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
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"
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
when you become the rain Martha Courtot when you become the rain things get easier your hands grow more able to touch the dusky earth of course your name changes you choose you insist on your choice you move across the day and light follows having transformed dissolved alchemized you have said good-bye to … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 04/06/2017 – your hands grow more able to touch the dusky earth
Thaw Martha Courtot no matter how long the Winter is thaw comes season by season we learn this too slowly no matter how long we have spent wrapped in a frozen season no matter how deep under the snow the private grief lies one day thaw comes we are never prepared for it and what … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 02/12/2016 – and we open our eyes to earth-shift
A Short Testament Anne Porter Whatever harm I may have done In all my life in all your wide creation If I cannot repair it I beg you to repair it, And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the old Whom I have roughly dismissed As if I … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 02/04/16 – And all your unimaginable promises
Here in the Time Between Jack Ridl Here in the time between snow and the bud of the rhododendron, we watch the robins, look into the gray, and narrow our view to the patches of wild grasses coming green. The pile of ashes in the fireplace, haphazard sticks on the paths and gardens, leaves tangled … Continue reading Praying with Fringes 03/06/2014 – the anarchy of mud and seed
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah 