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- Three-dimensional Me
- Backwords, Fit Together
- A Whisper of Autumn, Cruciferous Cumulus
- Discontent in any State, Cute Little Weed
- Out of Kilter
- Accepting February , Sunless Winter Sky
- Weapon of Fire, It Rankles
- Past the Bloom, Dementia
- The Charlatan, Found Out
- Bare Grain, Groaning
- Petals in Disarray
- Leafless Beauty
- Created in the Image
- Petals and Thorns, Dead or Dormant?
Everyone is boring; everyone is interesting. Simple and complex.
Everyone, an oxymoron.
Depends on who they let you see. From a brief aside in Phillip Yancey's book, Soul
Survivor; the chapter on Annie Dillard.
Three-dimensional Me
Here is two-dimensional me--
the me I allow you to see.
You would not like my messy third,
the contradictions and complications
of the too real:
uneven hems and badly folded postage stamps.
In two dimensions, you can label me,
pigeonhole me,
categorize me and then move on.
But whatever would you make of
three-dimensional me?
lori
fiechter
July 16, 2003
No basis in truth of any kind. I was just having a bit of fun with the dictionary.
Backwords
Behind my back
I cannot see
the backhanded, backstabbing
regarding me
behind my back--
a backwashing,
the backlash backfired;
they're backtracking.
And I pretend I did not hear
the morsels not meant for my ear
for little birds are everywhere
and little mice beneath the chair.
7-23-03
Fit Together
Which parts fit together to make a whole?
Which remain a jumble of parts?
What makes them fit, cohere, connect
into something more than
the sum of the parts?
The whole is more
so there must be another element.
What is that missing element?
Parts, I have:
snippets and fragments and shards.
I can cobble them together
but I can't make them fit,
I can't make them perfectly joined together.
Is it the type of glue or
the shape of the pieces?
Or do I have too many parts?
lori fiechter
july 17, 2003
A Whisper of Autumn
Who let it out early--
that whisper of Autumn?
It leaked through a crack
in July's sturdy door.
It captured this day--
this dewy, fresh day,
this wet sneaker day--
and is reaching for more
It is blowing the summer away.
Its cool breath is refreshing
and yet sadly chilling
Not strong enough now,
this premature whisper,
like a streak of white hair
on a head mostly brown.
Not predominant now,
it is only a whisper
a whisper of autumn,
an untimely whisper
of summer's soon ending,
of summer's sure ending,
an unseasonable whisper
through July's heavy door.
Lori Fiechter
July 28, 2003
What glorious clouds we had late this afternoon. I know they tend
to bring severe weather, but oh, the majesty! The kind of clouds that gets you out of the
air-conditioning into the mosquitos. And they are worth the itching.
So easy to imagine the Son of God Himself in the center of such awesome clouds.
Cruciferous Cumulus
Burgeoning billows of hungry cumulus
swallowing up the blue in
rapacious gulps.
puffing themselves up,
great swelling, ruffled mountains
whipped cream with no cherry
excessive, prodigious quantities
of aerosol-sprayed whipped cream;
clouds of piercing white opacity.
Glorious, bright explosions of
towering cauliflower.
Cauliflower??
lori fiechter
7-23-03
Discontent
in any State
I am no Martha,
and discontent to be a Mary.
I don't want to be an Andrew,
think I ought to be a Paul,
Unhappy with my own gifts
that seem useless and quite small.
Not the backstage, but the limelight
or I'll have no light at all.
Discontent in any state,
bricking windows into wall.
lori fiechter
2-17-03
Cute Little Weed
I almost pulled it--
such a cute little weed--
so small, though, so tender--
Well, there wasn't much need.
Let it go; Let it grow--
I can pull it tomorrow.
But the weed went to seed
to my shame and my sorrow.
And now, there are hundreds of
cute little weeds.
(And a big, ugly one in the middle.)
lori fiechter
2-12-03
Out of Kilter
and acting without thinking--
No sense of timing;
No habit of listening
For when to halt, when to go.
Where is the pillar of fire?
Where, the cloud by day?
Where is patience? Where, discernment?
Strings too slack or else too taut,
always out of tune.
Too much thinking without
acting,
Too much acting without thinking.
Feb. 7, 2003
Or maybe that title should
have a question mark following. In whatsoever month I am therewith to be content?
(the day after Groundhog's)
skipping winter and snow
Discontent with the forecast--
Punxsutawney's shadow.
There's no ticket to freedom,
That way has been barred,
So I'm waiting for April;
It's the waiting that's hard.
February 3, 2003
I saw color in the morning sky this
morning, sharp clear blue and muted mauve; the first in several days. And even though it
is still cold, still brown and naked outside, the sun gives promise of better days to
come, the promise of green life and new growth.
the sun unfelt and unseen.
faith in the sun
when all the world is bleak and cold and dreary.
faith in the sun; hope in renewal,
hope unseen and scarcely felt.
yes, hope unseen;
for hope that is seen is not hope.
but there is green hope on a brown day.
2-5-03
Weapon of Fire
(James 3)
Lashing rashly,
stabbing, jabbing;
swiping, swatting,
spinning 'round.
