Joanne Kennedy Frazer  

Earth Sanctuary

Our cabin with a view
sits like a spire atop a ridge
of slope-rooted trees planted
by FDR’s Civilian Conservation boys.

Shenandoah Valley’s
panorama unrolls below,
veiled in the haze
of Blue Ridge Mountains.
   
Fleecy cloud clusters
hang in sea-water blue skies,
floating in procession
to preside over new domain.
 
Lichen-robed boulders, detritus
of ancient glaciers, signify
they will adorn the planetary
mantel long after we rest beneath it.
 
Queen Anne’s Lace lodges
within rocky crags, regal
as pontiffs, to accept the acclaim
of wind-blowing reeds.
 
Deep hushness
embraces hosannas
of wood thrush, halleluiahs
of purple martins.

 

Published in Wish You Were Here, Old Mountain Press.  Joanne Kennedy Frazer retains the rights.

 

 

Choirs

In late summer
as I pin laundry
to a morning-lit
backyard line
a cicada chorus
serenades
my still small world.

Its song rises
and falls
like the call
and response
of an ancient litany.

Long before monks’
antiphonal chants
echoed
within cathedral walls,

Crickets’ hymns
hummed along river banks
as my grandmothers
dried their wash
atop sun-warmed rocks.

Published in They Stood Alone, Old Mountain Press; Joanne Kennedy Frazer retains the rights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Radience
(aka, The Flaring Forth, The Big Bang)

With child,

She welcomes
quickenings
as the babe unfolds
for comfort.

Womb of creation
conceives, encompasses
Her issue until stirrings
move to fullness.

She responds
to the little one’s
rollick, milk escapes
tumescent breasts.

Spirit of Life
generates,
nurtures
Her birthings.

She labors
belly beyond capacity,
a child of the universe
emerges, Imago Dei.

Unknowable
Mystery aborns
Her cosmos
before time, still.