tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58542413704731886572024-03-05T23:47:02.182-08:00The Ordinary and the WildLaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.comBlogger205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-91455677696226487562018-03-15T15:45:00.001-07:002018-03-15T15:47:08.149-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
Listen to the insatiable sigh of Creation,<br />
a constant psalm<br />
that knows when your homesickness<br />
burns most deeply,<br />
that embodies your boundless thirst<br />
and enters the cave of your<br />
disorderly heart<br />
without fear.<br />
Behold the kind, relentless<br />
movement of God<br />
in every electron,<br />
in particle and sky,<br />
in heron and coyote,<br />
in lake and highway,<br />
in story and stranger.<br />
The great cosmic festival<br />
incarnates again for you<br />
in every moment,<br />
summoning you home<br />
and remembering,<br />
along with you,<br />
the native Fire<br />
of your shared Heart.<br />
<br />
---lks 2016, 2018<br />
<br /></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-18020126227784027992015-12-31T15:56:00.000-08:002015-12-31T15:56:42.517-08:00Silence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Silence
has its own way of showing me things that have nothing to do with language,
vision, or anything I could directly name. I don’t know how to articulate it.
Perhaps it’s one of those things that words simply fall short of being able to
describe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, with
that said, I’ve been thinking about silence a lot today. I went out on my deck
and leaned into the space my mother used to call the portal, the space just
before the forest begins. Last night after the rain finally ended, the clouds
surrounded Sharptop and showed me gradations and spectrums of color I haven’t
seen before. The light there is always different. A blessing even in times of
grief and fear. But silence and solitude can be so kind here. They can also
seem like a desert of sorts, I confess. There’s an emptiness I feel here that
is both frightening and beautiful. I don’t think emptiness is the best word for
it, but it will have to do. It’s related to silence, I suppose. In the silence
here, there are of course forest noises, and occasionally the sound of a car
going by on <st1:street>Cove Road</st1:street> up above my property, but
there are not the claiming and clamorous voices of students or friends or
family. I love those voices most of the time. But here I feel like I’m standing
on the edge of something more than just my deck. I think I am still afraid of
it. It doesn’t just show up here. It likes to save itself mostly for the woods
and swamps. It isn’t trying to disconnect me from community or anyone else in a
tangible, literal way. But it does sure enough want something from me. Perhaps
by “it” I mean God. I suppose that’s true, since I believe (even when I don’t
feel it) that God is in everything, all of us, all the time. I think of Maurice
Manning’s beautiful poem from the Bucolics collection, the one where he’s talking
to God and says “what I want from you is nothing Boss compared to what you want
from me”. That feels very true for me too. It doesn’t feel like a scold,
though, even when I haven’t been meditating, praying, reading, or working in
the ways I feel like I “should” be. It is much more of a promise. It’s
exciting, actually. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t think it will ever be what I think it will be, that
“experience” of being claimed and held. <br />
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For
me silence is as much about seeing as anything else. For me to see in a way
that recognizes the ordinary holiness and beauty in absolutely everything, I
need silence. I don’t recognize that beauty all of the time, but when I do it
seems to permeate everything and everybody. It can be very intense, even
tiring. It doesn’t “play favorites” but it isn’t aloof or remote. It holds
everyone’s soul to its Heart, this silence. It sees everyone as its favorite. I
want to trust it more. I don’t need locutions or dramatic conversations with God,
though I hope I would be open to them if God wanted me to be. I want to feel
the Heart of silence, which I tend to feel as the Heart of Christ and of Jesus.
