Say Yes, and Say, Now

[A student asked for a favor. Could I find a poem that he could read at his aunt’s wedding? I looked. And then I listened.  And then I wrote. Something about the miracle of remaking the earth with our imaginations, which is the behavior that God requires of us as our part of the work of creation. Nothing is ugly if we choose to truly see. That’s something Ignatius of Loyola managed to pass down to us, through these centuries]

Look at that nasty field

weeds everywhere    you look

and see  thorn bushes  wasps and

kudzu vines

               looking away and up you

can still smell the clotted earth   wet

from days of rain     ain’t nothing

to see  no

                   where you look matters

But   (he said)    I will gather  just a few rocks

that seem to have veins of glitter and shine

and stack them pretty

                            And I (she said)

will bend into the overgrowth   and find lonesome

flowers struggling  to fight the wind  and

be beautiful

                    Just for me (she said)

make the stones stand one atop another

til they mark this place   as   ours

and

       I will  (laughing in my heart)

root a flower  here  and there

                                     and

somebody walking by someday in the

early evening  

                 will say  “My, two pairs

of hands and eyes and more than one

singing heart

stopped

          here to make us

look

        how  Pretty can rise up

anywhere  you

                  choose to look”

See Yes

         and say   Now

and flowers and twinkling stones

will

     show us who you

Be

        -- 4 April 2017