Fragments of Beauty by Natalie Weaver

By Natalie Kertes Weaver on February 6, 2020 • ( 1 )

Can I empathize with your feeling,
your interest in this?
Be sound, my heart that feels
the beat of yours as my own.
I would like to be human one day.

Let my prayer be not please,
for, I fear I have been
an ungrateful guest,
sojourning pilgrim, refugee.
All this life, all will be,
a lesson in how to say
thank you.

These sides are not sharp antagonisms
that bring to points their points of view
but a pond’s surface under moonlight,
swirling like mercury, beneath which minnows,
fluid, do their works of harmonious disruption.

a city made of music
a city made of dreams
a city made of gardens
a city on a stream

oh, frontier Romana
who passes through the east
this is where my heart was cast
and carried out to deep

Darling, do you know me
Darling, do you see?
this is where I want you
where I long to be

how I yearn to see you
ruddied by the cool
Why were not you by me
then? then before I knew

yet, I trusted have you
trusted I could seek
now and wish to strew my ash
across the Blackest Sea

here to be uncluttered
here un’cumbered flesh
here our single soul to spread
and all the rest dispersed

I have come to you across the distance of years
That you might be redeemed in me
And know covenant by the measure of my love
I will comb your hair and bathe your soul
I will anoint you with my blood
I will mold and fire and decorate
The world beneath your feet
And I will dance until it is done
And broken into sleep

Natalie Kertes Weaver, Ph.D., is Chair and Professor of Religious Studies at Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio. Natalie’s academic books include: Marriage and Family: A Christian Theological Foundation (Anselm, 2009); Christian Thought and Practice: A Primer (Anselm, 2012); and The Theology of Suffering and Death: An Introduction for Caregivers (Routledge, 2013). Natalie’s most recent book is Made in the Image of God: Intersex and the Revisioning of Theological Anthropology (Wipf & Stock, 2014). Natalie has also authored two art books: Interior Design: Rooms of a Half-Life and Baby’s First Latin. Natalie’s areas of interest and expertise include: feminist theology; theology of suffering; theology of the family; religion and violence; and (inter)sex and theology. Natalie is a married mother of two sons, Valentine and Nathan. For pleasure, Natalie studies classical Hebrew, poetry, piano, and voice.