JOURNAL OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF QUAKERS IN THE ARTS
Poems from Types & Shadows, issues 1-22
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- Juliana Blom Bates
- Ruth Harriet Jacobs
- Sue Parritt
- Jamie Parsley
- Jeneal Turnbull Ravndal
- Elizabeth A. Schultz
- Virginia Masland Stetser
- Juliana Blom Bates
- Index to Poetry on this Site
Juliana Blom Bates (Doylestown, PA)
MEETING FOR BUSINESS
I am a potter
clay is my life
daunting possibility
is the nature
of each medium:
clay
paint
flute
words
dance
relationship
time
money and
Meeting
each Soul brings
inner and outer
vision to form a new
parentpiece:
a child from the
heart of
endless possibility
No seeds, these,
repeating genetic instructions in rows
but small pieces
of the Great Spirit
forming and reforming
the ever new
age old
Divine Truth
hearts open to fresh possibility
knowing how it was
wondering how it can be
will be
unknowing together
the artist and Quaker
await the new
that revelation for
not then
but NOW
a now that is in the heart of
Always
T&S #12)
Ruth Harriet Jacobs (Wellesley, MA)
DRY SPELL
Sometimes you wonder
when your next poem will arrive
worry where it will come from
You consider advertising for a muse
in the want ad section
or turning in your poetic license
or taking up essay writing
In a plane or waiting room
suddenly a poem bangs on your head
you search your purse for paper
without finding a scrap
Then the poem writes itself
on the margins and over an ad
in the airline magazine
or on your checkbook
you tear the page out gratefully
and laugh or cry a bit
knowing the poems will not give up
(T&S #20)
Sue Parritt (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
Sue Parritt writes: Susan L. Chast's piece, Blessed with More Life, moves me to share this poem. I wrote it shortly after my son David returned from living in England, with his partner Ben.
HOMECOMING
for David & Ben
After the long thread of separation
the joyful reunion
one by one
I pick up the stitches
recreate the fabric of family
But time has altered the pattern
I have no experience
of this new design
Grant me skeins of sensitivity
patience compassion
as row by row
I re-fashion the garment
love the force that drives the needles
(T&S#18)
Jamie Parsley (West Fargo, ND)
REVELATION
(after a poem by Angel Gonzalez)
God exists in music. In the center of an echo, his gigantic shining heaven opens. Timeless, infinite, creation overflows its boundaries. What strange constellation would dare shine to the ends of creation? Radiant scales spread out bridging one heaven to another, faking the power of proof.
I'm astounded!
It's true!
God exists in music!
A beat,
three more &'—
I'm alone again)
Jamie writes: I translated "Revelation" directly into English from the original Spanish and then, once I had made a somewhat rough translation, I re-worked it through a few more drafts, keeping the same feel to the poem but making it more my own poem. (It was not originally a prose poem.)
(T&S #11)
Janeal Turnbull Ravndal (Wallingford, PA)
From Janeal Ravndal's 1997 Christmas card : "a seasonal sample of a new form using all and only the 100 Scrabble tiles":
SEASON'S GREETINGS
O FRIEND,
O LAMP OF GOD,
BEND NEAR.
A QUIET WISH-—
A COZY YEAR;
TRUE SLEEP, TRUE TALK,
MIX IN GOOD WIT.
(GIVE US A BIT!)
LOVE,
CHRIS AND JANEAL
(T&S #20)
Elizabeth A. Schultz (Lawrence, KS)
ERRAID
No errant footprint
Marks this sand:
Only the waves' imprint,
Perfect penmanship,
Line on regular line.
Stepping foot here, I am
The original copy-editor,
Troubling this clean text,
Incapable of estimating
The centuries
Of birds, crabs, worms
Who've written out
Their lives
On this tidal flat.
CAMERA
It invades, excludes,
With imperial nonchalance,
But on a day alone,
Traipsing over bracken chaos.
Into shimmering vistas
Of stepping-stone islands,
I find it focusing,
Authenticating self
Within wilderness,
Dissolving isolation,
Inscribing leaf
And landscape as companions,
With the track ahead
Persisting across stiles
Into memory.
from chapbook Journey to the Hebrides: June 15-July 1, 2000(T&S #21)
Virginia Masland Stetser (Vero Beach, FL)
EVERYBODY WAITS
Everybody waits for something.
The photographer waits for that one perfect picture,
The poet for the right words in the right order,
The architect for a client with faith in his art.
It is to be assumed that there is purpose
In waiting, that accomplishment
Is accessible. Should that prove erroneous
A great many people are wasting energy.
Energy is not to be treated lightly.
It blazes with fires of spring
Born of the sun, so bright it must not
Be looked at directly, but obliquely
In order that wonder may burst upon
The scene and explode with passion
When blessed by the action
Of the subconscious. Wait for it
THE MIND OF GOD
The mind of God amazes me
It holds such quantities of life.
It flees from nothing menacing,
misplaced, or shallow, may be found
in genes and spinning galaxies
or hidden in the moon's bright crown
as if it had nowhere to go.
Apportioned in immensity
the mind of God amazes me.
(T&S #14)
All poems on this page are copyright by the authors. Used with permission.
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Types & Shadows is published quarterly by the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. Subscriptions are available through membership in the FQA.
This page added January 2002