LITMIR.BIZ

      I Call to You from Time

      Copyright © 2019 Judith Sornberger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-8809-6

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-8810-2

      ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-8811-9

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. July 1, 2019

      This book is dedicated to my sons

      Jamie Emerson Sornberger and Matthew Todd Sornberger,

      who gave me the sacred gift of motherhood,

      and to my mother

      Roberta Ann McCord Mickel

      my first model of mothering

      Acknowledgments

      I wish to thank the following periodicals and anthologies in which these poems first appeared:

      50/50: Poems & Translations by Womxn over 50: “Just this Once, Just this Much,” edited by Ann Davenport, Quills Edge Press

      Calyx: “Protest” and “What I Heard this Morning Filling the Birdfeeder”

      Encore: More Poems by Parallel Press Poets: “Prayer Flags,” Parallel Press

      Feminist Studies: “Our Lady of Guadalupe Appears to Me at Wal-Mart” and “The Wal-Mart in Tioga County”

      Hawaii Pacific Review: “Why I Am Not a Buddhist”

      Hidden Manna: “Annunciation” and “Mary Ponders the Nature of Free Will”

      Nebraska Humanities: “Hawk”

      Out of Line: Imaginative Writings on Peace and Justice: “Prayer as Tanks Slouch Toward Baghdad,” edited by Sam Longmire, Garden House Press

      Pilgrimage: “Antiphon”

      Poems & Plays: “Mary, after the Angel” and “If She Could”

      Potpourri: “Van Gogh’s Pieta”

      Prairie Schooner: “Vermeer’s Lacemaker”

      White Pelican Review: “Our Lady of the Rest Stop”

      Windhover: “Lenten Practice”

      The following poems appeared in the chapbook Bones of Light (Parallel Press):

      “Hawk,” “The Gulf,” “If She Could,” and “Van Gogh’s Pieta”

      The poems below appeared in The Hard Grammar of Gratitude, winner of the Tennessee Chapbook Contest, published as an internal chapbook in Poems & Plays:

      “Inside-out Pantoum,” “December 26,” “Rebirth,” “Junction” and “Why I Am Not a Buddhist”

      The poems below were published in the chapbook Wal-Mart Orchid, winner of the Helen Kay Award (Evening Street Press):

      “Antiphon,” “Prayer Flags,” “Our Lady of Guadalupe Appears to Me at Wal-Mart,” “Protest” “City and State, Please,” and “The Wal-Mart in Tioga County”

      I am grateful to The Ucross Foundation and Norcroft for writing residencies during which some of these poems were written.

      Gratitude also to Mansfield University of Pennsylvania for a sabbatical during which some of these poems were written.

      Thanks to my late husband Bruce Barton for thirty years of sharing a writing life; to my anam cara and writing partner Alison Townsend for her support, comments, and encouragement; to Lilace Mellin Guignard for friendship and laughter, our writing residencies together, and for her help with many of these poems; to Mary Ginn for the inspiration of her friendship; to my sister Jill Mickel for our many talks about creativity; to Walter Sanders, David Steinbeck, and Tom Murphy for their insights on some of these poems; and to Karl Schneider, my life partner and my love.

      Inside-Out Pantoum

      Prayer is a there

      I often cannot enter.

      However much I haunt the grounds,

      pace around its stucco-washed façade,

      strain my gaze through sainted glass,

      prayer is a there

      whose door is locked, whose incense

      I too often cannot enter.

      I shake the oak door in its jamb,

      strain my gaze through sainted glass,

      but cannot enter the within

      whose door is locked, whose incense

      will not enter my blood’s chambers.

      I shake the oak door in its jamb,

      as if it is no part of who I am,

      but I cannot enter the within.

      Or prayer is an element so foreign

      I won’t invite it into my blood’s chambers,

      an inner sea I fear to drown in

      as if it is no part of who I am.

      As if it is a where I can dive into,

      prayer is an element so foreign

      I hold my breath to enter

      the inner sea I fear to drown in.

      Prayer ripples and gleams darkly

      as if it is a where I can dive into,

      a depth I stroke against

      even as I hold my breath to enter,

      still holding to a vision of myself

      in prayer’s ripples gleaming darkly.

      Sometimes the inner sea sends up a swell,

      a depth I stroke against.

      I am not allowed to enter there

      still holding to a vision of myself.

      Still, when the inner sea sends up its swell,

      sometimes I am mercifully swallowed.

      Why I Am Not Quite a Buddhist

      God has many eyes

      in the bark of the birch.

      Not one blinks as I walk past

      or winces at what wafts

      through my mind’s branches.

      Each eye is wide, solemn

      as the eye of the doe tonight

      holding me in her sights

      as I wash lettuce leaves

      before the window and she

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