Sharing a poem

As many of you know, April is National Poetry Month, and I wanted to share a couple of poems before the month is over. This one is by Kathleen Norris, award-winning poet, writer, and author of The New York Times bestsellers The Cloister Walk, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, and The Virgin of Bennington.

“Luke 14, a Commentary” – Kathleen Norris (Luke 14:7-24)

He is there like Clouseau
at the odd moment,
just right: when he climbs
out of the fish pond
into which he has spectacularly
fallen, and says condescendingly
to his hosts, the owners
of the estate: “I fail
where others succeed.” You know
this is truth. You know
he’ll solve the mystery.
Unprepossessing
as he is, the last
of the great detectives.
He’ll blend again into the scenery, and
more than once he’ll be taken
for the gardener.
“Come now,” he says, taking us
for all we’re worth, “Sit
in the low place.”
Why not? We ask. So easy
to fall for a man
who makes us laugh. “Invite those
you do not want to have, people
you’d hardly notice.” He puts
us on, we put him on; another
of his jokes. “There’s
room,” he says. The meal is
good, absurdly
salty, but delicious.
Charlie Chaplin put it this way: “I want to play
the role of Jesus. I look the part.
I’m a Jew.
And I’m a comedian.”

From “Cross Currents” Winter, 94-95