I am kinder and more patient when I try to put myself in this “space.” Sometimes
it comes to me of its own accord, thank God. I am thinking of so many times at
the land off of <st1:street>Griffith Road</st1:street> or over by Hidden Pond. Times
when I feel a poignancy to the edge of everything, from the sudden appearance
of a rabbit at the edge of the path to the sound of a whippoorwhill before it’s
gotten dark. There can be a melancholy present, I guess, but I don’t know that
I would really name it as such. It’s some sort of alloy. It’s something like what
Rilke wrote about in the Tenth Duino Elegy when he wished he could have
received and surrendered to his nights of suffering more closely. It’s <st1:city>Lawrence</st1:city>’s three strange angels. It
might even be a cousin of Pascal’s <i>FIRE…God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of
Jacob.</i> It’s what held me in place for unnoticed hours that summer afternoon
in Kentucky, overcome with joy and love beside the statue of Jesus and his
crimson heart. I think it must be with me all the time. If I can
begin---continue?---to be able to recognize it in any given moment, to let it
open and share its silent heart with me, I will be---what? Happy? Not that,
necessarily….maybe grateful? Actually, “present” is the best word I can find,
which is paradoxical because what I’m talking about is really, I think, more
about absence than presence---it has often felt that way, anyway. I can
sometimes conceive of the absence as a benediction, a presence, even when it
feels like emptiness, and that is a huge grace. I can’t think of anything more—or
less--I would want to pray for. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-16753481772088133502015-12-22T16:54:00.001-08:002016-01-03T15:32:23.067-08:00along the way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The early light of this midwinter<br />
weather is finally choosing<br />
its full name.<br />
Poor and transformative,<br />
the humble challenge<br />
of your desert Heart<br />
shares its imagination<br />
with every cloud,<br />
every changing sky,<br />
every hungry traveller<br />
who washes the feet<br />
of Jesus<br />
in the busy city<br />
along the way to becoming<br />
the promised Feast.<br />
<br />
----Laura Sorrells<br />
Advent 2015</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-15902387964091041222015-12-09T16:20:00.000-08:002015-12-09T16:20:34.892-08:00when?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Beside
this big old bed is a paper lamp. It is a column of orange light whispering to
someone I can’t see as I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for my thoughts to
stop. I know something I cannot say, can’t even begin to articulate, and the
orange light holds that knowledge in its secret supernatural voice like clear
water in a metal bowl. The story of light has been trying to let me know
something in my dreams. I have been resistant to it, like everyone else before
me. But there is no denying the reality of its narrative, its power, its tricky
strength, its trajectory of claiming. Filaments of orange light peer through
little holes in the paper lamp’s cylindrical body and I think of a column of
fire, a tongue of flame dancing and insistent. Something burning but stable and
unchanging. When will I know what to do? When will the silent fire decide to
speak my name? I sigh and slide between the cool white cotton of the bedsheets.
The lamp’s glass bulb flickers like a candle, goes out for a second, then
reappears, tinged with a purple undercurrent that is impossible to identify
with my eyes but is somehow undeniably present nonetheless. I sit up and listen
for the wind, for the way the branches of the shedding red oaks sound against
the glass of the big windows that open onto the forest. A shower of acorns
pelts the tin roof and the lamp gutters like a torch and goes out. Breathless
but not exactly fearful, I close my eyes to hear what the fire has to say,
adding a layer of chosen darkness to the hologram of orange and purple that
inhabits the new dark of the air around me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-28010465226094381602015-08-20T18:03:00.000-07:002015-08-20T18:03:45.045-07:00an older post where the font went ghostly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sometimes there’s a hum that hovers across and over this patch of land, like cicadas in August or the wheeze of a strange, busted harmonica a little boy might find chucked in with his toys, a mystery song waiting to happen, caught in holes between tin. But tonight the stillness separates and parses the air, like mist rising over a pond early in the morning. Just beyond the cow pasture the old log cabin has on its new face, its two chimneys stouter now and its windows immaculate and maybe even a little impenetrable. I miss its crumbling edges, the triangle of air at the bottom of the front left-hand window. And I am not sure I want the old stone wall around the little cemetery to be restored. I like the mossy moats that separate its stones. There is even talk of cutting down the cedar tree by the cemetery entrance. Its lopsided coniferous grace is a benediction to me, though, a familiar sentinel over the years, when I’ve come to pay my respects to Laura Sorrells Smith, born 1878, died 1905. Last time I was here I stacked a small cairn of stones from the pinewoods by her marker. History is palpable here, a prayer for continuity and awareness, a blessing into kin. The broken places show it best. Their shabby beauty needs the gentle tending that honors their splits and rifts, that lets their fractured beauty be seen by those who need their stories and their lonesome strength. I’ll miss them if they’re fixed. For now I don’t mind moving tousles of pinestraw away from the shapes of angels and the curves of my family name.<br />
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-62842925951923201232015-06-28T08:17:00.001-07:002015-06-28T08:17:50.959-07:00still<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Kudzu does its thing<br />
Green encroachment claiming earth<br />
