Selected poems from The Collect of the Day
By Jeanie Tomasko
Jeanie Tomasko
Jeanie Tomasko is the author of a good handful of poetry books and chapbooks and her work has appeared in many journals. Find out more about her at jeanietomasko.com.
O Lord, open thou our lips
light is so much more
with clouds
I walk alone
and
why anyone would want to speak
to interrupt
the wind
it isn’t my place
to say
enough
to watch
the hours
finch on aster
eavesdrop
sift the sky through
for god
Twelfth Day: Morning Prayer on Lake Superior
the mind and heart are ... mystery
— Psalm 64
We come to the lake and it’s hard
to take it in, all those old souls
riding the waves and you, taken down
by their happiness, and I ask where
in your body do you feel the lake,
and I tell you I feel a weight in my chest,
a heart, a fistful of heart,
right here,
and how is it such slap and rock and shore,
such wind and wave unceasing,
how is it
we name such clamor: stillness
Twenty-Second Day: Mourning Prayer
sorrow — Psalm 107
leaves blow across the street, a sorrow of leaves
full moon to new moon, a sorrow of moons
a ravel of geese arrow south
there was the day she left on her wings
left her drums and her poems here with us
a sorrow of drums and poems
all those yesterdays, all those
clouds and then we ate funeral food, everywhere
a sorrow of clouds and food
dust on her books, pages
un-thumbed, tell me where are the great mercies
in this sorrow of dust