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).
*** Narrative Lectionary ***
Lectionary Reading:
1 Kings 17:1-24
CLASSIC POEM:
Drought
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Why do we pity those who weep? The pain
That finds a ready outlet in the flow
Of salt and bitter tears is blessèd woe,
And does not need our sympathies. The rain
But fits the shorn field for new yield of grain;
While the red brazen skies, the sun’s fierce glow,
The dry, hot winds that from the tropics blow,
Do parch and wither the unsheltered plain.
The anguish that through long, remorseless years
Looks out upon the world with no relief,
Of sudden tempests or slow dripping tears—
The still, unuttered, silent, wordless grief
That evermore doth ache, and ache, and ache—
This is the sorrow wherewith hearts do break.
CONTEMPORARY POEM:
The Hidden
Troung Tran
SNIPPET:
…
she is the mother of five a wife
a widow it is easy to forget
her strength in its subtlety
she keeps it hidden
like the smell of apple juice
that reminds me
of my family the eighteen days
we spent on a tanker
…
[ READ THE FULL POEM ]
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