Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Bittersweet orange
invokes wounding
past torment endured
at the hands of those
who would harm.
Air is lightened,
cleansed by absence
Trees rejoice
Slaughter shifts perspective
Despair presses Diamond.
Fritillary seeks
her flower
lover in waiting
Tongue seeking.
Continue reading “Butterfly Wounding by Sara Wright”I’ve been told that most children in the United States learn to write haiku in third grade. At the very least they learn that haiku is a traditional poetic art form using seventeen syllables divided into lines of 5 – 7 – 5. The idea is to capture a moment in time. The famous Japanese poet/priest, Issa (1763-1828), focused on creating haiku using his love for nature in the process.
I did not grow up in the American school system, so it wasn’t until I took an undergraduate Zen Buddhism course that I learned to appreciate and have fun with creating this particular kind of poetry.
In the following haiku, I try to capture the moment I experienced the natural scene in front of me. Taking a photograph and then writing an accompanying haiku can be a meditative exercise. I keep striving to make that exercise a daily happening.
I need an abortion and I can’t get one
Because I don’t have the money to fly somewhere else other than …here
Where I can’t get one
I need an abortion and I can’t get one
Because the kid, or the cells of a maybe kid, were put in here by the guy that raped me and if I have to have it, I will kill myself
I need an abortion and I can’t get one
Because I have four kids already and I can’t feed another one
I need an abortion and I can’t get one
Because it’s my dad’s…did you hear me say that? I have never said that. I have never said what he does to me…and now I have to show everyone… if I can’t get this out of me I will…
I have to get this thing out of me
I need an abortion and I can’t get one
Continue reading “A Chorus of Need: I Need an Abortion by Marie Cartier”
In Maine the 4th of July…The bottom line is that women don’t create the chaos and unbearable noise that men do. It comes to a ‘head on the 4th – a time to create misery for all people who are peace loving – just more indication of the breakdown of our culture… I fear that patriarchy may live on until it destroys all we know.
Refuge (before bombing)
A symphony
of phoebe song
a river of stone
blessed by rain….
Beech leaves beckon,
crystal waters soothe
Hemlocks hum
I am part of
all there is…
Powers that harm
live just next door.
Leaning into Presence
At the forest edge
twigs rustle,
papery leaves
betray
a vision of grace
emerging
from behind
my chair.
Staring intently
liquid coals
will me
to turn…
You nibble
a few grasses
at my feet
without fear.
We meet
on pine strewn paths
or when I trim
cherry or rose
plucking old thorns.
Continue reading “Little Red Deer by Sara Wright”To spend time in nature and deeply connect with Her is to allow enough time for Her surprising wisdom and dreamlike insights to open up for me. I call this “Plein Air Poetry.” It’s a joy to wait in nature and see who connects with me on any given day.
These poems come with the gratitude of very early Spring when Her first shoots and flowers, such as the weeping cherry which birds have planted all over my yard, begin to appear like mysterious veils over winter’s greyness.
Greening April 6, 2022
Suddenly I awaken, early April,
and a diaphanous green veil
has draped over the weeping cherries,
the first to bloom with delicate, drooping grace.
Fecundity: the ability to produce an abundance of new growth, but also the ability to produce new ideas
And now in the hour of our discontent, we are asked to worry about
fecundity. I suppose we can call it that—have we made enough babies yet?
As a people. A people ruled by patriarchy. No small thing. “A social system in which males dominate and hold primary power.”
Oh my god—am I sick of it? Anyone with a brain is sick of it…I want to think.
But they have brains, right? The afore mentioned patriarchs? Who are
creating this new social system?
A meme goes out on social media—I’m not pro-murder I’m pro-Ellen, thirteen years old and pregnant by her father
I’m pro-Margaret, with five kids and I cannot to afford to feed another
I’m pro-Eliza, pregnant with a baby known to have serious birth defects
I’m pro– you get the idea.
Continue reading “A Poem for Our Abortion Rights by Marie Cartier”
When Reverend Anne Hines of Roncesvalles United Church in Toronto invited me to write a poem for Easter Sunday 2020, I had no idea that this invitation would become a dance with Word via words, that would alter my very own relating and relationship with my métier: poetry. A relationship that began to take me back into reading The Bible in a manner that shone a powerful light on the fact of that book’s capacity to shake, quake, challenge, and enlighten from the place of love, Wisdom, and indeed, inclusivity.
Each Monday I receive three to four words or phrases based on the book around which the Sunday sharing will be grounded. I read the chapter. I read with the HEaRt of womyn’s voice-ing. I read to unearth, to divine, to HEaR what is being invited, and how. The underpinning of my HEaRt’s listening, is the question: how does Godde wish for us to love?
Continue reading “Voice-ing the HEaRt: The Sixty-Six Books of the Bible by Margot Van Sluytman”
This morning the skin of the earth turns white and wild winds howl.
Yesterday, rain, fog and mist lifted the snow into sweet moisture – laden air.
I rest in peace.
Continue reading “Resurrection by Sara Wright”
Black eyes
smooth white
supple body,
budded branches
torching
cobalt sky
in pink;
hidden roots
are fed by
March waters.
Continue reading “Birch in Spring 2022 by Sara Wright”
Feminism and Religion 