Vita Brevis, Ars Longa (Life Is Short, Art Is Long, Attrib Hippocrates) / Katharine Jager

Praise for the names of songbirds
for the edge of metal
Praise for the finger’s whole of grease
for the traffic rattle.

Praise for fire’s raw alchemy
for the bolting lettuce
Praise for the border that invention serves
for the silt of rivers.

Praise for the dog retrieving geese
for the lathe-wrought vessel
Praise for the red barn’s poetry
for the work and wrestle.

 

—from Before the door of God : an anthology of devotional poetry / Hopler, Jay ed.; Johnson, Kimberly ed., p. 408

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