No one is still home</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-41147812642101545592015-06-26T18:57:00.000-07:002015-06-26T18:57:01.454-07:00lightning <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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fireflies in the woods<br />
flashing points of vivid light<br />
mocking the Smartphone<br />
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<br />
lks 6/26/15<br />
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-40096242661974525502015-06-26T17:52:00.000-07:002015-06-26T17:52:43.124-07:00an acknowledgment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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speeding ticket paid<br />
the tyranny of the screen<br />
consumes the silence<br />
<br />
----lks 6/26/15</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-27581558256985758252015-04-12T18:38:00.004-07:002015-07-24T13:20:27.384-07:00a place in the family<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">There’s a slender lavender cloud hanging in the sky of
dusk here. The hornet’s nest, still sizeable despite its collapse in the snow
this past February, seems to have taken on some of the purple-ish hue of the
cloud. When I get up to let the cat out I can’t even see the purple cloud from
that angle. When I sat down again the cloud was almost gone, its edges already
blue and deeper than its heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The feeling of silent accompaniment has been powerfully
present the past few times I have gone walking at the church property off </span><st1:street><st1:address><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Griffith
Road</span></st1:address></st1:street><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. There was that one evening about
three weeks ago before anything had started greening up----I felt the
accompaniment so distinctly that I called out “Hello?” several times. I was
walking the Stations of the Cross but did not finish them. Then on Wednesday of
Holy Week I went out there again but didn’t even kid myself about finishing all
fourteen stations. At least I know how many there are now. Tonight I walked
around the little memorial garden, pausing at my mother’s marker, and took some
pictures of dogwood blossoms coming apart. I felt the accompaniment strongly. I
attributed it to the fact that I was near Mom’s grave, and that could have been
it. But the feeling grew. Finally I went down to the pond, the one I call Snake
Doctor Pond because of the hordes of dragonflies that gather there in summer. I
noticed a single Canadian goose in the middle of the pond, seemingly perched on
top of the water, with its neck drooping over so that it appeared to be sipping
from the pond’s surface. I think there is some metal contraption out there that
has some sort of function. Probably that’s what the goose was perched on. But
the goose was so still that at first I thought it was some sort of decoy. It
didn’t move for a long time. It didn’t make sense that it was a decoy, but it
was so perfectly still, with that arched neck. So I took some pictures of the
corner of the pond with its brassy golden light turning into glitter on the
water. When I turned back the goose had moved its head up so that it was
peering at me. I coughed and the goose kind of flinched but only a little. It
reminded me of a lone goose I saw on Holy Saturday at the monastery in 2012,
that liminal and intense day. I had just read the Mary Oliver poem Wild Geese
when I saw that goose perched on a fallen sapling in the pond shallows. I mean
that I had been sitting by the pond reading it in Mary’s Best Of Her Poetry
volume two<i>. "</i>Announcing your place in the family of things. " Tonight
my mind felt much calmer and quieter than has been usual lately, especially for
a Sunday. No anxiety, no angst, no worry, no fear. Sundays sometimes present me
with that stereotypical diffuse anxiousness that I suppose many people have
right before the work week starts back up. I thought of a couple of
things----again of the Eliot lines, “But who is that other who walks beside
you?” from The Waste Land. I think of how I looked those lines up at the
monastery a week ago yesterday, in the little retreat house library. I looked
for them in The Four Quartets for some reason first and ended up rereading
almost all of the Quartets. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and
all manner of thing shall be well.<i>" </i>I had forgotten how much I love those
poems, especially Little Gidding. The next morning, which was of course Easter,
Father Tom Francis began talking about The Four Quartets at the final
conference of the retreat. I think it was in the context of talking about
transfiguration. Fire, rose, heart, shirt of flame, be still. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The other thing I thought about tonight at the pond was a
scene in the Franco Zeffirelli miniseries Jesus of Nazareth<i>, </i>which I
have watched one and a half times since I bought the series on DVD just after
Ash Wednesday. I keep skipping back to watch scenes of healing, conversation,
and challenge, to see Robert Powell’s handsome English Jesus look happy to hang
out with the little kids, to listen to him rage at the Pharisees and draw one
small circle carefully in some sand. He puts a little dot in the center of the
circle and looks up to speak to the people about to stone the adulteress. I am
being avoidant in not watching the Passion scenes again. At any rate, the scene
I thought of was at </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Gethsemane</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, when
Judas approaches Jesus. Jesus says, This is your hour, Judas. The hour of
shadows. I found myself trying to recall if those lines were in the Gospels. I
still don’t know those texts as well as I might. There is poetry there, though,
even so. No allegory necessarily, just words that hold sound. Maybe a kind of
paradoxical nod to the darkness, calling beauty into it. Beauty was of course
already there, but it needs speaking to sometimes very deliberately.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I still kind of feel the accompaniment, even here at home.
