PAM REHM ~

 

Confirmation

Wild birds form
distances
for a restless eye

They retain
then edify
the soul's longings

I have lived as of late
unpracticed

My faith essentially
eroded

I am possessed now
with duration

As there is no measurement
to the turning
of a leaf into soil

Being also descends
with a slowness

Innocently enough
to witness

This river
awakened by the morning sun

A vale of close light
A light incarnate

Spiritual Life

I was not sure how
my children would dream

They saw further
than sheltering

They heard clearer
than my prayer

I could not feel my rescue
Intently enough

They held me tighter
than my grip

They led me across
my indigence

and were my abundance
when I got there

Sprung up like
wild herbs

I had always hoped
To find

______________
Pam Rehm

Inner Verses

Wave Books, 2024

GONE TO EARTH ~

A roof is no guarantee

that you'll sleep

The unease of premises

pins together the curtains

at night

Waiting for a clearness

of purpose

Eating 3 meals a day

we go to bed hungry

Privacy is not a remedy

We've become separated

by "efficiencies"

Nobody can do anything with

A kind of machine person

Floundering in the dark

It's hard to believe

5 sparrows were sold for this

An Empty Account

The simplest relationships happen without

any expectation this is what I believe

The infatuation in a girl's cheeks

The eyes of a man when he looks on

My spouse, I am poor

I'm a paper situation

Year by year

year after year

There have been a string of bad years

I sit at a large table

Words don't unravel overnight

The kingdom of money

and the kingdom of memory

The necessity to bend one's head forward

Nothing but a blind prompting

A woman turned to Him, you know

His mouth a towel into which

His resigning

His panic stricken resignation

was withdrawn

This overwhelming lamentation

The things that are never confided

A child walking and running

He takes hold of my hand

fascinated by the squirrel

Something deeper than "use"

I could love home in a deep sense

Gone to Earth

Beyond innocence

the exhibition

of obedient faith

is precedent

Work on the limits

A limit of what can be thought

outlives ambivalence

You work yourself to death

To enlarge an abstract

madness

Never so divine

a will

One step further

and the bed is no longer

under you

and no letter

I'm out of humor

This is for the you

In my memory

A picture

you would be the better of

You have hidden yourself well,

in attention

Little else to occupy your heart

Small change

The birds spreading their wings

to which I am joined

————————

Pam Rehm

Gone to Earth

Flood Editions

2001