Earth Song

View ascending from Toronto, ON airport, June 2013

They call me sod
loam, dirt
clay, turf, dust.

In cahoots with rain, rocks and roots
worms and grubs
perforated by ants and moles
aquifers and oil

veined with lead, copper, gold
and hiding diamonds and coal
cables, wires and pipes

I hold your huts and your tents
your houses and barns
anchor your bridges, apartments and high-rises.

In beds below rivers
lakes and oceans
I slumber.
In the open I bask in sun’s warmth
sprout and nourish your food.

Sometimes I seizure
shudder and quake
vomit magma
belch steam and ash

or slump and ooze
tongues of brown porridge
smothering your villages and roads
in mud.

But mostly I am solid and safe
keeping you upright
with my mysterious magnetic powers.

Feed me wisely
for I ingest
without discrimination

and someday soon
you will join me.
I will reclaim you.
You will again
become mine.

© 2014 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

*************
Humans have a deep and abiding relationship with earth. Our bodies consist of elements common to earth. The Genesis account of creation has God forming man from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7).

This poem ends with my tip-of-the-hat to what will happen someday to each of us—our bodies will return to the dust.* However, to clarify, I believe that the soul inside each of us lives on; even death cannot extinguish God’s “breath of life” that makes us living beings.

(*God’s words to Adam in Genesis: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread / Till you return to the ground, / For out of it you were taken; / For dust you are, / And to dust you shall return” – Genesis 3:19.)

 

Tabitha

Dorcas (Tabitha) – Artist Unknown

TABITHA

While others haggled over meat and fish
I caressed bolts of nubby linen
examined weave of wool
marveled at the rich lightness of silk.

When I became disciple
love of finery and fabric
was all I had to give
the Risen Wearer of the unseamed cloak.
Then I forsook my search
for that embroidered purple robe
which would proclaim “Gazelle.”
Instead stitched love for Him
into the tunics of orphaned lambs,
pieced sad raw sackcloth mantles
for widowed wives,
decorated girdles to flatteringly fit
more hopeful garments.

This day I find myself
(my needle stilled—
I couldn’t move it steady for the chills)
floating above them all
(strange how the drape of fabric
changes with perspective).

What is this place I enter
all so white (the fuller* here
must be exceptional)?
Beings of dazzle walk me arm-in-arm
to where He stands
and then I see what He is holding
in His hands
garment so gleaming white
I cannot look to tell
if it is silk, linen or purest wool.
“Gazelle!” He cries,
and I am held
by warm and welcoming eyes…

“Tabitha! Arise!”

I stare surprised
into amazed and tear-smudged faces
feel the sturdy weight of covers
hear the squeals of children
remember—it seems years ago—the tunic
I put down yesterday,
and know that I again
take up the shuttle
to weave the warp and woof of life
as ever—but not
for I have seen my robe
and looked into His eyes.

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly

(Based on Acts 9:36-42)

*****************

This week Adele Kenny’s poetry prompt was to write about heaven. After reading it I thought of this poem I wrote some years ago. It was inspired by the story of Tabitha from Acts 9:36-42 in the Bible. Tabitha (who is also known as Dorcas and whose name means gazelle) was an early Christian woman who got sick, died, and was then raised to life by Peter.

I’ve read many accounts of near-death experiences, and I’m sure my imaginings were influenced by those stories in my flight of fancy about how Tabitha spent the time between dying and coming back to life.

(Though written years ago, this poem fits into my current project—poems about women of the Bible.)

This post is part of Poetry Friday, hosted today by Julie Larios at The Drift Record / Julie Larios

“Tabitha” was previously published in my book Family Reunion – 2007, Utmost Christian Writers

* fuller:  The word “full” is from the Anglo-Saxon fullian, meaning “to whiten.” (See complete definition, bottom, under Bible Dictionary definition.)

 

The witness of rooms

The Witness of Rooms

The heart of our family was the dining room
more than the tight kitchen
with its claustrophobia of cupboards
woodbox on wheels, tilting-out flour bin
that hid desperate-legged beetles
and gas stove whose oven POOF!
terrified me when I was eight.

The dining room had the fridge
and the wood table squeak-stretched to fit eleven.
Beside it sat the bench for four brothers
squished in a row–-the bench where I swayed organ
when we pretended church, the bench I left
seconds before the plaster
crashed from the ceiling
leaving a hole the shape of Africa.

The living room was off the dining room
our house’s holy of holies
cold, and kept tidy for company
though it had the piano
so I was allowed in to practice.
Its cracked north wall showed off Mom’s clever
camouflaging wallpaper vine
its south had a bay window
that nooked ancient plants
under panes of tinted gold and rosy.
There was also a green stuffed chair
and a matching couch
from where, on sick days
I watched the flowers in the curtains
stare at me, then whisper to each other.

That house has another room now
–-one my brother and his wife added
to watch TV and store stuff.
On the other side of the kitchen and two steps down
it has glass doors that gaze
onto an endless field.
They had lately moved into it a hospital bed.
I visit on the weekend of the memorial:
the bed is gone now.
I study the red walls
the only ones in this old house
to have witnessed such a thing.
They give nothing away.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

******************

Two years ago today (January 25, 2011) my brother passed away after a several-year battle with cancer. He died in the farmhouse where we grew up. In this personal poem, I recall some of the scenes the walls in that farmhouse have witnessed. What would be the memories of the walls in your house?

This poem is part of Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference.