Some Words

I can think a thing a long time
with the words going
round and round
inside my head
like the gray gruel
mixing in a cement truck

but once I say those thoughts
once those words
escape my mouth
pour out
become exposed to air
everything changes.

The minute they’re out
they start to solidify.
Too late now
to scoop them up
shove them back

for they’ve already begun
to work their alchemy
changing the elements
inside me, inside you

hardening –
a shameful statue
a concrete wall
a cold gray memorial
between us.

© 2003 by Violet Nesdoly

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I developed this poem from a journal entry. It has been published in several places – Poets Online, an anthology, Poetry Sharings Journal (no longer published) and Prairie Messenger. I really like the photograph that accompanies it at Prairie Messenger.

Wisdom of the Scarecrow

From the first burp
of a shoot bursting its tomb
to the dozing off
of a harvested plant
life remains a mystery.

There is significance in small things:
the subterranean wisdom of earthworms
the collegial hum of bees
the fantasies of the cabbage grub
the silent plodding of beetles
and how ants and aphids conspire.

It takes a whole season
of watermelon mornings
and peach nights,
all the moods
from mourning to petulance
languid afternoons
to sensual alyssum-scented nights
to grow a garden.

The gardener’s watchfulness
doesn’t keep squash
from escaping over the fence
bindweed from sneaking in
and slugs from leaving glittering trails
to leaf-skeleton remains
of last night’s orgy.

For some
salvation comes
in cages, twine and shears.

I, myself, am nothing
without creeping shadows
the aging of rain
and the life of the wind

© 2006 – V. Nesdoly

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This poem won Honorable Mention in the Utmost Poetry Contest, 2006. It was first published there.

Corporate Cuts

Five years ago the cut was surgical.
Just minutes with the boss and it was done
a severance of sinew, muscle, bone
shock was the anesthetic, then slow heal.

This time they used an endless tourniquet
new paradigms, objectives, letters, dates
twisting his job description with new weights
revealing their design by slow degree.

He slept, I fought with dread through winter nights
Is what I think I’m seeing really there?
And then more business, spring – I dropped despair.
The date they gave him passed. We’ll be alright!

Till yesterday – the car door slams, he walks
with office things, like ashes, in a box.

© 2006 – V. Nesdoly

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This is my attempt at a poem for the Poets Online March 2006 prompt “Giving form to death.”  It was written to help me process the devastating experience of seeing my husband lose his job. It was first published on the Poets Online site.

Communion

“Communion Service,
next Sunday morning at 10:00,”
church bulletin said.
I imagined sitting there,
wafer and tiny goblet of juice in hand
trying hard not to think
of what I’ll make for lunch.
It wasn’t even a prayer, just a thought
I wish it had more meaning for me again.

Early Communion Sunday morning
the book opened to the spot
kept by the crocheted cross
“The Bread that I present to the world
so that it can eat and live
is myself,
this flesh-and-blood self.”

(Ew gross!
It offended the Jews then,
‘How can this man
serve up his flesh for a meal?’

People still say,’Your religion
is too bloody.’)

“But Jesus didn’t give an inch.
‘Only insofar as you eat and drink
the flesh and blood of the Son of Man
do you have life within you.
By eating my flesh
and drinking my blood,
you enter into me
and I into you.
… bring a hearty appetite.
… make a meal of me.”*

Oh God of heaven, Jesus, Lord
On personal invitation
I’ll chew the bread, imbibe the wine
Your presence my distraction.

I cannot with my literal mind
Pretend to understand
What happens when I eat and drink
Inscrutable, heavenly plan,

It’s mystery
And intimacy,
Communion
God with man.

© 2004 by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem was first published on my blog promptings in 2004 (where still almost every weekend, seekers find it it when they Google “communion thoughts”). It’s also it in my second book Family Reunion.

*Peterson, Eugene H. The Message, the New Testament In Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs CO., Navpress, 1993, John 6 – pp. 234,235.

In stitches

I am in the choice of pattern
and in my fantasy
of how the suit sketched in tweed
will be incarnated in velvet

I am in tissue pieces
laid precisely, pinned snugly
facing the right way
on the wrong side.

I am in the concentration of my tongue
and in the rhythm of my heart
as scissor blades
crunch, crunch, crunch.

I am in the synapses that pass
from instruction sheet to brain
to fingers, in spaces
filled with the conductive medium of faith.

I am on the rolling highway of stitches, even and perfect
seams, smooth and straight
then in the pin-prick that sees
something is wrong; I must rip and return.

I am in the mirror
reflecting shoulders that bag
a waist too tight
and a skirt that sags.

Then at last, after being in gathers, easements
overcast hems and under the hot iron
I am, snug and snazzy
in this garment I have made.

© 2006 by Violet Nesdoly

I wrote this poem in response to a prompt at Poets Online (Archive: February 2006 – “In The Moment” prompt). The webmaster of Poets Online publishes some of the submitted poems for each prompt, and it made its publishing debut there.

A few months ago I discovered it had also found its way onto the site of a clothing designer. It’s in the company of some pretty things. What fun!

Transformation

“You hem me in – behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me.” Psalm 139:5 (NIV)

Shut away inside this silken crypt
I long for undulation on the pavements
wriggling up trunks and along branches
munching leaf to leaf.

