In the Palm of God’s Hand
I dreamed I was in God’s palm
Not alone – a hundred or more
sought the same succor
I explored this miracle
Felt a callus on God’s finger
Sensitivity for the laborer
No silken luxuries in this hand;
traces of humankind’s misdeeds
His right eye, littered with shrapnel
Her left eye wept tears
black as the rains of Hiroshima,
thick as dredged Gulf Sea Tar
One arm was tattooed with a number,
the other bore scratches of barbed wire
from Matthew Shepard’s execution
The pinkie, blowing off bit by bit
by IEDs and drone strikes
His nose broken by bar fights,
her cheek bruised from spousal abuse
A rainbow was painted on God’s cheek
The children on God’s palm cried
One sold, one raped, one homeless
Adults cuddled them, sang songs
to them, and God smiled
“You are my angels on earth,
the face of Jesus, the form of
the Divine Sofia, and the human
evidence of my love for all
“Wake up and help me heal”
When I awoke, I prayed thanks
for this visit, and promised God
I’d give my all, with a servant’s hands
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Not written to any prompt, but on the Open Link page of Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and sidebar of Poets United. This was an actual dream… and there was so much more to tell. Peace, Amy
I lost a week in there with oral surgery (no, they didn’t sew my mouth shut, but I know of a few people who wish they had!). But I used last week’s Sunday Whirl words, which I will share with dverse and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link Monday.
My friend Rev. Tisha is working on a program concerning violence against women. Please feel free to forward poems to me by email – either paste the poem in the message or attach. Here is an example, and I can only say that, as a survivor of a different type of violence, these girls huddle in a corner of my soul. Peace, Amy
SECRET TO SURVIVAL
Three girls
torn from the cradle of mothers’ arms
peering past bad circumstances
The secret
to their survival in exile was the stories
Pry open clues with claws forged of need
Pile bits
of memory, tiny green apples
as unripe as they. Their rash hope:
that spirits
would comfort them as they endured
man after man on a filthy mattress
The spirits
were their only treasure, clutching and reciting
concocted tales of their shared princess-like past…
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 