(for Lynn Thomas Strauss on the occasion of her leavetaking from River
Road Unitarian Church, with great gratitude for poetry in the pulpit)
Hear this:
Our days do not unfold
in a series of arguments
all lined up like so many
pairs of socks, matched
and smoothed and rolled together:
yes/no more/less then/now us/them all/nothing
No, we live through ebb and flow, through thrash and tumble,
like water filling and draining
in the washing machine,
like socks and skirts and scarves and shorts and shirts all
rolling around, tangled and wrinkled
in the hot dryer,
with the occasional sneaker thumping loudly,
unpredictably inside our hearts.
“The work of the artist is
to render the invisible.”
The work of the preacher is
to render the inaudible.
This tangled, wrinkled
thumping—we need to
hear this.
Heidi Mordhorst's first book, Squeeze: Poems from a Juicy Universe, is published by Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press and will be available October 1. She squeezes her writing into the little open spaces that occur among parenting two young children, teaching nursery school, and doing the laundry in Bethesda, MD, where she lives with her partner of 15 years. Visit heidimordhorst.com for more information on Heidi's projects.
