Reta's Garden

Water flowing, flame inspiring, life
reclaiming, birdsounds and laughter, friendly face,
soaring birds, spirit everywhere.
Greening power of life, abundant, lush
into death, cycled rebirth, air and sun,
invitation, spirit within, communal
bonds, now and ever.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2018

Comments

Post a Comment

Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please be sure to be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Hunters and Hunted

(Upon visiting Montgomery, Alabama's Legacy Museum; National Memorial for Peace and Justice; Civil Rights Memorial and Center)

I am among the daughters of fate; hunters and hunted.
The sins of our fathers' bodies lay the shame in ours.
Ghostly voices, hard to hear, but listen.
Born, bound, and died in the shackles of hate.

The numbers speak: Twelve million kidnapped.
You feel it in your body; in the knot in the pit of your stomach and the breath that struggles to escape from your throat.
What would you do if they came for you? What would you do? You.
Whites only!
        Whites only!
                Whites only!
                        Whites only!
                               Whites only!
                                        Whites only!
                                                Whites.

The numbers speak: twenty-four thousand enslaved.
Waiting for God bravely.
Cruelty, depraved.
A people shaped by slavery. We are all shaped by slavery. 
The sins of our fathers'…
Read more

Two Days after the School Shooting

How can rustling trees dance their wild dance,
shimmering leaves and birdsong symphony;
how can sunshine in the sky take a chance,
When not yet buried in the grave is he?

How can the butterfly, fly so carefree,
How can the trees still stand and earth still turn,
How are clouds afloat ‘cross the sky, lazy,
When the mourners have not begun to mourn?

Why don't meetings, work, and email, adjourn?
I need some space and time to pause today.
I'm drowning in emotions and concerns.
I need to not have to know what to say.

I do know I will have to find a way,
But I'm a little raw right now to start.
So can't I wait until a better day?
I skinned my knee only it was my heart.

Corruption proliferated and greed’s
the new normal; not sure how to proceed.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019


Read more

There are No Words (Spenserian Sonnet)

How do they take their exams, deciding
their future, with their heart still pounding, fear
in their throats, frantic mem'ries, surviving
(some did not) a meeting with Death, terror
storming the mind, the test faced now is clear,
our collective test, the only fact we
must learn is forty-thousand dead last year
from guns, breath-taking, can you guarantee
my students they will not die today, me
that my next lecture will not be my last,
war zone, hell on earth, no one, nobody,
should fear they will be shot sitting in class.

When the last, by violence, has been killed,
will the trees and butterflies notice the still?

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019



Read more