the way it unfolded into wisdom
Sophie's Table full of men and women
around her trying to figure out how
to make the world safe for women and children
which means a world where men too
are safe and wise, eating the bread
of thanksgiving making wise the simple
Conversation with our Elder, James Cone
laughter good food and a way forward
poetry, tears and the kind of truth
that makes your gums ache
in the telling
I am full with the wisdom of questions
the way preachers/poets lean into
the horror stories and learn to tell
them well, to sink their teeth
into the flesh of them
to say Hagar didn't deserve
this raw desertion, this abandonment
this having to face the beasts of
the wilderness alone
she didn't deserve it
and neither did her firstborn
son, Abraham's firstborn son
Ishmael the rightful heir
from whom was stole his birthright
and the right to be in safety
this day was about Ishmael
and Hagar and all the women
and children who struggle to survive
when they've been abandoned
in the name of God
it was about Thomas having more
faith in God than the disciples
reporting a ghostly sighting--
he had no reason to believe
their report since they had already
proven unreliable sources
it was about poets fingering the walls
in the dark, trying to find their way
to truth in the midst of stories
to truth in the midst of stories
and their own struggle
holding the corners with their palms
searching for the room of memories
of worlds they discovered in books
and their own lives and figuring out
how to go forward from here
and what to tell the people
© Valerie Bridgeman
April 5, 2013
DRAFT
(posted after midnight because we were out celebrating Catharine A. Cummings' 30th birthday)
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