Particular Bread

For Ratinaud’s on Gottigen Street

Particular Bread

The crust, the crumb,

the salt on my lip,

the yeast, the chew,

the deliciously particular

sensory complexity

of a bite tasting

like the earthy

pinching, pungency

of the charcuterie

that called to me;

(I love a bread that bears

specificity well;

Bread that becomes

in the afternoon’s hunger

warm, torn pieces

of home and hope and sighing.)

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

Blue Sky Wanders

The Blue Sky Wanders

I was afflicted today

with a distracting, uplifting,

case of the 'blue sky wanders.'

 

When gravity says I won't hold you bound;

When the road is open

and the map is vague.

 

The type of day that

brings to its company

a certain sort of memory:

 

The color of the ocean

seen from a bus

along the coast of Chile;

 

A love letter once received;

 

The fullness that bloomed

in an empty sanctuary,

while listening to the grandeur of quiet.

 

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

 

 

 

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Psalm Vision in the Rain

I loved looking out from the rocking chair this morning and seeing one bird proclaiming life in the midst of slappy wind-driven raindrops.  And I liked that I saw this bird while I was reading the psalm for today...

Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.

Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
My trust is in the LORD;
I will rejoice and be glad of your mercy.

from Psalm 31

What happens when...

Someone asked me recently what happens inside of me when I work on written translations. I share here my response.



Murmurations on the Page

When I read through the original

for the first time, it begins.
A glorious murmuration of
language alive,  alive
with flight and pitch,
tone, resonance, and meaning.

If I let go just enough, I

can feel the movements,

feel the life being spun.

And I begin to listen through
the shape emerging;
sorting the sounds and meanings I hear.

I write and listen and wait

up until and through
the last sound that is missing,
the note which makes the new breathe alone.
I wait until ah…
the harmony, the awe, of two flocks of words.

Kimberly M. King, rscj

Easter Grace, 2016

Easter Grace, 2016

I know what rises from an acorn or bulb:

Beauty and a strength that parts the earth

in a need to reveal itself, to offer itself,

in the midst of the chaos, violence, and political uncertainty

of our world;

Beauty and strength that trumpets Glory! and Alleluia!

because it must.

What then, rises from a Love that cannot die?

From a Love that says Yes and

A love that seeks and stays, and says Always
and says Everywhere?

The complete love that says Do this and Remember me,
follow, serve, be broken open, welcome, accept,
lay down your life, take up your cross…RISE.

Bless our meal that by this nourishment

we might live into this rising, together…

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

Holy Thursday, 2016

Holy Thursday

Only in the first whispered imaginings has the world as a whole been at peace:

When the Word came forth and the great lights parted into day and night and it was Good.

With humanity came the chaos of ego and pride; power and fear;

and the grace of knowing, feeling, bone-deep and heart certain,

what it is to be at Home, to be known, to be Loved.

The contradictions are great; the potential gently, entirely, astounding;

Astounding and revealed in a multitude of ways, including

in the blessing of the bread that we share;

in the breaking of the bread we need;

in the living out of a Love that has been, and is, and shall be

from whisper, through wail, into laughter, into Peace once again.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

(Written to use as grace for our meal this evening)



The video clip is from the heart rending movie Of Gods and Men

Mid-Lent

Mid-Lent 2016

Gossamer filaments of experience 

weave a shimmer of quiet within me,

a life-lived knowing

of seeming contradictions and grace.

Is this peace, I wonder…

the settling of my soul
into its shape, into its beauty,
I wonder…

As to whether it will last or

what it will mean
to the grand eternal scheme,

I can but give thanks and say that

like the rabbit in the book,

it feels as though

I am becoming real because of this:

a fullness of Love.

Kimberly M, King, RSCJ