Jeff Burt Verse-Virtual 2018 March

March 2018

Note: My grandfather, a pastor, told me that making a person pray the way another prays is like putting a shiny coin in a raven's beak--the coin goes to waste and the raven can't sing. He'd been a farmer before becoming a pastor, but the work stayed the same.

Outcome

prayers all morning
chest aching--

clawed hammer of back
bent over to remove
the nail of grief

for so long
child-hands
together

(first published in Ground)

Bread, Daily

we the darkness,
corrupted, muttering,
unthankful,

dragged exhausted
to an unknown home--

O provision us, morsel, mete,
give us this day ours

Diddle

I am not one who can pray
at the drop of a hat,
though if the hat
is a good one, may.