The sky is dark now, the lavender cloud subsumed by the night. The mountain is
the same color as the forest. One roseate manmade light winks halfway up it. That
in turn reminds me of something I read in a book about the mountains and
forests around and on the Qualla Boundary, how there are these mysterious
lights that move and appear in a ghostly way, like foxfire about to become
airborne. I think of the place at the convergence of those two rivers where I
stayed this summer and of watching the geese navigate the green and silver
water as the river currents came together. I have always felt a heart of gentle
sacredness in that place. The geese seemed silent witness to that, reminding me
of my place in that family of things, of how it is no place and every place. A
body, an accompaniment, one quick light, a cloud becoming sky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-70010049306531005232015-04-11T18:27:00.001-07:002015-04-11T18:27:52.510-07:00the secret changes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My pilgrim heart<br />
waits for you<br />
in the middle of<br />
its own unrecognized<br />
silent compass.<br />
Your wordless psalm<br />
lets me pray along<br />
with it, all of us<br />
alive together<br />
here in the secret<br />
changes of faith's<br />
transfiguring night.<br />
<br />
©Laura Sorrells 2015<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-25462219566947948602015-03-22T18:51:00.001-07:002015-03-29T12:15:39.829-07:00hidden and emptied<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The
hidden breath of faith<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
murmurs
a lonely<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
little
prayer<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in
the unmoving cave<br />
of my emptied<br />
heart. Listen
to its silent</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
passion and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
surround
its shape<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with
your radiant<o:p></o:p></div>
Paschal
love.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©Laura Sorrells 2015</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all rights reserved</div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-22182393475938829542015-03-06T18:43:00.000-08:002015-03-06T18:44:38.891-08:00Where I'm From (2007 version)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM57QxJvnWqcFBUGgF7QdWOo7WQzEeK4a7yKfwD8-zK26qyTyHzeIztm7_Ys06Ntg_J0wxv44sqHKNGoGYqgj5eRq9scYPcd53JHN1yRNZSxDd26qoEcfCwAXmQg2W0JEdlzwTEjmz1ZI/s1600/may20copy73.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM57QxJvnWqcFBUGgF7QdWOo7WQzEeK4a7yKfwD8-zK26qyTyHzeIztm7_Ys06Ntg_J0wxv44sqHKNGoGYqgj5eRq9scYPcd53JHN1yRNZSxDd26qoEcfCwAXmQg2W0JEdlzwTEjmz1ZI/s1600/may20copy73.JPG" height="200" width="192" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrIUWKojdLwxAGQ-dgHpRIS8cWvOxzCDswNj6PT7-mudoUaVzlLaNebaeMcV0Yv-hp9yJGij2wOn0-mN55kNoBdj_SdR_k9mCzNVnI67iHf1xd5nBmdYU2HILRD-7NHzGkWLw3NQFk92w/s1600/momisabel4t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrIUWKojdLwxAGQ-dgHpRIS8cWvOxzCDswNj6PT7-mudoUaVzlLaNebaeMcV0Yv-hp9yJGij2wOn0-mN55kNoBdj_SdR_k9mCzNVnI67iHf1xd5nBmdYU2HILRD-7NHzGkWLw3NQFk92w/s1600/momisabel4t.jpg" height="146" width="200" /></a><br />
I am from the mountains and forests of north central Georgia, from the slanting foundation of Sorrells Springs Primitive Baptist Church, from Wild Turkey Trail and picnics in the Baldwin Street Cemetery, from the old Floyd homeplace on Dog Lane, from drinking Dancing Goats coffee with lots of sugar on College Square, from breaking curfew at North Georgia and from the greening energy of California’s Central Valley in springtime. I am from late night walks on the shores of Lake Herrick, from climbing the fire tower at Lake Conasauga, from the wall at Fort Mountain and the boom of Kennesaw cannons. I am from wild turkeys at my mother’s grave, from rose-hued sunrises over Sharptop’s spire, from go-cart paths in the pastures and from buying sweetgrass lotion at Chipa’s powwows. I am from the streets of New York City, from Big Sur and Wupatki, and from Namaste on the path at Mingo Falls. I am from wading in the Studdards’ creek, from long intellectual harangues at the Globe, and from In the Night Café. I am from the Dollar Tree and from the musty stacks at Jackson Street Books, from discount CDs at Ruthless Records and from vintage brooches found in thrift store sale bins. I am from Spanish moss on the ghost beach at Jekyll and from the tabby ruins of old Darien, from Brunswick stew and dolphins, and from Christmas fireworks over the square in Ellijay.<br />
I am from the scent of woodsmoke at Trackrock, my grandmother’s teacakes baking, my mother’s Wind Song perfume, from Nag Champa incense and patchouli oil, from the summery funk of lakewater and mud at the Braswells’ bass pond, from the poignant waft of sweetshrub and honeysuckle through my open window in springtime, from the grittiness of Athens city streets at three a.m., and from leather and hay in the tackroom at the barn.<br />
I am from Johnny Cash, from Radiohead, from REM playing incognito at the 40 Watt Club, from Gospel Jubilees on Sunday mornings on my grandma’s television set, from the Andy Griffith theme song, and from the haunted calls of whippoorwhills in the dusk over the soybean fields. I am from Two More Bottles of Wine, from Neal Pattman’s one-armed blues genius on Wednesday nights, from Smells Like Teen Spirit, and from my stairway settling in the wind on a cold January night. I am from silence and bluegrass, from grunge and discourse, from Southern drawls and crickets chorusing in the hardwoods. I am from Leonard Cohen and Patty Griffin, from Kind of Blue and Nighthawks at the Diner, and from the snapping self-conversation of the Epiphany bonfire over by the lake.<br />
