I just returned from a National Poetry Month celebration of which I was the host. The York, Pa. Poet Laureate, Carol Clark Williams, was the guest of honor.
To celebrate National Poetry Month, I decided to make the event at St. Michael’s Reformed Episcopal Church on April 13 – today – be a tribute to religious poetry. That’s why I asked Ms. Williams to be the featured reader. I knew she was a Christian and a darn good poet. I was not disappointed, and neither were the others in attendance. Carol read some poems I’d not heard before, including the one reprinted below:
The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks
I have rocked you in my body,
small ship inside flawed bottle,
eager to set sail on stranger seas.
In a dream I carried you
past fallen fence rails
into a quiet orchard
where branches offered both
white blossoms and ripe fruit.
For you I have created mythology:
gibbous moon waxing,
the tallest pointing pine,
wild grasses, Morning Star,
Oracle Maiden tattooed
with symbols of Eternity.
For you, I would design rites of passage
painless
but significant.
I would set your path into the mountains
with flat stones
deeply chiseled with words like:
“Courage” and “Believe.”
You have made me
a fogbound ancient harbor;
I watch the West horizon
for your returning sail.
Crosswords: The Literary Journal
“The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks” is also a part of a literary journal called CROSSWORDS, which is sponsored by York Otterbein United Methodist Church. Carol Clark Williams is the editor along with Pastor Skip Spangler.
The journal is a nice first edition and is available for a $5 donation. Framed as an outgrowth of the Grace Place, a contemporary service of York Otterbein United Methodist Church, it’s a saddle-stapled issue that includes verse from Christian writers and is done rather well. Printed on regular stock with a heavy stock cover, the design is simple yet elegant and includes a versatile array of forms and styles within the Christian tradition. I also like the use of a quote from Mother Teresa on the back page of the journal, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.”
For more information on CROSSWORDS or on the Grace Place, contact yorkotterbein at comcast dot net or Carol Clark Williams at lucybeanstalk at verizon dot net. The church’s website is www.yorkotterbein.org. Tell Carol you liked her Christian poem.