Poetry

Parable of the Sower

To the right of the clementine box
that my mother brought here
six hundred
Sundays back,
& somewhere between
the stapler & the plastic-wrapped
pile of curricula, between
the Clorox
wipes & the stack of brown
NIVs, beside the pastel
colored map of Paul’s Journeys,
between that & the white
board & in the space between
the all-capped

MOSES              EXODUS             GOLDEN CALF

somewhere above the flood
of crosses, stickers & attendance sheets
there is yet air
for the poem to stretch its leaves,
to savor the nutrients, dwelling
richly in the roots
beneath my feet, though, to be clear
I am not the rose that squeezed
through the cracks
in the proverbial concrete.
I am more like a seed
that grew below the singing
& screeching of pastors,
smitten by love
but also tempted by the thorny
doctrine of utter depravity.
Too many piled on this rocky & stoic
terrain. Too many dried up the land
but this poem
is exceedingly bored
by contempt for the soil. The poem longs
to stretch out its limbs in praise
of the farmer
& say
my god, how she watered her seeds.

 

Alfonso Sasieta

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