Ruining the Neighborhood
Ruining the Neighborhood | A poem by Shelley Curtis Weaver | 9 July 2024 |
I’m shaken awake at songs and sermons saying,
“This world is not my home, . . .”
and suddenly nostalgic thinking of the earth,
which I am told
gave birth to me—
dreamed and engendered in my mother,
and all her mothers back to Eve.
(Since she gets all the later blame, I’ll bill her first
on this marquee.)
And all of us,
every single one—save Enoch, Moses, Elijah—
all the worst and best laid to rest within,
until we become the
earth again.
So if we began here,
find our rest here, sleep as babes and bones,
rise, re-created and to new-earth, return here,
how is this not home?
From somewhere beyond the blue—
God also sorted
land, water, atmosphere, light, and dark,
elements from the knitting basket of deep space,
like a grandmother planning a gift, and
fashioned this home for us,
a soft sweater for a beloved child.
And God saw the home was good.
What’s faded and leaking the years since is on us.
Stretched, patched, and poorly tended,
Rotted, leaning, damnable.
It’s simple to sing the apocalypse,
and condemn this place for the suffering—
blame the floors for the stumbling,
blame the windows for the cold,
and the walls for separation.
— Shelley Curtis Weaver
Shelley Curtis Weaver lives in coastal Washington state. She is a clay-artist, writer, wife, mother, grandmother, and a frequenter of Columbia River crossings. She has edited and contributed to The Journey to Wholeness addiction recovery curriculum from AdventSource.
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