Those carefree sunny days
have given way to terror
as motionless, deaf and blind
I feel Your acid-enzyme melt my heart
liquefy all that is earth-bound.

So I abandon any hope of preservation
as, redefined and reinvented
in this dark and secret vault
I’m given a new heart, antenna, legs – and wings?

Entombed–for what?
It’s surely death.
Could it also be
a new and unimagined life?

© 2005 by Violet Nesdoly

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“Transformation” won honorable mention in the 2005 Utmost Christian Writers Poetry Contest.

Candy Year

I dig through just-arrived groceries
for Cracker Jack and Pink Elephant Popcorn

hold cinnamon hearts tight with my tongue
till my mouth is on fire

pick sweating Smarties and licorice shoelaces
off the icing of my cake

sift through green cellophane straw
to find the last chocolate egg

gobble a bag of jujubes at the ball game
not tasting one

nibble a Mars bar alone in a London train station
and melt home in my mouth

stroll through the fair with sticky hands
and a cotton-candy-blue face

savor tart apples
dipped in gooey caramel

hoard the bulging pillowcase – M&Ms Chicklets
fuzzy peaches and toffees wrapped in orange and black

thrill my tongue to blisters with sour keys
in little brown bags from the corner store

sneak humbugs and allsorts
from the Christmas stash in the closet

study the map
to find the coffee cream

suck a candy cane to a pink skewer point,
making it last to the next candy year.

© 2002 – V. Nesdoly

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Have you ever noticed how almost every celebration has a candy to go along with it? A year in the language of candy is what I was trying to get across in “Candy Year,” which was first published in 2004 in Calendar.

And now to you a Happy New Year! May it be filled with sweets of all kinds!

How the Natal Star Was Born

The Son vanishes just after I am sent
to the Galilean virgin
and heaven isn’t the same.
Gone the laughter, mischief, hijinks.
Music replaced by silence
all monochromatic, sober
like the life of the party has left
and we don’t have the will
to keep partying or to go home.

The Almighty’s been moody since then
broods like never before
over calendars and seasons
looks down a lot, mostly toward Nazareth
at this blossoming virgin-still
and her earthmate.

The day this couple sets off down the road
He starts pacing pacing pacing
When they get to Bethlehem
it’s pace-pace-pace
then He pauses — Hush!

All the hosts of heaven stop their chatter
crowd behind Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David
peer over the balcony
focus on a dark building
near a sign that blinks Sorry – No Vacancy.
It’s so quiet you can hear the stars hum.

Then cutting the night
tiny and tremulous
A-wah a-wah a-wah a-wah

The Almighty laughs His magnificence
tosses His glory, flings His radiance
and then starts handing out
cig— no, trumpets
to every angel within arm’s reach
Go tell somebody, anybody!

After they’ve left He asks for the bubbly
shakes it up
pops the cork
sprays it all over heaven.

© 2005 by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem won first place in the 2004 Inscribe Spring Contest, Poetry Category and won the Pacific Theatre Christmas Presence Writing Contest in 2005, where Ron Reed read it at one of the performances.

Menno Home Christmas

Best Christmases were long ago and far away.
Weihnacht? But all is wet and green; there is no snow.
“Good morning, Mrs. Rempel, how are you today?”

At breakfast munch the toast while carols play…
sang that one in a pageant once and stole the show;
best Christmases were long ago and far away.

No gifts for them! Ach, they want money anyway…
remember sock of nuts with orange in the toe?
“Good morning, Mrs. Rempel, are you well today?

“We’ll roll you to the sunroom where you’ll want to stay
and hear the school kids sing, then Santa—Ho, Ho, Ho!”
Best Christmases were long ago and far away.

“My dear, there’s someone special here who wants to pay
Christmas Eve visit, but she’s rushed—we can’t be slow.”
“Good evening mother darling. You look fine today.”

Another dreary morning, sky is weeping, gray.
Where’s Hank, the kids and Groszpa, where did they all go?
Best Christmases were long ago and far away…
“It’s Christmas, Mrs. Rempel! How are you today?”

Copyright © 2002 by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem won first prize for Rhyming Poem in a 2002 Christmas poetry contest sponsored by Utmost Christian Writers .

Of Shepherds and Sheep

A flock of Saskatchewan sheep - © 2007 by V. Nesdoly

Abel spilled their blood
in the first acceptable sacrifice.

Abraham’s flocks flourished
though in the end
his son Isaac knew the terror
of lambs, lying bound on altar wood.

Joseph was sold to Egypt from the pasture
and the children of Israel
were segregated in Goshen
because shepherds were ‘unclean.’

Moses ran from the palace
to the mountains of Midian
where forty years as an apprentice
led to shepherding a nation.

David’s kingly character
was formed with the sheep
on Bethlehem’s hills,
for the Lord was his shepherd.

Isaiah foresaw Messiah-Lamb
and described us all
as confused and willful
wandering sheep.

Jesus would call Himself shepherd
and sheep-pen.
Even now He’s seated in heaven
a Lamb upon the throne.

What other audience was there, then,
for the angels that cold starry Judean night?

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly

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Published in Family Reunion - Utmost Publishing, 2007