Each poem has elements of reconciliation (awareness, lament, hope). However, they are heavy on lament. These are about painful transitions that eventually, in time, led to better joy for all people concerned.
PSALMS (2009) and SUITE LAMENT IN LEXINGTON (2005).
Psalms for a Broken Marriage
The book of Psalms in the Bible is a difficult one. Some are joyful, others brutal.
My own psalms (songs) below are conversations with God. They provide snapshots of intense transition. There is, thankfully, life beyond life’s great transitions. My heart is rebuilt with freedom, blessing, and thanks (especially for the two children of that marriage).
- Psalm 1: First steps after the bombing
- Psalm 2: The Cauldron
- Psalm 3: Antiseptic
- Psalm 4: Juneteenth
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Psalm 1: First steps after the bombing
Quickly inhale.
My eyes wide open.
Where am I?
What is wounded? broken? what now?
A gash, a tear, a shattered hip.
Bandages? Would they even work?
Quick! Antiseptic.
Move? You must be joking.
Can’t you see I’m blown apart?
You are serious! I can’t stay here?
What do you mean “get up”?
I have to weep at my loss.
Get up now?
Where is my health? My family?
Why? How? It’s awful
To be broken in a bombing.
Let me sit and cry.
The alarm sounds! It’s not safe here.
Stay and I’ll dissolve into the stained soil.
JESUS H CHRIST
Don’t let this take too long.
Touch my hip
Let me limp beside the many women
Whose story I now share.
I know I should ask that you
Put love where there was nitrate.
Put grace where there was a fuse.
But all I want is for you to
Calm the ringing in my ears.
Until I can sleep again.
When will it be
That I find my rest in Thee?
(c) Allegra Jordan 2009
Psalm 2: The Cauldron
“You never know what’s going to
Come out of the cauldron,”
a wise doctor said,
“Until you get in there.”
Boil, boil, toil and horror
Burn burn my tears of trouble.
But the searing pain does dull,
Struggles stop, and newness emerge.
All in God’s time.
All in God’s time.
(c) Allegra Jordan 2009
Psalm 3: Antiseptic
“Abba Father don’t get that antiseptic near me.
It says it doesn’t hurt but we both know that’s a lie.
It hurts to be cleansed of things that are bad for you.
Now you know I want to be cleaned
But not just yet. Keep that
Clean to yourself for just a bit,
And, in fact, isn’t there some other way
To treat this bad cut? Because you
And I both know you do not
Want to see my alligator tears or
This foot stomp in pain. My pain.
My ouchy, hurty, make-you-and-me-both-feel-bad pain.
Because I will and we both know it.
Are you sure it needs to be done today?
Because I can just limp around here
With my pants knee at mid-thigh.
Sure I’d look funny and people might notice
But I prefer that a lot to having that
Fire water on my big awful boo-boo.
Now look at it. It’s bleeding and I’m
Hurt. I need a hug! Yes you’ve
Given me one but…all right.
Let’s get it over with.
OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH.
I’m cleaned now and MAD AT YOU.
Give me a moment.
(c) Allegra Jordan 2009
Psalm 4: Juneteenth
The first day of separation
What’s Juneteenth for?
I can’t remember when
Weighed down by sorrow.
Freedom, yes that’s it.
For what? I can’t remember
Under this grief.
Something about hope
Arcing above me. Way above
The trees; above my furthest reach.
I can’t touch that hope.
But maybe I can sense it
If I know it’s there.
Yes, a sense of holy future
Beyond my grasp. A smell it is –
Bathing me in its honeysuckle scent.
Close your eyes.
Inhale. Breathe out gently
As God breathed into your clay
At the dawn of your time.
It cannot be seen
Too deeply breathed it disappears.
Yet over us, beneath us, beside us, under us, above us
It hovers. Christ with us.
Freedom from slavery
And love beyond death.
What if freedom’s wonderful?
What if it’s for the best?
A silver lining in this cloud that’s
The mother lode of all blessing?
I have faith
The best is yet to come.
Beyond the veil
Beyond my sight
Beyond my dream.
Juneteenth, my friend,
Pull up a chair and stay.
(c) Allegra Jordan 2009
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SUITE LAMENT FROM LEXINGTON
This suite of poems include
- Inspirational Paper Towels
- The Plumber and
- Elevator Man
In 2004 I wrote these poems in Lexington, Massachusetts. They provide raw data about a truth I did not know how to address productively.
And that’s where reconciliation starts: with awareness things are not as they ought to be. When we acknowledge that things are not working, good things can happen.
Eventually, good things did happen but it took a lot of time and personal growth. It would be four years between the writing of these poems and the more dramatic, but eventually more hopeful conversations with God listed above called “Psalms for a broken marriage.” It would be another four years before I would publish this series. Healing works on its own time.
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Inspirational Paper Towels
May your heart be filled with joy
Love never fails.
Be Joyful in Hope
Words to live by on my paper towel.
I am on my knees wiping pee
From the floor. My son
Tossed a wet diaper from the top step
Before running off to fight his brother.
I look at my paper towel
And my heart stumbles.
The kids cry and I grow
Envious of the single.
Heal my heart, Lord
With that Balm of Gilead.
I need to wash the floors
With towels not tears.
Grace for the moment.
Grace for the day.
Grace for the time I go astray.
Help me Lord. Help me shine.
(c) Allegra Jordan 2005
The Plumber
Plumber man takes my money and gives me back
The house I thought I had.
I have my health. I have my stealth. I have my good looks.
Mechanic man takes my money and gives me back
The car I thought I’d paid for.
I have my heart. My heart will start. I have a friendly wave.
And after that it’s the tree man, the floor man
And my kids’ bucked up teeth.
I cried a lot. I slammed the doors. I scared the little kids.
Aren’t repairs so much more fun
Than something that work right in the first place?
Than all that money?
Thank all that joy?
Is a quick fix better
Than a rich, full life well-lived?
(c) Allegra Jordan 2005
Elevator Man
I carry my bags onto an elevator
And see that man.
He pushes my button
And then begins to talk.
It doesn’t take much.
We go to the first floor and he gives me his speech.
By floor two I’m humming his song
And at floor five I’m putty in his hands.
I think of him all the way up.
I pass my own floor
Riding high to the Penthouse suite
Where he says he’s got to get off—
Got someone to meet.
What?
What did he just say?
What am I doing here?
I apologize—must have fallen asleep, missed my floor.
Must have been thinking of someone else—NOT YOU.
Didn’t mean to miss my floor like that.
I apologize to myself for listening and believing
And forgetting the paradise of my floor—
Bright blues and friendly yellows—
For the wood shed—I mean mahogany interior—
That makes that the Penthouse a few things I’m not.
On the way down I get a pain in my chest.
I feel I’ve swallowed that acorn squash in my bag.
It’s never good to eat a whole acorn squash,
And I’ll need more than a prayer to digest this.
I’ll need a hug from Nancy, a laugh from Jack.
Courage from Wyatt.
And to start taking the stairs.
It’s better for my heart.
(c) Allegra Jordan 2005
Reconciliation poetry 