I write to make sense of things about my life and relationships, and to remember where I have lived and those I have loved. I also write to give a voice to voiceless ones or those whose voices are unheard, and to speak out – at least on paper – about the crises of our times, both in this country and in other parts of the world.
Thread
I wonder, does only a single strand remain,
the thread of the tale you tell,
so fine it slips through memory’s fingers
and disappears like dunes
the day after a storm?
You struggle, seeking what lies just beyond
the reach of your heart’s lexicon,
but words will not surface, no matter
how silt is stirred.
Your eyes fill with panic, then tears.
Finally, you heave a weary sigh,
settle into silence.
Remember when quick minds
delighted in racing to the goal,
and I finished your sentences for you?
No joy remains of that trifling game of wits,
where once warp and weft worked, wove
thought’s rich tapestries.
We saw sparks fly between us,
bursts of golden light, word-play’s web.
All ended now, and I wonder,
will I remember the tale you told, or
only its frayed thread.
Hunter’s Moon: 28 October 2023
For the eighteen lives lost in the mass killing in Lewiston, Maine on 25 October 2023, and all who remember them
In Lisbon and Lewiston, some gather
their gear, shoulder hunting rifles,
drive out to wooded trails, past fields
of dried-out cornstalks, to deer stands
nailed into tree trunks. In silence,
they sit and wait, just as they kept
watch behind bolted doors, locked windows,
for the last three days. Those days and nights,
they prayed for the dead and dying, for the ones
who hunted human quarry, the ones who bore
a different license.
Today, they may still pray for lost neighbors
and friends, though maybe not for the huntsman,
now dead. Today, they fervently beg for a buck
to cross their gunsights, for a steady hand, a clean shot,
venison in the freezer. And, enough beer to tell tales
about the ones that got away, enough beer to help forget
their watching and waiting in the darkness and silence.
At this day’s end, the Hunter’s Moon glows,
beams its borrowed radiance, sheds enough light
to show the way home.
This, the only world
“…there is only one question:/ how to love this world,” from “Spring,” by Mary Oliver
On Lord Howe Island,
shearwater chicks’ bellies
crackle, crunch.
You can make a mosaic
of microplastics
that fill their stomachs.
Magellanic penguin young,
unfledged in Patagonian deserts
damp with untimely rains,
chill, die under drenched down,
while their newly-hatched emperor
cousins fall into Antarctic waters
when sea ice collapses early, and drown,
fast food for predators beneath the waves.
A plastic island floats, tide-tossed
in the Pacific, while a garbage soup
boils in Atlantic’s ocean gyres,
refuse of our addictions
to speed, ease, economy
no matter the cost,
that poisons every thing,
every life,
failing to feel the links
of the delicate chain
that binds one life
to another, small and great,
on this, the only world
we are given to love.
The following two poems were written in response to the recent struggles of many of the people of Minneapolis to protect their neighbors from the harsh and violent actions of ICE and CBP personnel.
First Sunday of Advent: 30 November 2025
“If you keep silence at such a time as this…you and [yours may well] perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to [your status] for just such as a time as this.” Mordechai to his ward Esther, Book of Esther 4:14, New Revised Standard Version
Rosewater dawn
slips between glowering cloud
and sentinel tree line,
slice of light on a morning
silent with cold.
I turn away, turn again—
harder, harsher sunrise breaks.
Gone dawn’s fading bloom,
hope’s moment,
wisdom’s reckoning.
Some longed-for rending of heavens,
a yet-feared fall of planets,
failing sun and blood-red moon—
signs and wonders, all prophets cry,
of righteous-justice-kingdom-come.
What has been torn is no field of stars,
but fibers— woven over centuries
into fabric thought enduring—
weakened, unraveled, frayed,
gaping holes, wounded riven hearts.
For such a time as this—
each an Esther, stand up,
step up and speak out.
No heroes, but only the ordinary
common men and women in the streets.
Hope lives in the earth where they stand.
Tiny seeds, stems wait to flower,
wait on no miracle, no cosmic turn.
Hope waits on us all
to be her voice, to be her hands, her feet.
Time to rise, greet some other dawn,
even as it slides away,
and become wise.
After
I’m not mad at you, she said,
but we are angry, after the three gunshots,
the bleeding
the brain-trauma-induced crash,
the curses.
After assistance rejected, aid denied.
After they carried her body
through the streets like a sack
of potatoes.
And after the lying, the blaming,
The cover-up.
After a fatherless child lost
his mother while at school,
now an orphan.
Are you okay? he asked.
We are not okay,
after the pepper spray,
the dog-pile beating
the screams, those ten gunshots,
shooters backing away
in the frame.
After masked men return
to count bullet holes, mocking,
leaving his body lying in the street.
And after the lies, the blame,
another attempted cover-up.
After his bereft parents learned their son’s fate
from the reporter calling for comment
on a loss they did not yet know.
What of Keith Porter?
Or Luis Nun͂ez
Geraldo Campos
Victor Diaz
Parady La
Luis Yan͂ez-Cruz
Heber Sanchez
and more than twenty others
whose deaths ICE recorded
before Renee Good and Alex Pretti
were gunned down?