I am from red-eye gravy and pancakes, from strong lattes laced with nutmeg, from Grandma’s creamed potatoes swimming in butter, from tomato aspic and mayonnaise at Thanksgiving, from pepper jelly and cream cheese, from sushi at Seal Beach, from Tut’s Chicken, and from peanuts submerged in RC Cola on a hot July afternoon. I am from my mother’s fried okra, from tentative sips of my dad’s Miller Lite, from lime fizzy water, from persimmons crawling with wasps at the edge of the woods, from the infinity of blackberries, from scorched campfire hot dogs, and from my grandma’s time-honored barbecue sauce saturating chicken breasts on Styrofoam plates.<br />
I am from Doc, Ruth, Duff, and Marjorie, from Marvin and Kathryn and Joan, and from generations of Southern housewives and farmers. I am from revenuers and sheriffs, from artistry and shock treatments, from scandal and honor, and from quiltframes and pastels. I am from bitter divorce, from grace and forgiveness, and from climbing trees and building huts in the woods with Leigh and Lynn. I am from Betsy’s crush on Erik Estrada, from Azalee’s loyal insanity, from Big Gary and Wanda, from Louis and Carolyn, from Uncle Kenneth’s incessant rocking, and from my great-aunt Fannie Mae’s recipe chests and herbal teas. I am from Mr. Gorman’s third grade writing prompts, from Hitchcock on Friday afternoons, and from making peace with small town presence and absence.<br />
I am from Chinook’s rocking canter across the Colquitts’ pasture, from Shellie’s pawshakes and Whitefoot’s atonal howls, from Connor the fighting tom with the milky left eye, and from litter after litter of April kittens birthed under the screen porch. I am from Tess’ grave at the foot of the mountainsteps, from Scoutcat Sorrells flying into the cedar tree, from rescuing the cedar waxwing, and from Bailey the chameleon. I am from the exploding aquarium at the Van Horne house, from taming Annabel, from hawk sightings over the athletic field, and from the bear on the deck during the drought. I am from five raccoons dangling from the bird feeder, from the ghost possum leaning against the glass door, and from the jackrabbit in the desert. <br />
I am from Ulysses, from Boo Radley saving the Finch kids on Hallowe’en night, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, from Julian and Lao-Tzu, and from the journals of Thomas Merton. I am from haiku and metaphor, from Yeats and Eliot, from Conrad and Hurston, from Where the Wild Things Are, Encyclopedia Brown, and A Wrinkle in Time, and from rediscovering my seventh grade diary in my dad’s attic when I was thirty-five. I am from Christabel and Blake’s Tyger, from Charlie Brown Christmas trees and Krishnamurti, from “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” and from One Hundred Years of Solitude. I am from Rumi and Issa, from Bob Dylan and Alice Walker, from Mary’s wild geese and Robert’s Mending Wall, and from Lyra and her daemon. I am from teaching Antigone to kids who can barely read, from The Highwayman and Annabel Lee, from Frankenstein and Tupac, and from reading Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes aloud to my students during Black History Month. I am from Wayfarers in Walton and The Bone People, from Sherman Alexie and John Steinbeck, and from student essays and poems crowding my dining room table.<br />
I am from Kurosawa and Kubrick, from Little House on the Prairie and Tuesday nights with mom and The Gilmore Girls, from Georgia Backroads and Prairie Home Companion, from Sesame Street and The Electric Company, and from endless reruns of Northern Exposure. I am from Wild Strawberries and Lone Star, from The Last Waltz and Night of the Hunter, from Land of the Lost and Charlie’s Angels, from Hee Haw on Saturday nights and Law and Order episodes back to back on a rainy day. I am from the peace sticker on my battered old Ford sedan, from riding bikes to the corner, from the passenger seat of the blue go-cart, and from cutting my hand open on the hood ornament of my dad’s antique Buick. <br />
I am from the warmth of flannel shirts in winter, from pinestraw beneath my bare feet, from magnolia pods crunching underfoot, from hearthheat and firewarmth at the Cove, from the gold plaid seats of my Chevy Nova, from comfort and struggle, from running through the sprinkler and inhaling chlorine water at the country club pool, from the Atlantic Ocean in December and from Pacific tidal pools crowded with black oystercatchers. I am from travel and stasis, from longing and contentment, from passion and solitude, and from loneliness and intense joy. I am from grief and connection, from remembrance and yearning, and from the celebratory richness of the journey.<br />
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----lks 2007<br />
<br />
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-70955561278030396022015-02-25T10:44:00.000-08:002015-02-25T10:44:32.504-08:00Snow Day the Second<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Snow
Day Number Two. The house is warm and secure, but parts of it are what you
might call ‘broken.’ It needs so much work. Essentially it is solid, but I see
the places where restoration needs to happen, where cracks and shifts show me
what it needs. Brokenness is sometimes just a pain in the ass, but it can also
be beautiful. As I sit and look out over the snow-touched landscape of the
mountain forest outside my window, I see the beauty in the brokenness of the
big hornets’ nest falling apart in the cold winter air. I see it in the
psychedelic vibrancy of the top part of a glass Victorian gazing ball I once
had on a stand in the front yard. Now the glass ball sits atop the glass table
on my snowy deck and captures hints of the shapes surrounding it. I notice the
shards of a broken cup, pale green and cream colored with strands of
peat-brown. I remember when an old boyfriend of mine, a man I almost married, bought
me that cup at the local <st1:place><st1:placename>Arts</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Center</st1:placetype></st1:place>. There were tiny insects—not
ants, more like candleflies or termites, but not quite those either---all over
the larger, deeper pieces of pottery on the table with the cup. There was
something haunting and curiously compelling about their presence, there in the
sharpening air of late autumn. I think now too about the brokenness of memory,
or its potential brokenness. Who can say when a memory’s life becomes broken?
