Cycles of Thought: Living in Poetry

I was in Washington DC this past week at the DCLA Christian Conference. The admissions department of my Alma mater, Philadelphia Biblical University, sent me to recruit hordes of the teenagers; to coerce the crowd to fill out info cards for the university. We got about four hundred. Things died down once we ran out of tee-shirts.

Met lots of fun people while I was there, like some horrible charades players from Houghton & two guys who knew their beer from Gordon colleges. Here we all are eating Chipotle downtown:

The first night we were mobbed with teenagers filling out cards and getting free tee-shirts, but by the end of the second day the flood of crowds slowed to a trickle. Hanging out with Gaynell and Grace was great but emotionally taxing.

I still get flashbacks of the two girls attempting to ‘experiment’ with eyeshadow on my lashes because, oh, they are just so long and beautiful. Ugh!

In the downtime I also wrote a poem, tried to focus my imagery on time-related word-pictures & rhythms. Also attempted a cyclical poetic structure, something musical that crescendos at the point of critical poetic mass. This shorter piecce is called Anna. Enjoy!

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Anna

Trading the two hands of the clock

for a smile instead of a frown (8 o’clock & 4);

She goes by sunshine so as not to stumble

and the sun rises sets rises sets & growing old is not so terrible.

Strength pulls the sun, I think, into the explosive fiery sea, and her type of submission is not so terrible.

Trading the sun for the moon for the sun for laughter;

deep lines in her cheeks and eyes, trading time for the body’s weakness

and all types of weakness.

Watch the black and blue sea heal as she rises glorious like redemption,

blindingly white this morning.

She receives a sacramental grace: extreme unction-holy orders-penance

and lives in the temple, night and day, trading the pierced hands of the clock

for a child who would save the world.

-NVD ’09

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Loosely based on real events.