Some are rising, some are marching,
some are standing on the ice of Lake Nokomis,
while others sing songs of resistance,
protest and hope, remembered
from other dark times. Some deliver rice,
beans and tortillas, diapers, toilet paper.
Others collect cash, coats, contacts
for lawyers and congressmen.
Some board planes or drive hundreds of miles
to lend a hand, lend an ear, stand in silence
before memorials,
stand in silence to listen, to learn—
and to mourn.
We are angry and we are not okay.
Handwork
Pastel aluminum rods glow in the lamplight.
click, pause, then click again, like an antique metronome
counts just off the beat. Mother’s tension tightens her grip.
Coarse rug yarns slide roughly from needle to needle.
Scratchy bed slippers, watch caps, sweaters thick and heavy,
crib blankets, booties, awkward mittens, pointy and tight.
She chooses yarn from sewing room stash, rescued
from closets of the dead. Knotted joins, end to end,
skein to skein, she dreads wasted fiber scraps, leftovers of meals,
idle moments. Before neuropathy, carpal tunnel, arthritis,
before I was born, she stitched elegant argyll socks for her fiancé,
fine work in virgin wool, then wrongly washed.
I wore them in high school.
Impatient with dropped stitches, tangles, itchy fibers,
until my fifty-fifth year. I borrowed aluminum needles,
brightly colored, took up knitting. Misshapen scarf, ends wider
than middle, heathered purple acrylic, claimed by a daughter
who taught herself to knit before me. I weave in ends, avoid knots,
though gauge eludes me. I knit tightly, chainmail-dense stockinette
like Mother’s. Heavy sweaters, thumbless mitts strung on I-cord,
laddered socks, two cap patterns committed to memory.
I collect balls of yarn, others’ unwanted remnants, untouched skeins
in yellowed paper collars, mill-wrapped decades ago. I set aside
infant’s sweater, raglan-sleeved, cap and socks for someone’s grandchild,
though not yet mine.
Mother
When my daughter was born,
you presented a gift of
twenty-four thick cotton baby belly binders,
the best of the cloth diapers that had survived seven siblings,
and all the hand-embroidered infant dresses.
pearl-buttoned and laced.
Neatly ironed, folded in tissue.
I knew that you saved everything
Against a day of necessity,
The day that your first-born’s first-born
Dropped like Newton’s apple
From the tree of your life.
I have spent my life rolling away from you,
finding my feet and my voice,
cutting ties that tightly bound,
and running towards a different self.
I would not be like you, I swore.
I would not fear lack and hunger as you did.
I watched you put by late-summer’s beans on the vine
for winter’s bitter soup.
Let nothing be wasted, you said.
Thirty years later, taped and labeled dusty cardboard cartons
crowd the attic above my room.
One is filled with hand-embroidered infant dresses,
two quilts patched together by separated sisters,
well-washed flannel receiving blankets and cotton crib sheets,
your hand-knit layette set,
and the best of the socks and booties.
I too have saved everything
against some longed-for day of necessity,
less certain of fruition than you were,
no less frightened of scarcity.
October’s moon
“…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy…” Job 38.7, King James Version
October’s moon outshines the stars this night.
Cool, clear and bright, full, halved, then horned.
Beneath its glow, I walk, breathe deep-midnight chill.
Daylight’s tumbling cacophony silenced, stilled.
Some ancient music of myriad spheres of space
drifts over light-years, epochs, millennia, settles
in my soul, distant ineffable echo of the Holy.
Blinking, I stand within this October night’s shining,
beneath streams of sacred light pouring
from beyond the pillars of creation’s starry womb.
Ponder if reflected moonlight, though mirrored darkly,
sheds such luminance, what blinding brilliance might blaze
from the smallest star beyond, wonder if that could be
the song the morning stars sang together before the first day dawned?
His servant Job was bold enough to demand an explanation
from the Holy, a reason for relentless suffering, unremitting grief.
None was given, though His servant Blake had eyes enough to see
the majestic mystery of Divinity’s work, etching scribe, compass,
and the ethereal singing of stars and seraphim.
I seek no answers, have but one request—
to walk beneath autumnal midnight’s moonlight, as on this night,
present to the gift of stunned wonder, the gift of joy and its song.
Desire: 8.6.68
My grandfather always stood at the kitchen sink,
drained a tall glass of water, wiped his lips on his sleeve,
declared my father’s well-water “the best water ever.”
I pour water from a pitcher, watch droplets form on glass,
dab damp fingers on temples and brow.
I drink so quickly, water dribbles down my chin,
splashes onto my shirt-front.
Water-stories – four streams in Eden, a flooded earth,
walls of water in the sea, women at wells,
huge stone water jars filled with wine,
a wound’s bloody flow.
At fourteen, by the grace of the son of God,
I walked into the muddy Brandywine,
so I could eat cubes of Wonderbread. My grandmother
washed tinkling glass thimbles in soapy suds,
dried them on linen.
I remember the ruby sip of Welch’s grape.