Perhaps it never fully does. I do know that the courage a person with such a
memory can have is more powerful than many other things that are, or seem to
be, fully intact, whole, and undamaged. The way such a person asks kindly and
respectfully for the favor of a phone call for information, over and over even
after the information was acquired and written down in two places, can begin to
break my heart. I think of the patience that question entails. Its asking
implies that that question has already, perhaps, been asked and not
acknowledged or responded to. It does not harbor irritation or anger in the
context of that. It just, quietly and lovingly, asks again. There is something
about that echo that reminds me of the grace of prayer. I am not sure if I am
thinking about the listener or the one who is praying, or maybe of the Voice of
God and the one receiving that Voice. Maybe it’s a dialectic of both. Maybe the
asking and the answering are so closely connected that they can become almost
the same. I don’t know what that would look or sound like. Maybe that coming
together would obliterate the need for asking, but maybe not. Maybe the asking
would carry its own grace, its own respectful, adoring petition for inclusion
in the heartbeat of relationship. There is, inherent in all of this, a sweet
brokenness that, paradoxically, is not truly and finally broken at all, at
least not in any sense that keeps out what needs to get in or keeps in what
needs to be released. This Lent, living into that heartbeat seems to be what I
need. I don’t know how to define it or describe it more concretely or
adequately. It wants to come to live in my heart, and I want to let it. That’s
all I seem to need to know for now.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©Laura Sorrells 2015</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all rights reserved</div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-71528394298198855392015-02-21T16:42:00.000-08:002015-02-21T16:46:11.014-08:00This Nest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a shadow slipping away from itself into the body of the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the back of a pirate’s head, stern and foolish in its seadrenched
tousle of cloth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the wing of a raptor, tipped with sky and the shouts of smaller creatures
on the forest floor below.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the punctuation of weather.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a whirlwind, mute but full of consequence. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is an acclamation, a bow to the magic of work in the night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a cave, silent until you go deep enough to hear the sound of
waterfalls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a knot in the archetypal tree of life, puzzled by its own antiquity and
size.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the way a well looks suspended in air and soft with the deficit of
shallow mud.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a big velvet curtain with a heavy tasseled cord to make it move. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a wooden barrel waiting for the warm rain of April. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the head of a bear, asleep in a place no one knows to look for. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest has the bold but fragile determination of wax across the lip of an
envelope, waiting to be disturbed and even broken.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a witness to the work of dry days in midwinter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the shift of a clenched fist into an outstretched palm, offered
sideways as a salutation and a nod.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This nest
wants to be a bonfire but settles for claiming the bodies of fierce and
dangerous creatures who carry the sting of flame.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a saint, a relic of patience. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the cousin of the mountaintop it frames against the silver winter sky.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is some kind of promise, a paradox of stillness hoarding strength.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a cloud heavy with repentance and ready to shed its burdens into the
waiting boughs of leafless trees in Lent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest has a language made of scents and shapes, of the flavors of treebark and
basil, of the song that the eaves sing in high winds. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest knows things about the land that no one else does. It might be waiting for
the question that will make it hum like a harp or a banjo.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the cape of a journeying hero, ragged from the clutch of foreign
caverns. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a sheet of lightning, waiting for the chance to be a fork.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is a boulder stuck in the cleft of a rushing river, eager to make friends
with stranded paddlers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is the head of a giant, used to the way things look in thinning air. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This nest
claims its own sovereignty but still does what the stormwinds say it should. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest knows the syllables of three seasons and hopes to learn the language of
the fourth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
nest is not a compromise or a loss. It lives with being torn apart and
shredded. A little bit of its sleeping heart will hang around like a hologram
in the space above the forest when it falls, even if the textures of its walls
have long since crumbled. Its brokenness is part of the horizon’s memory palace
forever, one of those subtle claims that nature has on time, a bookmark
