New Poems

I'm currently working on final project for my Theological Aesthetics class involving Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry's poetry. The last five or so pages of the paper will be my own poems dealing with nature, faith, the transcendent experience, and organized religion. Here are my first two attempts (still in draft form).

Doubt
I do not know if I have a soul.
Or if, when I die I will return
to bits of bone, and dust, and ash.
But is that really so terrible?
To remain as part of the prairie grass and pine trees,
to have a sparrow shake me from her wings
before flight seems, sometimes,
more beautiful than staring off the edge of a cloud.
Please, if I must go, give me a few more moments.
Another nap in the afternoon sun and sweet birdsong.
One more chance to dig my garden in the warm spring dirt
before I am spirited away to harps and halos
or darkness and silence.


The Simplest Thing

It begins so simply.
Quit your job.
The one you've always hated, but kept,
Because sticking things out is what you do as an adult.
Once you've rid yourself of your job, take everything you own
Except a pair of boots, a change of clothes, and the little book
Of Rilke's elegies you've always kept in your pocket.
Tell your love they can follow, or wait,
or leave if they want to,
but you are going. Linger,
briefly at the crossroad just outside of town.
But do not regret your decision.
If there is anything worthwhile in life,
It is this. Only this.
It was always this.