A belly-full of unsated hungers gnawed.
Fifty years since first sacraments, I stand at the table,
pour wine, then water, into a cup. Mirrored
in the chalice, I see my face. I drain the cup dry,
but thirst for more, for always.
Acknowledgements
“Thread” was first published in THE POETS’ TOUCHSTONE, Vol. 63 No. 1, Poetry Society of New Hampshire, 2021
“Hunter’s Moon: 28 October 2023” was first published in SMOKEY QUARTZ, 10th Anniversary Anthology, Monadnock Writers’ Group, 2022
“Desire: 8.6.68” was first published in ABUNDANT TIMES, Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, Summer/Fall 2024
off the margins contributors are asked to respond to questions to further articulate a collective response to the question: How do we step off the margins of convention and enter the wild terrain of our writing?
In what way(s) do you identify yourself as a woman writer?
Many of the subjects that I explore in my poetry might be considered “feminine” topics, such as motherhood, family relationships and history (family of origin, children), home crafts that have often been associated with women in our culture (sewing, knitting, homemaking or “huswifery”). I also find myself drawn to give voice to women’s points of view on war and conflict, whether mythical, historical or contemporary.
Since I am a woman and an ordained minister, I believe I also approach religious/spiritual topics from a feminine perspective. I write about childhood memories and landscapes from reflections on the girl who grew up in that particularly religious family, and who lived and walked in those well-loved natural environments. I also write to remember the lives of people I care about, people I have loved, and still love beyond this life’s limits, so several of my pieces might be considered “elegies.”
Some of my writing in response to socio-political events originates, I believe, from my deeply felt responses to suffering, cruelty, and injustice. When I first began to seriously write poetry in the 1990’s, I understood it as a way to “make sense” of my life and relationships, and to make – and un-make! — “containers” of words in which to hold those awarenesses.
Whose voices have you carried with you for creative strength in order to arrive at this point in your writing career?
From childhood in my church-going family, I was immersed in the rhythms of the King James Version of the Bible, especially the Psalter, and was surrounded by late 19th and early 20th century Protestant hymnody, especially gospel music associated with revivals and camp meetings. I cherish the gifts of both of those exposures: to early 16th century English syntax and vocabulary, as well as to late-Victorian-era verses about deeply personal religious experiences. In addition, I received the gift of an introduction by my 9th grade English teacher (thank you, Mr. Small!) to both 16th century English Metaphysical poetry and to the 19th century Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and fell in love with extended metaphors and extraordinary word-play! That was no adolescent crush, as to this day I am attracted to both the use of metaphor and word choices, and, always, the music of poetry.
Among the poets that I love to read are John Donne, George Herbert, Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov, Jane Kenyon and Mary Oliver, as well as Natasha Trethewey, Scott Cairns, John Hodgens, Wendell Berry and Christopher Wiman, among many others. I also am inspired by reading poets in translation, especially poets writing in difficult settings or in their respective diasporas. But I especially love reading and hearing works-in-progress from the members of the monthly workshop that I am privileged to attend, convened by Susan Roney-O’Brien. I learn so much about the process of writing from them.
What do you want our readers to know about your process of becoming a writer that might be helpful to further articulating their own individual process and growth?
It was not until I attended a poetry retreat led by Parker Palmer in the early-1990’s, when I was about 40 years old, that I was able to name myself somewhat self-consciously as “poet,” though I had written a few very small pieces prior to that workshop. I began to write more seriously after that moment of self-awareness, but seemed only to be able to write while on retreat in convents or monasteries where I was surrounded by silence. I did not submit anything for publication until 1999/2000, when I was shocked to discover 4 of my poems had been selected for an anthology, WOMEN’S UNCOMMON PRAYERS (Morehouse Publishing). It would take another 20 years before I submitted anything again!
I attended a weekly poetry writing workshop led by Jim Beschta at the Worcester (MA) Art Museum from 2012 until 2018, and later participated in the Monadnock (NH) Pastoral Poets’ annual writing retreats, where I met and began working with Susan Roney-O’Brien. I retired from parish ministry in 2018, and subsequently have submitted a few pieces to TOUCHSTONE (Poetry Society of New Hampshire), as well as to the editors of Two Sylvias Press (Kingston, WA) for critique via their online retreat offering. As mentioned above, the monthly writing workshop convened by Susan Roney-O’Brien has been a godsend, and I think I am becoming a stronger poet as a result of participating. I believe I have a greater appreciation for cadence, more economy in word choice, and the appearance of the poem “on the page” as a result.
I still find it difficult to “put my stuff out there,” though I enjoy reading my work at readings by invitation or at the occasional open mic. I am honored to be asked to appear in this venue “off the margins” with so many other fine women writers!
Artist Statement
I write to make sense of things about my life and relationships, and to remember where I have lived and those I have loved. I also write to give a voice to voiceless ones or those whose voices are unheard, and to speak out – at least on paper – about the crises of our times, both in this country and in other parts of the world. And, like Johann Sebastian Bach who marked his music “soli Deo gloria,” I write to give thanks to the Giver of the gift.
off the margins 