Lectionary Poetry – 19th Sunday After Pentecost (Year A)

With the dawn of a new church year, we have launched a new feature on our website, a weekly post of poetry that resonates with the lectionary readings for that week (Revised Common Lectionary).

* Revised Common Lectionary *

Lectionary Reading: Exodus 32:1-14

(NOTE: this lectionary text and associated poems are the same as that of this week’s Narrative Lectionary.)

CLASSIC POEM:

The Hammer
Carl Sandburg

I have seen
The old gods go
And the new gods come.

Day by day
And year by year
The idols fall
And the idols rise.

Today
I worship the hammer.

*** This poem is in the public domain,
and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.

CONTEMPORARY POEM:

Counting to Six Million
Richard Michelson

SNIPPET:

V.
And who will remember my father when I am gone? And
how many have died since his death? And what’s one more.
or one less. And what do I know of my father’s father?
I’m waiting outside, engine humming, as my son,
eighteen, registers. And now he’s shouting,

running towards me, arms pumping above his head.
He’s Moses the moment before spying the golden calf.
He’s his great grandfather crawling underground to freedom.
He’s my father flying medical supplies, surviving the crash.
My mother must have held him close. You’re home, she cries, safe.

…