inserted in between the pages of an empty wordless book shaped like a circle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©Laura Sorrells 2015</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all rights reserved</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-78575996245184874402015-01-17T19:16:00.001-08:002015-10-09T18:44:38.045-07:00The Testament of Dom Christian de Cherge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If it
should happen one day, and it could be today, that I become a victim of the
terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Algeria</st1:place></st1:country-region>, I would like my community, my church and my
family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country. I ask
them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to
this brutal departure. I would ask them to pray for me: for how could I be
found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to associate this death with so
many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or
anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value either.
In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to
know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the
world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which
would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at
the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I
could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not
see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately
accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps
be called the "grace of martyrdom" to owe this to an Algerian,
whoever he may be, especially if he is acting in fidelity to what he believes
to be Islam.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately.
I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.
It is too easy to soothe one's conscience by identify this religious way with
the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. For me, Algerian and Islam are
not that, but rather a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I
think, in the light of what I have received from it. I so often find there that
true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother's knee, my very first
Church, precisely in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Algeria</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and already
inspired with respect for Muslim believers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obviously,
my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or
idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!" But these
persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free. This
is what I shall be able to do, please God: immerse my gaze in that of the
Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as he sees them, all
shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the
Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and
restore the likeness, playing with the differences.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For
this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have
willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of
everything. In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now
on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my
friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers
and their families. You are the hundredfold granted as was promised!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And
you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not have known what you were
doing:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this "A-DIEU" to be for you, too,
because in God's face I see yours.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">May
we meet again as happy thieves in <st1:place>Paradise</st1:place>, if it
please God, the Father of us both. AMEN! IN SH'ALLAH!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> -----Christian de Cherge</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tibhirine, 1994</span></span><br />
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Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-13523539732300239502014-08-10T09:11:00.000-07:002014-11-28T15:20:38.847-08:00a single dream<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A single dream<br />
can last<br />
forever. Here,<br />
your only<br />
companion<br />
is the patient<br />
light that makes<br />
you into<br />
a constant,<br />
living<br />
devotion.<br />
<br />
----©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-30132885595223350932014-07-23T17:38:00.000-07:002014-07-23T17:38:21.180-07:00feast and fidelity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Everyone here is waiting<br />
for the audacious touch<br />
of your fire. Our only<br />
words are songs.<br />
We hear your longing<br />
and return it,<br />
a courageous trust,<br />
a fidelity,<br />
a proclamation,<br />
a feast.<br />
We are ready<br />
for your unruly<br />
tenderness. We beg<br />
for the dangerous<br />
encounter we were<br />
born to affirm.<br />
Somewhere, someone<br />
is already remembering<br />
the child's obedient<br />
poverty, the wild<br />
and willing freedom<br />
every birth invites.<br />
<br />
-----©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved<br />
<br /></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-48816781473494943492014-07-09T15:23:00.001-07:002014-07-09T15:23:20.963-07:00one edge of things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
This part
of the woods is unfamiliar. Its edge is the kind of place that looks like it’s
going to open up into a strange city, with light the color of another world
entirely. I wonder if you know what I mean. I can remember another such place,
a woods of pine trees in symmetry and then---expansion. Or what felt like it
was going to be. In reality a little clearing existed there, and within it a
small grotto that seemed to belong in a fairy tale. I could sometimes hear
water running there if I paid attention and we weren’t in the middle of a dry
spell. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
edges of this place claim a part of my soul that is afraid to step into its
