Marie Howe (b.1950)
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (Prologue)
The rules, once again, applied
One loaf = one loaf. One fish = one fish.
The so-called kings were dead.And the woman who had been healed grew tired of telling her story, and sometimes asked her daughter to tell it.
People generally worshipped where their parents had worshipped—
the men who’d hijacked the airplane prayed where the dead pilots had been sitting,
and the passengers prayed from their seats
—so many songs went up and out into the thinning air . . .
People, listening and watching, nodded and wept, and, leaving the theater,
one turned to the other and said, What do you want to do now?
And the other one said, I don’t know. What do you want to do?
It was the Coming of Ordinary Time. First Sunday, second Sunday.
And then (for who knows how long) it was here.
Marie Howe (b. 1950) is an American poet who frequently draws on her Catholic heritage and religious conversion to create haunting poems about spirituality and ordinary life. Her poetry collections have won numerous awards, including from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Selected by Amy Frykholm: amy@journeywithjesus.net
