Poetic Respite

at just the right time.

Between illness and intensity of obligations of this week, I have had little time to write. Perhaps you have little time to read. In which case, we’re a perfect match right now.

One thing I know about poetry is that it tends to come back around again, at the opportune time, and in times like these of mental and physical weariness.

Case in point, Anna Kamienska. I first heard her name years ago when I was teaching and like so many wonderful things that crossed my desk in the faculty room from my colleagues, a photocopy of this poem appeared one day like a shining beam.

A Prayer That Will Be Answered

Lord let me suffer much
and then die

Let me walk through silence
and leave nothing behind not even fear

Make the world continue
let the ocean kiss the sand just as before

Let the grass stay green
so that frogs can hide in it

so that someone can bury his face in it
and sob out his love

Make the day rise brightly
as if there were no more pain

And let my poem stand clear as a windowpane
bumped by a bumblebee’s head ¹

Fast-forward about half a lifetime to a retreat exactly one year ago. (I know this to be true because I’m home sick from the same retreat as I write this, alas.) I was bouncing my friend’s baby as she went up to share with the group about the concept of faith, and she quoted line for line the poem above. I was electrified.

Then, just last week, I had the word “astonishment” rolling around in my head. I let it roll, considering its relation to attention, to prayer, to curiosity. I was in this very state when I ran my finger along the bookshelves at a small local library I don’t usually visit and saw:

You can’t make this stuff up. Needless to say, I’ve been enjoying this collection which not only includes the poem I quoted above, but also the following one, which I hope gives you provision as it has done me.

Through the Body

Our weaknesses are the way to God

Tell me why it is through the body

through torment of the body you speak to the spirit

why through leprosy fever deafness

You are a healer and not a priest

you take in your hands the head of the dying

from one lump you bring forth new life

like bread you multiply the body

You come through bodies not through sunsets

and the hard strong hand of blood and flesh

holds in the palm like a sparrow

the muscle of the human heart

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By the way, stay tuned for another project in the wings for 2026. I’m building it out right now, so here’s a teaser:

I don’t have to tell you that we’re drowning in online content and especially inundated with images and text we’re not confident are entirely real. The meteoric and simultaneous rise of social media, large language models and political polarization have seemingly conspired to make the Internet much less joyful, les true, less free, and let’s just be honest — less fun. We see our neighbor not as she or he is, but as if in a not-so-funhouse mirror, distorted, leading us to fear and inability to reach out in love. Let’s do something different.

Love,

Abbey

1. Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh