are in Lent but not of Lent – they are not included in the 40 day count leading up to Easter. In recognition of that, I did not write a poem today. But I will post the poem I wrote yesterday, which was the fourth day of Lent.
The parable of the sower
these words fall on my heart
seed on snow in deepest
winter and the birds fall in turn
upon them, ravenous and puffed for warmth
mice tunnel beneath the icy crust
venture the garden to find
what seed that might escape
the flurry of feathers
come spring, thistle and sunflower
and millet and safflower spring unbidden
marking the spot where in winter
good news fell
As part of my Lenten observance this year, I’ve decided to write a poem each day in response to a list of prompts. This is the prompt (and poem) for the third day of Lent, which was yesterday; it took longer getting here than I expected.
Sign
Watching M*A*S*H, I see that iconic
post bristling in the middle of the camp
with signs that say, “You are not here,”
embodiment of the dislocated denizens’
fervent prayer to be anywhere
else.
The signpost from the M*A*S*H set, as seen in the Smithsonian museum. Photo taken and released into the public domain by Stephen Williamson.
As part of my Lenten observance this year, I’ve decided to write a poem each day in response to a list of prompts compiled by several Lutheran mission territories (also called synods). Today is the second day of Lent.
Proclaim
a fast from guilt, a season
of abstinence from beating
oneself up, from lying
awake nights to relive every lapse
in judgment, every hasty
word, every inaction
to repent means to go a different
direction, not to retrace one’s
missteps
Several mission territories of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have created a photo-a-day event to mark the Lenten season, which begins today, Ash Wednesday. I’ve decided that my Lenten discipline this year will be to use the prompts to write a poem each day.
Lent Begins
today I will give up
shame over my inadequate
housekeeping and see instead
my home dusted in grace, its corners
draped with filaments of mercy
Mid-life has brought with it the usual changes in my physical and mental state, but the most surprising has been in the way my brain works. Last summer, I decided to make my daughter an iconic garment worn by a certain British science fiction hero from my own youth. Authenticity required the garment to be knit, so I found a copy of Knitting for Dummies and taught myself. Sounds simple enough, but it verges on the miraculous. 
Behold the miracle!
I’ve been crocheting since the age of eight, when my grandmother showed me how to both crochet and knit. I readily took to the former but completely failed to grasp the latter. In the intervening decades, four other people have tried to teach me to knit — two of them more than once — without success. Something about my brain simply did not get knitting.
But this time I have had no trouble figuring out on my own — from diagrams, no less! — something that years of wonderful personal tutoring couldn’t get my brain to comprehend. The process wasn’t without setbacks; I unraveled and redid portions of the first foot several times, but the remaining thirteen (it’s a very long scarf) went along rather nicely.
With several hundred rows under my belt, I feel so confident that I’ve since undertaken two additional knitting projects and figured out how to purl. And I still get a ridiculous thrill every time I think about the fact that I’m knitting. So what if my middle-aged brain can’t recall where I left the car keys or the name of my first-born child? It finally gets how to knit!
Posted in Essays
Tagged aging, Dr. Who, fiber arts, handcrafts, knitting, middle age, midlife
The Quinnipiac is one of several tidal rivers that empty into Long Island Sound through Connecticut, whose name is derived from the Algonquian and means “land of the great tidal river.”
Wolf Moon on the Quinnipiac
the moon of cold bears down
hard upon us now, veiled in ice
crystal clouds, high and thin
above the crackling earth
and the Veil itself is thin
tonight and brittle as the rimy
shelf that marks the high
water line when the tide
has drawn its briny lifeblood
seaward, cold but not so cold
as we whose souls rise
steaming into the darkness
The Lutheran church I belong to is part of the mission territory called the Indiana-Kentucky Synod. This year they’ve created a photo-a-day event to mark the Advent season, with a different theme word for each day. Being a poet and not a photographer, I’ve taken a small liberty with the idea. 
Darkness
falls in soft folds, settles
into corners, wraps in muffled
layers that I tuck around
myself for the warm comfort
of unknowing
I’m a couple days late in posting this — Sunday 30 November was actually the first day of Advent — but I decided it was better to post late than not to post at all.
Advent 3
sometimes you gotta wait
for it: the punch
line, the other
shoe to drop, and even
when you know
it’s coming, it still catches
you by surprise
The Daily Compost 