As we approach Tisha B'Av this year, our Beloved Community is grieving. Not for the fall of the Temple, but for the fall of our own country, a great shattering of (what was already stretched thin) trust, a growing dread fear. It is traditional to recite psalms daily, especially Psalm 137. Fringes' member Sue Hoffman … Continue reading Tisha B’Av: Crying Out
Category: Poems
Praying with Fringes 06/05/2018
Has my heart gone to sleep? Antonio Machado Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty, only shadow inside? No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming-- its eyes are opened wide … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 06/05/2018
Praying with Fringes 05/10/2018 – we must be hard To move among the tender with an open hand
An Observation May Sarton True gardeners cannot bear a glove Between the sure touch and the tender root, Must let their hands grow knotted as they move With a rough sensitivity about Under the earth, between the rock and shoot, Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit. And so I watched my mother's hands … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 05/10/2018 – we must be hard To move among the tender with an open hand
Praying with Fringes 05/08/2018
How I Would Paint Happiness Lisel Mueller Something sudden, a windfall, a meteor shower. No -- a flowering tree releasing all its blossoms at once, and the one standing beneath it unexpectedly robed in bloom, transformed into a stranger too beautiful to touch from "Imaginary Paintings"
Praying with Fringes 07/07/2017 – and pledge my allegiance to all the dirt of the world
Patriotism Ellie Schoenfeld My country is this dirt that gathers under my fingernails when I am in the garden. The quiet bacteria and fungi, all the little insects and bugs are my compatriots. They are idealistic, always working together for the common good. I kneel on the earth and pledge my allegiance to all the … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 07/07/2017 – and pledge my allegiance to all the dirt of the world
Praying with Fringes 07/06/2017 – that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
Reverence Julie Cadwallader-Staub The air vibrated with the sound of cicadas on those hot Missouri nights after sundown when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn, sank into their slung-back canvas chairs tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat and we sisters chased fireflies reaching for them in the dark admiring their … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 07/06/2017 – that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
Praying with Fringes 07/05/2017 – and come
Raspberries Judith McDaniel Others ripen slowly into darkness; You hide beneath a leaf and come in swift and fragrant redness.
Praying with Fringes 06/16/2017 – one of the doors into the temple
Today Mary Oliver Today I'm flying low and I'm not saying a word. I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I'm taking the day off. Quiet as a … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 06/16/2017 – one of the doors into the temple
Praying with Fringes 06/15/2017 – so I can reach my own face up to his and let him drink the sugar from my lips
Bee Balm Gerald Stern Today I’m sticking a shovel in the ground and digging up the little green patch between the hosta and the fringe bleeding heart. I am going to plant bee balm there and a few little pansies till the roots take and the leaves spread out in both directions. This is so … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 06/15/2017 – so I can reach my own face up to his and let him drink the sugar from my lips
Praying with Fringes 05/12/2017 – we are the ones that trample and soar and bulldoze
Now May Alicia Ostriker Now May cries out again, I'm here, I'm here until tulips roar like lions, daffodils scream like witches robins puff their chests out, sumptuous maples shout for a wind to come over and wrestle, but as for us we belong to the species that thinks it can change the laws we … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 05/12/2017 – we are the ones that trample and soar and bulldoze
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah 