"A Capella" poetry project

Here are some poems that I wrote after reading the "A Capella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry" anthology. They're inspired by some poetry-writing exercises made by Ann Hostetler (the editor of the collection / our professor), and were penned as part of an assignment given right before Goshen College's spring break this year. During that week off, I spent a few relaxing days in Onekama, Michigan, and the calm and snowy landscape made for a great creative environment!

"A Capella project"

(“poem with a line by ----.”)

Poem with a line by Jeff Gundy (from his piece “Where I Grew Up”)

Summer was always the best; summer nights, if we’re talking specifics.

I ran and ran through the city’s alleys,

found secret passageways to closed-off county parks.

tasted my first alcohol - the bitter-yet-sweet wine

burning, then slowly warming my flesh and limbs

in the eerie and silent light of a full moon in August.

No parents, no clothing, no rules.

It didn’t matter what tomorrow would bring

because it was 3 a.m. in the middle of summer and we were all young,

only a little afraid of God and the police.

(poem about music)

Praise Song

Sitting in the new, individualized

seats of the rebuilt sanctuary where

the fresh paint smell still hasn’t faded

I look up to the pulpit and see the words to a

song projected onto the wall, no notes written

Because “we can get them from the guitar.”

The microphones amplify simple harmonies

made up on the spot because anything sounds good

when all these songs are comprised of the same three chords.

I feel nothing

In this music.

Where is the old red book?

The blue hymnal with its four

lines of comfort and memories?

The songs of my youth have died

and now we have a hands-free style of

worship, so now we can clap clap clap along

awkward as only us Mennonites can be when

Modern culture replaces history and heritage.

(“father figure” poem)

My father’s hands

We’re in the kitchen of our first house

and it’s a good night for some homemade pizza.

Kneading the soft dough with his hands,

Dad makes it look far, far too easy.

Naturally, he’s an expert at it; those same hands

are the ones I’ve watched too many times to count

as they’ve taken an unformed lump of clay

and brought it to life - A bowl. A mug. A platter. A teapot.

He’d work for hours in the white garage,

his hands firmly anchored to his potter’s wheel.

Or behind the wheel: this time changing the brakes or the oil on the car

because “Why pay the mechanic’s labor

rate for something we can do ourselves?”

He devotes dozens of hours to that old Kawasaki

We found in a garage, rusty and dead. I couldn’t afford one that worked.

“It’ll run like a dream once we get the pistons free - I can just tell,” he said.

He was right. Those hands brought it roaring to life.

Or fixing up our house: building new rooms, sanding and varnishing

And showing me how to paint a ceiling,

clean a carburetor, gut a fish,

Even though I know in the back of my mind

my hands won’t ever be able to do it the way his can:

with the deftness of a craftsman, finesse of a surgeon.

Or taking the bottle of Super Glue down from the top shelf

to seal shut the huge cracks on his fingers

that all the lotion in the world can never seem to heal.

My hands, too, get calloused and dry sometimes,

and it makes me proud yet sad in a way I can’t explain.

What does a man who lived a life of hands-on

expect from a son who thinks in medicine and molecules?