May 13, 2009 / Creative Writing
I watched Rebel Without a Cause on TV late one college night when I learned …
for Sabato Rodia
Build it with what’s left over.
Build it in your spare time.
Build it instead of drinking.
Build it to withstand the wrecking ball.
Build it as tall as you can.
Build it on a lopsided lot,
in the shape you can afford.
Build alone. Build your home
beneath it. Move in.
Build without explanation or apology.
Seal it all with the safeguard of strangeness.
Build it into the skyline of your city.
Build it so no one can decide if it is beautiful.
Build it so beauty is beside the point.
Build it so they can’t look away.
About the Author
Christina Lee Barnes
Christina Lee Barnes is a poet and teacher from Los Angeles who now lives in Seattle with her husband and one-year-old son. Barnes is a Writers in the Schools (WITS) teacher for Seattle Public Schools and works in the education department at Seattle Pacific University. Her publications have been featured in the Seattle Times, Prairie Schooner, Stirring, Cream City Review, Freezeray, and Tin House online.
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.