Summer fan shivers the rosary
which hangs in my study, here
where nothing stirs on its own
in midsummer's curl of parched leaf.
"The sun doesn't go down. We do,"
writes Amichai, tilting toward
his own descent. Whir of fan
since childhood, and I want to touch
my toes to cool linoleum, or mud
by the garden pump as I pry
at the locks of baked earth,
seeking the thirsty dark.
One word at a time for the unknowable,
like the beads which I never learned
to touch in prayer, which the air
fingers for me as the sun
does not set, but I do, willing
to receive the grace of moonlight
in my slow slide toward
whatever stirs for language.
*
Chirp of crickets, silent glide
of the owl. Daytime scorch
dissipates now into shadow,
allowing sight, my small study
releasing me into the night.
The grass breathes and cools,
as I lie down on its soft blades,
face-up, as in rehearsal.
What words before my final
silence? What utterance for
the great arc from my grave
to the rosary of constellations overhead?
Heaven and the highest heaven
cannot contain thee,
how much less our earth
in its burning and greening,
and this house, my body,
which you have made.
Heat
In a poetry workshop years ago I was taught to test a poem with three questions: Is it true? Is it beautiful? Does it lead the reader to her own experience? I suggest that these same questions lie within the question: Is this a poem that promotes peace? When a poem reaches into the complexity and wonder of human existence, we are invited to move beyond prejudice and opinion, and sense our commonality. When the poem finds shape and music, we enter a beauty which draws us toward harmony in ourselves and with others. Because the mystery of the Transcendent is a truth we carry in our bodies, we seek language for holiness and grace which offers peace with the other and the Other.
About the Author
Jean Janzen has authored six collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Paper House (Good Books 2008) and a book of essays, Elements of Faithful Writing, based on the Menno Simons lectures given at Bethel College, KS in 2003. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Image, The Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, The Christian Century, and other places, and have been included in numerous anthologies. Among other prizes she won an NEA grant and has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Some of her poems have been set to music, including the oratorio "That Sturdy Vine" by Alice Parker. Jean.lives in Fresno, California, where she taught poetry writing at Fresno Pacific University. She received an M.A. from Fresno Pacific and California State University of Fresno where she studied poetry with Philip Levine and Peter Everwine. She also taught poetry at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. Jean has lived in the San Joaquin Valley since 1961 where her husband Louis began a pediatric practice. They four children, six grandchildren, and attend the College Community Church Mennonite Brethren in Fresno. She was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and lived most of her childhood in Minnesota and Kansas.