Apophasis
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Apophasis
Not everything need be a poemNot the bright beads of rain in the shower stallNot the plumber’s delightas he teaches the waysof washers and bonnetsthe craft of mysteries solved.
Not the orange setting sunas it casts in reliefthe brown bricks of St. Catherine’stheir Florentine grandeurand the chariot wheels of light reflectedupon a distant wall.
Not the spire of North Prospectglimpsed through lavender mistsand the inscrutable canyons of residence halls.Not the rivers of snowmelttracing the continentsover the rainbow blacktop of a basketball court.
No, not everything need be a poem:not the fact of breath,or my daughter staking her claim to be freeor the church bells on Fridays,or a pair of warm socks
or the frail holding-togetherof opposites, the train whistle belowthe day ahead, and the utter mercyof being alive. [End Page 125]
Alexander Levering Kern is Executive Director of the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue and Service at Northeastern University in Boston, where he leads interfaith leadership programs and teaches spirituality. His poems and essays have appeared in Georgetown Review, Francis and Clare in Poetry, and Friends Journal, among others. A Quaker, he is editor of Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing from Rising Generations (Andover Newton Publications, 2006).
