MIDNIGHT'S MORNING: AN ODE TO EPIPHANY 2021

by Jill Crainshaw

Epiphany Painting by catherine forsayeth

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Wherever the star takes us.”

“What star?”

“The fierce one—”

“I never liked the graveyard shift.

How will we stay awake?

When will we sleep? I need sleep.”

“Sure, why not? I think the star

is whimsical, by the way.”

They turn their eyes skyward. At night.

Eager. 

Reluctant.

Nonchalant.

“Wisdom wizards follow foolish flight of fancy—”

a cosmic planetary alignment

    a sixth spirit-sense

    a thousand lifetimes of longings

“Stop looking back.”

“I left—things—lost—things—back there.”

“What’s lost waits up ahead.”

“What’s lost nips at our heels.”

They emerge from a forlorn forest.

First light nudges Mama Wren from nighttime 

nesting in a smooth-barked dogwood.

The whimsy-fierce star hesitates—

They do too. 

Midnight morning trees breathe

an infant lullaby,

music brighter than light.

“Come with me.”

Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

SHE BLEW IN ON LENTEN WINGS

a quarantine poem in four parts
by Jill Crainshaw

Painting M004351 from Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon at the Jewish Historical Museum.

I

she blew in on lenten winds
i think i’ll stay awhile
be your muse until this thing ends
her left eye winked a suspicious smile

you plan to stay awhile?
she tossed an ancient tweed jacket on a chair
looked at me with a smile
pushed back her fedora, twirled her hair

i eyed the tweed lounging careless on the chair
her costume convinced me—well, almost
the faded fedora, the uncontained wisps of hair
who are you? i smiled—a suspicious host

though her costume convinced me—almost
that she harbored dubious ends
who are you? i smiled—a guarded host
when strangers blow in on lenten winds

II

today i harvest the tomatoes i prayed for yesterday
she’s still here—says she’s a poet but i am unsure
no pen or paper, not much to say
she just watches me, smiles--a quaint saboteur

she’s still here--insists she’s a poet but i am unsure
what are you writing? i’d like to know
she just watches me, smiles—a quaint saboteur
who arrived uninvited, interrupting my flow

tell me again, what are you writing? i am eager to know
it’s not everyday a poet moves into my space
arrives uninvited, interrupts my flow
wearing a faded fedora and a dubious smile on her face

no, i’ve never had a poet move into my space
tell me—how can i rhyme your presence away?
because you are here uninvited, interrupting my flow
while i harvest summer tomatoes i prayed for yesterday

III

the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
she waxed eloquent when i queried her work
i don’t know what she meant—she’s a shroud of mystery
and her presence here? a self-satisfied smirk

as she waxes eloquent when i query her work
which, if you must know, lacks reason and rhyme
and undermines her presence here, her self-satisfied smirk
what? is writing poetry considered a crime?

well, no—unless it lacks reason and rhyme
okay then—look at your hands, the lines in your face
i’m writing poetry right there and that can’t be a crime
we need to mark the moment—we need to leave a trace

she’s right—i see my hands, the lines in my face
a poem is emerging in the body of me
she’s writing it down; is that such a crime
when we know that the apple falls close to the tree?

IV

she blew in on lenten winds
brought with her a threadbare refrain
i never meant for us to be forever friends
but telling her to go has been in vain

she just keeps repeating her threadbare refrain
“you are dust; to dust you shall return”
and asking her to go has been in vain
her tweed’s still in the chair—no end to her sojourn

“we are dust; to dust we shall return”
she keeps saying—her eyes full of hope
just let me stay—expand my poetic sojourn
let’s rhyme our way together out of this weary worn out trope

she says it again—her eyes bright with hope
shining from beneath her fedora—her hope never ends
let’s rhyme ourselves away from this hackneyed hopeless trope
and see where we can travel if we follow different winds


Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

FIERCE FRAGILE SEASONS

a poem in four parts
by Jill Crainshaw

I

mama cardinal studies me as i stand
in rain-wet morning sunlight

i see fire flash in her feathers
when she flits and flashes

from fencepost to flaming forsythia
nesting in preparation for whatever

springtime color waits to touch the earth

II

sepia-soaked scrapbooks ensconce
human fragilities exposed

i study faces retreating from
fiery colors of aliveness buried

in catacombs where mortal coils
were torn away too soon from butterflies

waiting even now to meet the sunrise

III

night settles down into streets emptied
of laughing children and lingering lovers

spinning cocoons to hide fragile dreams
while the world shuts out a sinister stalker

a brave pinion pushes open a window
slips a lonely song into the silence and hope

throbs in voices that swell together on the breeze

IV

backyard cardinals carry
springtime rhythms in their beaks

wrens domicile in the abandoned eaves
of the church belfry next door

and we humans study yet again how to
weave into our nests fiery threads of hope

longing to color unsettled nights with song


Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

DUST TO DUST

by Jill Crainshaw

Photograph by Mark Fuller: "dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return."

