Living These Days

Category: Poetry

  • Public Square

    Mother of Exiles

    In troubling times, I have long turned to poetry, country music lyrics, and hymnody for comfort. Actually, more than comfort, they help me get closer to identifying what I am feeling.

    These are troubling times. And, yesterday, I found myself groping for the words to a poem I memorized in the sixth grade.

    I did not remember the name, yet the words formed on my lips as though it was still 1956:

    Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

    The title of Emma Lazarus’ poem is “The New Colossus,” and you may remember the work she wrote to inspire fund raising for the pedestal of The Statue of Liberty.

    What I only recently learned is that Lazarus chose her words, not so much to reflect America’s attitudes as though they are fixed, but rather to inspire America to always enlist its better angels as regards the stranger, the alien, the immigrant in all times,” and especially in troubling times such as these.

    Her biographer, Esther Schor, praised Lazarus’ lasting contribution:

    “The irony is that the statue goes on speaking, even when the tide turns against immigration,” even against immigrants themselves, as they adjust to their American lives. You can’t think of the statue without hearing the words Emma Lazarus gave her.”

    Verse

    The Colossus

    Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

    Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

    “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

    With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

  • Verse

    The lesson of the fig tree

    The barren tree stood tall and proud,
    Its leaves a lush and empty shroud.
    Yet when the Master came in need,
    No fruit was there, no faithful seed.

    With solemn word, He cast it dry,
    Its branches bowed, its roots denied.
    Yet in this sign, a truth was sown,
    A call to hearts not yet full-grown.

    For faith is more than outward show,
    It lives in fruit, it dares to grow.
    The withered tree was not the end,
    But love’s rebuke, a call to mend.

    So let us bear, in season true,
    The fruit of grace in all we do.
    For hearts that trust, both firm and free,
    Will never face a withered tree.

    Anonymous

  • Verse

    Unbind


    You stand at the threshold,
    feet tangled in roots of doubt,
    hands full of what-ifs,
    as if they were stones to carry—
    as if you were meant to bear their weight.
    The road waits, unmoving,
    not a whisper of judgment,
    not a sigh of impatience—
    just an open stretch of light
    that has always been yours.
    What if the door is not locked?
    What if the sky is not falling?
    What if the only thing between you
    and forward
    is the story you keep telling yourself?
    Loosen your grip.
    Let the stones fall.
    Step through.

    Anonymous.

  • Verse

    How to belong?

    The sun is inviting,
    The blue sky says, “Come.”
    A wafting breeze says stay,
    “I can keep you from harm.”

    Safe is not what I need
    I was safe where I’ve been
    I want to be wanted,
    I crave to fit in.

    Who defines “belonging?
    Is it a random blessing?
    A schoolyard pick?
    Or just some fancy, blindfolded trick?

    You can join a church or a club
    It doesn’t mean you’re in sync.
    To be “in” but not fit
    is the very worst lonely, I think.

    The saddest obit ever written?
    About a man whose family
    lifted him up in pretty words.
    and praised his belonging…
    …to the Auto Club.

    If you’ve found it, rejoice.
    If not, join with me.
    We can search for belonging
    From mountain to sea.


    Mary Patricia Trainor 2025

  • Verse

    Wisdom

    When I have ceased to break my wings
    Against the faultiness of things,
    And learned that compromises wait
    Behind each hardly opened gate,
    When I have looked Life in the eyes,
    Grown calm and very coldly wise,
    Life will have given me the Truth,
    And taken in exchange of my youth.


    Sara Teasdale

  • Verse

    A Child’s Wisdom


    They call the small child unwise
    Someone we must civilize,
    Kids mean what they say
    To parents’ dismay
    Instead of the deceit they prize.

    They call the energized child
    Someone unfocused and wild
    Youth’s unrestrained joy
    They’d rather employ
    In pursuits undisruptive mild

    They call their dithering youth
    Lazy, unfocused, uncouth
    Poor child was observing
    Attention unswerving
    The beauty found in nature’s truth

    Sometimes the foolish are wise,
    Sometimes they ought to advise,
    Prim, proper crowds
    Whose routine shrouds,
    The wonders of life they should prize.

    Temperatis Fortis 2024

  • Verse

     I return, dear reader, to the image of the eagle, and God’s message of hope and renewal to embolden me lest I get stuck.


    The Eagle


    He clasps the crag with
    crooked hands;
    Close to the sun in lonely
    lands,
    Ring’d with the azure world,
    he stands.

    The wrinkled sea beneath
    him crawls;
    He watches from his
    mountain walls,
    And like a thunderbolt he
    falls.

    Alfred Lord Tennyson
    1851

  • Verse

    Penny

    My family always had cats.
    I loved them deeply,
    played with them,
    slept with them.
    One old Mama cat even loved to sleep under the covers.
    Thus, one night I dutifully held up my blanket so Penny could burrow to the bottom.
    My mother came to wake us in the morning and asked what was with all the crying under my bedding.
    She threw back all layers to reveal a purring Mama cat kneading the sheets,
    nursing five hungry kittens.
    Bliss.
    I was seriously cautioned against ever letting Penny under the covers again.
    I nodded compliance.
    Wink, wink. Crossed fingers.
    Right, Mom.