A Good Friday

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by Laura Parker Roerden

I wrote a poem:
it’s hard to say what it is.

It’s small
like a bird,

but it has wings
that open, wide enough
to receive

the shadow from
starlight

where monsters
writhe and

inform us
of who we are
through ancient

story and song
or simply the daily news.

I put the poem
in a simple box
and buried it;

marked it
with a large
rock.

Then I grieved.
Knowing it was now
impossible to believe

in something as tender,
—as unbelievable—
as hope.

Yet time can

change
such a thing.

In frost
it heaved,
and grew

jagged and uneven,
an open maw
like a wound.

Still something settled
by summer

when longer
light

kissed it
greedily,

consumed
it, like food

for hope
until
the stone
was
no
longer,

but had become
a generous bed
for a seed

dropped
from the heavens,

watered by faith.

A single stalk of evening
primrose grew,

like a bolt of light,

strong enough
to hold an oriole
or finch seeking

nourishment.

Don’t miss another post: including #FridayPoems and From the Shaker: Best Investments in Sustainability.

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Laura Parker Roerden is the founding director of Ocean Matters and the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility and New Designs for Youth Development. She serves on the board of Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women in Sustainability. She lives on her fifth generation family farm in MA.

Published by Laura Parker Roerden

Laura Parker Roerden shares a love of what nature can teach us. Writer, public speaker and supportor of youth to boldly know and save the wilds. She is the founding director of Ocean Matters and a fourth generation farmer and thinks today’s young people are reason to be hopeful about the many environmental problems facing us. She lives on a family farm in Massachusetts with her husband, three boys, and an assortment of fruit trees and farm animals.

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