Caged and cornered,
tiny fury,
Caged and cornered,
but unbound.
Unruly evil, little boaster,
setting all the world aflame.
Fang of venom,
Dart of poison:
Tongue unbridled
and untamed.
lori fiechter
2-04-03
It Rankles
It pesters and
festers;
It riddles and rankles;
It gnaws like a dog
on my heels and my ankles.
It is bitter as
wormwood,
unpleasant as gall;
It cankers my innards
and sticks in my craw.
It bubbles and boils
and threatens to burst.
But I've kept it inside me
(and I'm none the worse)
Yes, I've petted and fed it
and I'm none the worse.
lori fiechter
2-03-03
thoughts on looking through old photo albums
Past the
Bloom
We grow and grow
and then we wither,
past the flower, past the bloom.
I feel it more that winter's here:
the fading and the gloom.
I feel it more amidst the snow,
the barren, bony cold.
I have become my mother now;
I thought my mother old.
lori fiechter
1-15-03
Who stole his memories away?
a sinking, fading, slow decay,
a mind that does itself betray,
Who stole his memories away?
Slipping, slipping, yet he
clings
to ordinary, mortal things
for things are all he may possess,
as names and years and thoughts have fled:
unravelled yarns and tangled thread,
He lives, but much of him is dead.
She turns a tearful face
away;
He does not know her face today.
He sees but cannot recognize
the gentle sadness in her eyes.
He blankly stares and cannot say
who stole his memories away.
Lori Fiechter
1-15-03
I have a fondness for Emily Dickinson. "I'm nobody, who
are you? Are you nobody too?"
The Charlatan, Found Out
So, you've found my
smoke and mirrors?
I am not angry, but relieved.
I grew tired of the mask, the patter,
the false smile, and the tricks.
It is humbling to be a
nobody again--
humbling, and yet freeing.
I am a nobody, but I am myself,
at least that is real:
a genuine nobody instead of
an artificial somebody.
Perhaps I'll learn now
what I
really think and believe--
and whether it is worth
thinking and believing.
What? Are you a nobody too?Then
"there's a pair of us,don't tell."
Lori Fiechter
1-04-03
Bare Grain, Groaning
Kernel to incorruption
without dying, without sprouting.
Unsown, but raised in power;
Changed.
Clothed upon.
Swallowed up of life.
We are bare grain,
still burdened now by mortality.
Still laboring,
Seeing darkly,
Waiting to know as we are known;
waiting to be changed,
Bare grain, groaning.
Lori Fiechter
December 26, 2002
"I wish our clever young poets
would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry;
that is prose; words in their best order; --poetry; the best words in the best
order" --Samuel Taylor Coleridge
But I can't make a flower--
mis-matched petals, unsorted,
without sepal or stem;
nothing to make them cohere:
Petals of roses and daisies and mums.
But I can't make a poem.
I just need the right words
in the right order;
No, I need the best words
in the best order
pared down to the barest minimum.
But all I have is parings,
parings and a small carrot nub,
A small carrot nub
and a shaving of thumb-skin.
and a wee drop of blood.
dec. 26, 2002
Of course,
there is that winter beauty of thickly frosted evergreens. But there is a snowless beauty
as well;
bare deciduous branches and trunks against the winter sky. Look.
You were pretty in the summer
with your verdant gown of leaves.
You are beautiful now:
starkly bare against the winter sky,
sadder, nobler, wiser:
A lonely loveliness.
Your graceful form is now unhidden,
enhanced by an ever-changing background
in shades of blue and shapes of white.
I will grow tired of your austere beauty
in another month or two and will long for
green promises of Spring.
But for now, I admire you:
my encouragement to stand
strong and patient in my winter,
though I be leafless and frozen and lone.
Lori fiechter
December 17, 2002
Created in the Image
The people behind the labels,
behind the philosophies or lifestyles
with which we disagree.
Created in His image:
the person behind the personality
that rubs us wrong.
Behind the words,
behind the office or titles or stage personas,
behind the clothes, behind the bravado,
There are people, real people
Created in the image of God.
Lori Fiechter
December 10, 2002
I received a long-stemmed
rose, yellow with red edges, last Saturday. I looked at it this morning; it is drooping. Instead of letting that thought depress me, I wrote
this poem.
(Isaiah 40:8; I Peter 1:24; Galatians
3:13; Revelation 22:3)
Loves the way they wither and fade
after just a day or two,
Reminding her that the grass withers,
the flower fades, but the word of the Lord
endures forever.
She loves roses,
loves the thorns that remind her
of the primeval curse and
of the One who became a curse for us,
of that same One who will come again
and remove the curse forever.
She loves roses.
12-12-02
Bare branches, bare ground.
If this were summer,
I’d say things were dead.
But it’s winter and most of these brown,
apparently lifeless plants
are just dormant, merely resting,
waiting for spring.
It would be so easy to judge now,
to cut down these vines that
hinder the ground.
But we don’t know yet.
Wait till the spring,
wait for the warm sun and
early rains.
Were they dead, or just dormant?
Lori Fiechter
12-5-02