what prayer dare we utter when
unspeakable horrors silence
songs of children paralyze
tongues of poets we stumble over
all that remains—unspoken—

perhaps some ancient tree will
whisper wisdom into this unending
night—wilderness people do not
recognize its edenic lyric we
are dust to dust we will return we

are all dust and we are all creating
this mad mad world imposing
premature imprints of mortality on
unblemished foreheads of children
turned to ash in our clenching hands

someone save us from this fickle
foolishness why do we sacrifice innocent
blood to the thirsty ungroundedness of
our being we flinch gritty truth marks
us we are exiles in our own homes

holding our breath as tongues of fire
consume what really matters—save us
open our mouths to exhale the ashy
smell of repentance make our bones
remember we are dust to dust we will return—


Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

A PRAYER NOT SPOKEN

by Jill Crainshaw

Words.

Matter.

In us.

God’s love
made skin and bones
muscle and marrow
hands and hearts
God’s words.
Matter.
In us.

No more speeches or spin doctors,
debates or diatribes—no--
God’s nouns and adjectives and verbs
made alive
welcoming
respecting
forgiving
loving
incarnating belonging
in us.

Words made matter,
planted in salvaged soil
reclaimed
restored
valued
savored and saving
hope
in us.

So be it.

Author’s note: So many words. Too many. This is what came to mind for me as I listened to all the talk at and about the National Prayer Breakfast. As a Christian clergy person, I longed at the end of a week of chaotic and contentious words in Washington for prayerful moments of reflection, even for expressions of concern for all that divides us as a nation. John’s Gospel speaks of Jesus as God’s Word made flesh. This week, I longed for fewer spoken words and more words made flesh in embodied actions of communal care that cross boundaries and borders that separate us from each other. I realize that such longings are idealistic. They dwell in sacred geographies of hope. For now, these longings are, for me, the prayer that was not spoken at this week’s prayer breakfast. 

Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

UNBURIED ALLELUIA

by Jill Crainshaw

The devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris led to an immediate outpouring of donations and an ambitious pledge by the French president to rebuild within five years. But a continent away, the blaze also spurred more than $1.8 million in donations to rebuild three historically black churches burned in suspected hate crimes in Louisiana. The fires at the three churches in St. Landry Parish occurred over 10 days beginning at the end of March. Authorities said they were deliberately set and have arrested a suspect. As of Sunday, a GoFundMe campaignseeking donations for the churches had raised only about $50,000. By Thursday morning, donations had soared to more than $1.8 million. The money is to be distributed equally among the three churches, which were all a century old. —NBC News, April 18, 2019. Photo: St. Mary's Church in Louisiana was the first to burn. Natalie Obregon / NBC News file. [Editor's Note: The GoFundMe campaign is no longer accepting donations. It has raised more than $2 million, exceeding its goal.] 

a weary sister walks among the ruins
sweeping up cold ashes into a dustbin
for next year’s lenten initiation, she says as she
scoops priceless residue into her cupped hand
some of it slipping away through shaky fingers
settling again onto the charred ground
        “remember that you are dust
         and to dust you shall return”
the preacher said just 40 days ago while pressing
ashy imprints of mortality on eager foreheads
nobody even saw it coming then—
unholy tongues of fire stripping altars bare
out of sync with high holy ritual processions
where hopeful worshipers catch sparks
from an easter vigil flame and carry them
into silent sacred good friday sanctuaries
she puts a hand on her tired back and
when she lifts her face toward the pinking sky
a wayward bit of wind stirs the ashes in her hand
she lets them go
and even with all other words
smothered by smoke and tears
she tastes alleluia on her cracked lips


Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC.

CROSSING THE LINE

by Jill Crainshaw

Source: Inter-Korean Summit Press Corps/Pool via Bloomberg.

How do you cross a line
Drawn in nuclearized sand?

Lift one foot and then the other
From the bony grip of history

Even if movements are awkward and
Bodies petrified from standing still

Too long estranged from heart-beats
That keep muscles supple;

Ancient enemies hand in hand
With clumsy unfamiliarity

Step north and then south
Step south and then north

Limbering up and stretching out—
Dance.


Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC.

SO TWO GOATS WERE STUCK ON A BEAM UNDER A BRIDGE

by Jill Crainshaw

Amidst a turbulent week on Wall Street, two goats were found stranded on a bridge beam in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Goat photo source: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission via NPR.

stormy

with a chance of thundersnow

these are the headlines we are living in

curators clamoring for credibility on facebook fake newsfeeds

talking heads trading on trending turbulence

the bald eagle has landed—on the mariners shoulder—looking for bears

hugging the life out of

fragile economies

while easter bunnies on the loose quadruple a towns investment

a teenagers hair creates a buzz breaking into the prophetic sound of her silence

as bells toll to remember the king who had a dream that one day—one day—

and a presidents goldilocks

blow in the

wind

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC.