light. I’ve been told there is a river just beyond the sweep of trees. Not a
city but running water, alive and wild. Dizzy with imagined possibility, I hang
around in hiking boots, feet clad in leather watertight and unsuitable for
toeing the edges of rivers. I keep thinking I’ll go beyond the place where I
always stop, someday. I’ll just keep walking over the little ridge and there
will be the moving water that will tell me something I’ve always needed to
know. It will want me to learn its language. It won’t be scared, even though I
might be. I’ll be wearing tough-girl Tevas and I will sit on the bank of the
river and let my feet find the flowing coolness below me. I’ll sit there with
the eddies of the river around my toes and the tops of my feet, remembering the
pine-woods grotto and its delicate underwater voice, tracing new places in
clay. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-60725041231389868452014-06-18T17:43:00.000-07:002014-06-18T17:43:00.488-07:00the rhetoric of silence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The burning cure<br />
of sacramental encounter<br />
is calling me out<br />
of my stillness.<br />
The rhetoric of silence<br />
is teaching me how<br />
to ask, how to<br />
worship. How to<br />
confess the petty<br />
troubles of my<br />
willingness. How,<br />
finally, to remain,<br />
despite the pull<br />
of the world's<br />
safe and stifling<br />
strangeness.<br />
<br />
©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-20288803712180413292014-05-11T17:27:00.000-07:002014-05-11T19:14:21.574-07:00approaching the blaze<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Remembering<br />
the shy dream<br />
of your Presence,<br />
I savor a tender<br />
spinning, which<br />
keeps your obscurity<br />
distant, your response<br />
an imagined<br />
shiver. How can I<br />
approach the abiding<br />
blaze of your Body?<br />
Only in a secret<br />
life of abandonment<br />
and love. Only the<br />
speechless for-<br />
ever of your<br />
absence can make<br />
me whole.<br />
<br />
©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-55072808003796150082014-03-23T14:51:00.000-07:002014-03-23T14:51:42.796-07:00written without words<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The
humble star<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
you
point to<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
insists on </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
revelation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Free
and empty, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
my
little pilgrim’s <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
heart
celebrates its <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
shine
and what <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
it
shows us:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
family, a seed, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
silent prophet <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
abiding
in the desert;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
herald, bold and holy,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
taste of something<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
original
and wild,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
written
without words across
a living sky.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©Laura Sorrells 2014</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
all rights reserved</div>
</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-43432803357276198982014-02-11T18:04:00.000-08:002014-02-11T18:07:41.425-08:00something asking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Something fierce<br />
and patient<br />
is asking for<br />
my story.<br />
Only the secret<br />
you keep<br />
can open its<br />
longing into<br />
the claiming<br />
promise your<br />
stillness teaches<br />
me to need.<br />
<br />
©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved<br />
<br /></div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-75390544298664681492014-02-08T18:44:00.000-08:002014-02-08T18:44:05.701-08:00stirring into<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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All the busy servants<br />
of your work<br />
are trembling and silent<br />
here in the bloom<br />
of your strange blessing.<br />
Everywhere, the stories<br />
you sent us<br />
are stirring into<br />
a kind of gentle<br />
consummation. Do you<br />
recognize my giddy<br />
heart? Can you<br />
discern how its bones<br />
have made a<br />
spectacle of<br />
waiting? All along<br />
the way you've<br />
talked and burned.<br />
My silence is<br />
the history of adoration,<br />
the secret genius<br />
of losing, a swoon<br />
of thyme and thunderstorm,<br />
the way the mountain smells<br />
as you climb it.<br />
----©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-42934030052244894122014-01-07T13:24:00.000-08:002014-01-15T17:20:16.542-08:00only<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My little songs of sorrow<br />
seek the dreams<br />
your silent language<br />
brings me.<br />
No consolation,<br />
no passion,<br />
no murmurs of discernment<br />
in the healing rain.<br />
Only the impossible<br />
whispers of your<br />
heart, impoverished<br />
and empty,<br />
wordless and deep<br />
in the redemptive<br />
determination of<br />
your love.<br />
<br />
----©Laura Sorrells 2014<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5854241370473188657.post-73039497393589432612013-12-21T12:02:00.000-08:002013-12-21T12:02:41.572-08:00who?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Who says these<br />
dangerous, lonesome<br />
prayers? You talk<br />
like a creek feasting<br />
on mud. Because of<br />
this conversation, my<br />
life has become a<br />
thirst, a surrendered<br />
flag trembling<br />
in the generosity<br />
of your breath.<br />
<br />
----©Laura Sorrells 2013<br />
all rights reserved</div>
Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537269687117463579noreply@blogger.com2