MOTTO

(after Bertold Brecht)

After these
dark times

will we
still sing?

Yes, we
will sing.

We will sing
loudly and clearly

about these
dark times.

 

LAMB

Not the knife
or the wound
the knife makes

not the blood
the wound
releases

not the agony
or the violent
throes.

It is only
this movement
before the offering

It is this
stillness, this
silence

this gazing
into the unblinking
eye

and the reflection
of myself
I find there

staring back

 

PRISTINE

What exists,
what has survived the flames

and the gas-fueled
inferno,

lies here now,
glistening

and pristine.
There is a rawness

to this clarity,
to this

precise and angular
reality

which stands here
in this moment,

sharp as a freshly cut
diamond.

 

BIO:
JAMIE PARSLEY is the author of 13 books of poems and a collection of short fiction. Since 2004, he has been an Associate Poet Laureate for the State of North Dakota. An Episcopal priest, he serves as Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Fargo, ND.