A PSALM FOR REQUIEM LIVING

by Jill Crainshaw

FeedMeister GIF

“Call for the wailing women to come.”

                Jeremiah 9

she wails
raw voice keening
fists pounding wild winds
chest-cracking sobs
sucking storm-weighted air
for breath

we thought we could live forever
under this steely sky-scraping canopy
if ideas and institutions
would just refuse
to become dinosaurs

did we forget—
our species
inhabits a house of
long-dead dinosaurs
(who mastered the tricky
art of survival
a hundred times
longer than we have)
—so far

she crashes against
a jagged shoreline
mad beauty
digging sandy shallow
graves for wordy lyrics
never enfleshed in song—

grandpa’s wet eyes
look skyward
as his beloved lies dying in
their wrinkled marriage bed
while he harvests her favorite
spring peas from a
fresh-furrowed garden
one more time

—if i could paint on the horizon
all the love i’ve known in my life
i would need a
bigger sky—

she falls silent

anger retreating

sun alighting silver-winged

on salt-saturated sands

an uncertain balm in

this gilead

when we buried her
he wept
as the church choir
encircled her burial plot and
music and mourning
linked arms to rise
up from the earth
and weave
a hopeful hem onto
the grief-worn
fabric of the firmament


Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC.

SIX SIXTY-SIX ON TWO TWO EIGHTEEN

by Jill Crainshaw

Tricolor ribbons—red, green, orange—
Zigged and zagged down
Below the horizon as the sun
Slipped and slid up a frigid February trellis.

No erratic needle and thread could mend
The widening hole; Mr. Dow Jones
Squinted into metallic light—
dove for cover, not meaning to

Stir a beast long-burrowed in down under deeps.
What devilish poetry is this? Crows spread the
Rumor: winter candlesticks cast long shadows
And the hedge-hog, startled, returns to his slumber.

Author's Note: In a peculiar confluence, the Dow Jones lost 666 points Friday (2/2/18). Friday was also Groundhog Day and Candlemas (a day when some Christian traditions bless candles they will use for light throughout the rest of the year). Other Christians associate believe the number 666 to be “the sign of the beast.” My poem emerged out of this confluence of symbols and events.


Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC.

BLOOD, COFFEE, AND A COVERED LIFE

by Jill Crainshaw

Daily Signe Cartoon 03/14/17

The old hymn from my childhood pounds out
a heat-beating rhythm in my head.
“There is power, power,
wonder-working power
in the blood,”
while plasma charts a course
through octogenarian veins,
a crimson thread
marking a jagged line
between life and death.

“Here you go, honey,”
the Starbucks barista said
and her eyes smiled
while her mouth hid
behind one of those disposable face masks
medical center workers were wearing
that windy winter day.
I smiled back, took the potent elixir,
and drank,
as the dark roasted incense swirled.

Battle lines are drawn,
expiration date unknown but certain
as soon as womb-water breaks
onto unmapped territory.
“It could go either way,”
the hospitalist said.
“But it’s all covered.”
I Googled “hospitalist”
and waited
for a lingering red pearl to let go.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a Presbyterian minister. Her work has appeared in Star 82 Review, Mused: Bella Online Literary Review, and Panoplyzine. She is a frequent contributor to the Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

RIBBED FROM THE HEADLINES

by Jill Crainshaw

When they strolled in the garden alone while

the dew was still on the apple blossoms, the
man gave the woman all the credit. “She
gave me fruit. I ate.” But as limelight
illuminates Olympic garlands “There’s the guy

responsible for it all!” Her husband. Take a rib
from a Bear’s side; “Wife Wins Medal!” Suture

buttons on free-flowing fabrics to dress up
mannequins on mega-fashion magazine covers;

thirteen cents an hour in undisclosed
back rooms. No one will ever know. Sew up a

presidential nomination; plunge a whetted needle
through “abrasion resistant” waxed canvas ceiling. The
morning headlines? “Clinton claims nomination” stitched
on the front page of the Tribune, history pocketed

in a photo of him, not her. Her clothes asked for it after all,
buried on page twelve bottom left

next to an ad for half price laundry detergent.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a Presbyterian minister. Her work has appeared in Star 82 Review, Mused: Bella Online Literary Review, and Panoplyzine. She is a frequent contributor to the Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

AT A BASEBALL GAME ON A HOT SUMMER NIGHT

by Jill Crainshaw

Image source: MiLB.com


class a farm team
a mid-sized southern city
girl in yellow crocs
toddler size 11
“Oh, say can you see?”

her hand over her heart
scrutinizing a standard star-showered
stalwart and still
while summer cicadas whirred and thrummed
“What so proudly we hailed.”

my phone buzzed
glass dome fragmenting
“first woman nominated by a major party”
while a hometown soprano soloed
“At the twilight’s last gleaming.”

does she see, this croc-clad citizen?
the spangled signpost unfurling
a wished-upon possibility too-long postponed
“O’er the land of the free
and the home of the brave.”

