Bonnie Thurston

Long solitude is a gradual
drawing inward, going deeper,
like autumn bulbs
snuggling into the soil,
marinating in darkness.

In a theological tome I read
“opening the world to God”
which echoes in my ear
a quarter tone off pitch,
just enough to make choirs
of angels and archangels wince.

The old tradition says
at Christ’s borning
there was utter silence.
The whole created world
was still. For an hour.
Even choirs of angels
went quiet.
...

The few remaining leaves
stagger drunkenly, randomly
across the darkening sky.
The wind blows them
where it will, begins to moan
the loss of autumnal color,
...

A morning of golden light
after two days’ stormy darkness
illuminates the bleak twistedness
of trees now dressed, not in leaves,
but centuries growth of lichens
...

Meg went to the Tower,
somehow passed the halberds
of the Yeomen of the Guard
to embrace once more the father
whose hair shirt she washed,
whose “wholesome counsel...

There are no plumy accents
when traveling by coach,
just ordinary people
going about extraordinary lives.
The bus grinds through
small, forgotten villages,...

I do not expect to breach heaven
(if there is some heaven
beyond our good, green earth)
via pearly gates, golden streets
with searchlights searing the sky...

From where I sit
I see the celebrant's feet,
black, cap-toed brogues,
dress shoes carefully shined,
their ancient leather
creased and cracked.

Mine is reasonably small
having always lived low,
turned off lights and faucets,
eschewed useless stuff,
reused, recycled.
I do not aspire to shrink it,...

You have your sight, and yet you cannot see.
        —Tiresias, Oedipus Rex



Driving into the city to teach...

It was not meant as exclusionary,
the way the boy
laid his arm along the pew,
not touching her back
but cupping the bowl of his hand
over the girl’s shoulder,
exactly the way...