Poetry Friday

To honor all the aunts about to share Thanksgiving dinner with us, listen to Kevin Young's poem "Aunties" at Poetry Everywhere. Here's an excerpt:

there's a way only
your Auntie can make it

taste right -
rice & gravy
is a meal

if my late Great Aunt
Toota makes it -
Aunts cook like

there's no tomorrow
& they're right.


My mind is still on the gorgeous film, Vision, about the life of Hildegard of Bingen. I expounded on it in this week's Wednesday blog. Here I'll share the poem, first published in the journal Color Wheel, that came out of my visit to Hildegard's monastery ruins.

CLOISTER RUINS

Seeds sprout in holy space until
beech and oak arch over toppled stones.
Larks trill in a hilltop canopy
where psalms once floated upward,
and leafy hands now murmur prayers.

The stones, weighted with
longing whispered in secret,
sink into the earth.
Centuries ago they tumbled, like thunder
rumbling through the Great Silence.

Ivy anchors their moss velvet faces.
Rose thorns ramble over crumbled gables.
Helpless to shelter, the stones stand sentry,
mute witnesses to divine desire.

Did you think wind, rain, the shifting of earth’s crust
conspired to collapse these hallowed structures?

Know this - the human heart
beats a hunger for its creator
more powerful than natural forces.
Echoes of supplication saturate each stone.
Ages of murmured ardor pull stronger then gravity.

These stones are deaf now.
Speak freely.

Thanks, Diane for rounding up poetry this week over at Random Noodling