“Madam President” i whispered
into the breeze of the soaring anthem
and a girl in yellow crocs jumped up and down
as fans cheered the first batter up

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a Presbyterian minister. Her work has appeared in Star 82 Review, Mused: Bella Online Literary Review, and Panoplyzine. She is a frequent contributor to the Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

FOR PAT SUMMITT: NEVER FORGOTTEN

by Jill Crainshaw

Pat Summitt, who was at the forefront of a broad ascendance of women’s sports, winning eight national basketball championships at the University of Tennessee and more games than any other Division I college coach, male or female, died on Tuesday. She was 64. Her death was confirmed on the website of the Pat Summitt Foundation. Summitt stepped down after 38 seasons and 1,098 victories at Tennessee in April 2012, at 59, less than a year after she learned she had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. —The New York Times, June 28, 2016

she sits on the edge of her bed
and laces a pair of red converse
hi-tops the toe edge on the left one
scuffed for greatness she is certain of it
and proud of that work-worn abrasion
but no one else knows or even cares
about her dream or that she spends
two hours after sixth grade math class
every day in the backyard where her
springboard to stardom has been
hanging for the last year since she begged
and begged and her daddy gave in and
nailed it to an aging pine tree
not quite regulation height
above ground now made bald from
thousands of toe dancing dribbles
behind her back between her legs
ball leaping up from red southern clay
to stain her hands forever with a passion
no one else gave a second thought to
for a too-tall scrawny girl with a ponytail
who always sat alone at the very back
of bus 81 she tugs the laces tight
the way she likes them then grabs
her rawlings from the closet and heads
out the door for the old pine stopping
as she does every time she leaves her room
to rub her shooting hand over the lady vols
program she got that one time
her cousin took her to a game and
the coach even signed it for her

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.

OPERATION SOPHIA

by Jill Crainshaw

through soul-searing saharan sands
into a mythical sea of many names
she brought forth her eighth-born child and
named her
sophia
wisdom
“migrant”
NOUN: an animal that migrates
ADJECTIVE: tending to migrate, “migrant birds”
“migrant boat sinks” migrant people
fleeing seeking flight
“I was ready to die with my unborn child”
roving
nomadic
wandering
traveling
drifting
through intense shivering waves of
fear-refracted deeps
dictionaried definitions designate
describe
determine the “nature, scope or meaning of”
headlines desperate “dozens feared
drowned” in jonah’s great sea
politico-poetic
burial ground
birthing waters of
wisdom

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.

THE RED SUITCASE

by Jill Crainshaw

she borrowed the suitcase from her cousin

a faded fake leather red one that

stood by the door all those weeks holding

a bathrobe and slippers and baby things ready

to go to the hospital when her first son was born

five years ago now so the suitcase was empty

and made to fit in the overhead

her aunt stuck a magazine in that front

zippered pocket at the last minute

just in case she was hungry for a taste of

home while dining in places far away

it bobs in wild waters now

with sixty-six others spilling out

blouses linen trousers a new blue jacket just in case

those pills she always took to help her sleep

handwritten sticky notes hotel receipts

hidden in the corner from

the trip before the last one

toiletries travel-sized

she planned on returning home

her aunt stares at the television screen

"vanished from radar"

"no survivors"

commentators talk on and on while

she watches wind-swept waves

longing

for something

even a flash of red

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

HOLY HYPERBOLE, HILLARY!

by Jill Crainshaw





“I am Goliath and I will not be toppled by some sheep-herding
small fry! An eye for an eye.” A pompous fist-pump

pommels the air and pummels the bully pulpit preaching pretentious
promises of presumptive presidential potency. “Sticks and stones can’t

touch these bones and words are no worry either. Winners don’t
lose and I am not a

loser!” Whack! Thud. Kapow. ZZZZZZ----

---pop. ZING!

Ouch.

Penetrating porous clouds around his head
sling-shot slicing dicing slashing gashing backlashing

words of no worry to ballot-blessed bones unless

Ouch.

“Who dares to attack? I am invincible!”  Eeeee! Look. Behind
you. Through a glass dimly he sees

himself. Zinging demeaning
soliloquies. No boy David slinging stones. Just
himself. “Mini-Me staggers me!” “Holy hyperbole!  I think he shot
himself in the foot in his mouth.”

Ouch.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.