A January Micropoem

Garderie goodbye:

with a gloved finger

the mother draws

a picture for her child

in her breath

on the glass between them.

(a garderie is a daycare center)

We welcomed a new baby at the cathedral this week - this is from an original photo by V.

While we're on the subject of poetry and mothers and children, there's a terrific interview ("Embodied Miracles") with Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi this week on Via Negativa. I listened to it last night, and was quite touched, especially toward the end. I'd started out listening as I exercised, but ended up sitting quietly, feeling like a privileged third party in this conversation between her and Dave. I loved hearing Rachel read her poems, and appreciated what she said about the closeness of certain Hebrew and Arabic words, but the religious mischief in me was particularly delighted by her feminization of God in her poems about miscarriage, childbirth, and motherhood - she's making a little trouble, yes, but much more than that, she's giving permission for a new language and new way for women to speak about the spiritual dimension of these huge events in their lives. Rachel will be ordained a rabbi next year; I've known her for about five years now, and greatly appreciate her intelligence and sensitivity as a thinker, a poet, and a friend.

Comments

[Vivian]

Before bouncing over to Rachel's content, I wanted to share a quote from the Christmas issue of the Prairie Messenger a weekly newspaper produced by Benedictine monks in Saskatchewan (the subsequent issues arrived beforehand but I guess there was a Christmas logjam somewhere in the bowels of Canada Post). Large on the front page, this from Meister Eckhart: "What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born."

[Peter]

I was so excited to hear this issue that I pushed the wrong button and heard a few recent qarrtsiluni podcasts instead. I love the episodes in which Dave and you talk about the images on qarrtsiluni. You each invariably bring different, interesting perspectives, and your chemistry is uncommon, even for radio.

So I still plan to hear Rachel's interview during my workout tomorrow.

[Peter]

So now I've heard it. It lived up to your billing, and then some.