(A found poem, lifted from the pages of “Walking on Water” by Madeleine L’Engle)
A covered bridge in autumn
The silent dying of the green pie-apple tree
Slow down and listen:the telling of stories around tribal fires
the drawing of animals on the walls of caves
the death of green in autumn –A recurrent ache in the heart of God
Listen to the silence
Slow me downForced to smile, to write,
the very vehemence:
Stop and listen.Rebellious, I feel
reluctant to think, I feel
the presumptionSlow me down, Lord.
Kelly Belmonte is Poetry Editor for Literary Life
She has been writing poetry for over 30 years and blogging for ten (mostly at allninemuses.wordpress.com). Important poetic influences have included Kobayashi Issa, R.M. Rilke, Marge Piercy, Malcolm Guite, Frank Gaspar, and many other fine poets. Her work has been published in Atlas Poetica, Relief Journal, The Literary Nest, Open: Journal of Arts & Literature, and Ruminate, and included in The Word in the Wilderness (Canterbury Press, 2014) and Love, Remember (Canterbury Press, 2017). She also contributed a chapter on the poetry of C.S. Lewis to Women and C.S. Lewis (2015), a collection of interviews and essays on the theme of Lewis and women in his life and writings. Kelly’s two poetry chapbooks, Three Ways of Searching (2013) and Spare Buttons (2014), are published by Finishing Line Press.
Kelly Belmonte’s image by CloudNinePortraits.com
Header photo by Wenni Zhou on Unsplash