Other Poems

©Ina J. Hughs

We pray for children
who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled,
who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who’ve never squeaked across the floor in new sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

by Ken Sehested

Kyrie, kyrie, eleison
Let mercy magnify
May all my days reflect thy praise
And earth and heav’n reply

Let nothing justify my way
Save grace, unmeasured still
Let every hour reflect thy power
And life with love instill

by Ken Sehested

A note from a dear friend—hospital-bound, IV-fed, on New Year’s Eve and in the isolation ward, no less—
accompanied by a gray landscape photo from her window, inspired an impromptu poem
which captures my emotions in the haggard season in which we live.

The colorless days spur us to stir memory’s store

by Ken Sehested

Turn off (what passes for) the news.
Boycott the season’s electoral charades.
Don’t give in to Pokémon’s promise of
“augmented reality.” Attend instead to
unmitigated reality: bloodied, stricken
and strewn. Offer grief the hearing it
demands, the voice it obliges, and
the risk it assumes.

When not even Wendell Berry’s “peace
of wild things” will suffice—the wilderness
itself being salted and assaulted—turn to
the Lamentator’s naked confession for
uttering the heart’s howling confusion
amid terror’s ambush.

by Ken Sehested

O Truth Untamed, all boundaries bow before You
All borders bend according to your Word
O grant that every bitter heart be harbored
In sheltered cove, with Mercy’s flag unfurled
Hearken and haste, Desire of every nation
Refresh the heart of hope too long deferred.

Let every mountain call to meadowed valley
And every stream, to ocean grand and wide
Let fertile ground announce the new creation
When all shall come, ’cross every great divide
O bell of liberty ring out for freedom
Break every slaver’s chain, with hope confide

My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

We are a people free, joining in liberty our many throngs.
Through much diversity, grant solidarity,
Turning from enmity in joyful song.

Guiding us in the past, God’s hand has held us fast, God’s pow’r we feel.
May righteousness be claimed, true justice be sustained;
Spirit, with us remain, Christ’s love reveal.

by Ken Sehested

Does the Lamb of God truly take away
the sins of the world? The question is
more than a forensic exercise. The
question brings us to a momentous
fork in the road.

§ If so, then how can we who affirm this
conviction fail to live into its consequences—
promised though not yet prospered—of
withdrawing from and standing against
the logic of retaliation and every
bloodletting endeavor. It is not
                JUST WAR.
                    It is
                 just war.