May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
I watched Rebel Without a Cause on TV late one college night when I learned …
One ordinary morning I walked into the park
past maples, elms, the ancient pines.
Pigeons were davening, pious among the bushes.
A few words fell from the Book of Nature
(that other text written by the finger of God)
their letters scattered along the path.
The squirrels went rigid, seized by the spirit.
Silence. A sudden shudder in everything—
rocks, brown pond, creatures, the sky.
I knelt to observe what letters I could.
Words sprouted and grew from the world
behind this world (its stem and seed).
The sun rolled across the scribbled heavens
where a host of souls flew. Frogs began loud
croaks, beetles took up those balls of dung.
Resin, thick and sticky, in the tall pines
red ants’ wild calligraphy—
all of nature seeping with celestial ink.
About the Author
Jan Lee Ande
Jan Lee Ande's books include Reliquary (Texas Review Press, 2003) and Instructions for Walking on Water (Ashland Poetry Press, 2001). Her poems appear in Image, Agni, The Antioch Review, Mississippi Review, Notre Dame Review, New Letters, and the anthologies Francis and Clare in Poetry (St. Anthony Messenger Press) and Place of Passage (Story Line Press). Her poem "The Second Text" was also published in this issue of The Other Journal.
Susan Lilley
May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
Mary Van Denend
May 3, 2011 / Creative Writing
May 3, 2011 / Creative Writing
Mary Van Denend reflects on Simone Weil’s “Waiting for God,” a seminal piece on Weil’s understandings of grace, affliction, and our “sacred longing” for God.