Stirring Petitions {a #poem}

Prayers while making pancakes

Center yourself as marigold yolks

drop over the yellow bowl.

Sift and measure your thoughts as

teaspoons of soda, sugar, salt combine.

Let buttermilk stand souring. Wait

for the buttered, glistening griddle

to sing and sizzle, for songs will not come

from your own heart today.

Whisk flour just enough to mix,

stirring petitions while people are

battered a world away.

Give praise for quiet background piano,

the streaming unseasonal sunshine, calling

you to God’s presence here in your silent

kitchen, an altar on the other side

of the world.

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I wrote Stirring Petitions a few days after the war in Ukraine broke out in February nearly two years ago. I remember the exact date well because it was my mother’s birthday. At the time the world was confident the conflict would be over soon. And yet, here we are. The enemy of Ukraine did not bargain on the resolve of the people nor the support of countries around the globe. Tyrants are not easily tolerated.

This morning war is waging on the other side of the world in Israel, the fiercest fighting since war broke out the year I was married, another date etched in my memory. I want to shake my head in disbelief, “Here we are again,” then my hands and heart tell me what little I can do. Write and pray; I join the millions of others who will not tolerate terrorists.

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Stirring Petitions is in my new book Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home, available from Wipf & Stock or on my website.