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Sharon Cumberland

"My poems are both funny and spiritual--how's that for a combination?"

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MARRIAGE AT CANA

By Sharon Cumberland

The miracle is that anyone can love,
look eye-to-eye without turning away.
That youth exchanges urgency for order:
man with his bristling arrows, woman
with her reservoir of life. Seasons die
and revive: husband, wife,
husband, wife.

Yeshua is young himself. He wants to
stamp his feet, slap his thighs,
sing at this wedding! He wants to
look at girls whose toes have
tiny silver bands, whose veils have
little trilling bells. He wants to
flick his fingers and ring
the little bells. He wants to
braid and tangle, run, pursue–
there is no verb for all he wants to do!
He says Yes! to everything: skewered goat,
wedding bread, and to his mother
pressing him for wine.
Why should he subdue his gift within
the logos of his mind?
Yeshua gives the wedding guests the best wine ever made:
he may as well. Even though it’s not his time, the end,
he knows, is swelling on the vine.

Only the sober steward stands tansfixed
by water, deepening into scarlet,
spiraling through the amphorae. He tastes it:
By the staff of Moses! he cries.

What time destroys it cannot uncreate:
the bridegroom sits beside his happy bride,
worlds on the brink. Yeshua sings,
dances, drinks, commits: he feels as though
he’s wedded everything.

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Poems

LIPSTICK

I DREAMED OF MY MOTHER’S CLOTHES

MAN WHO WANTS YOU

MARRIAGE AT CANA

UNREASONABLE WOMAN

TWENTY YOUNG MEN

THE DAY NO ONE DIED

KYRIE PANTOKRATOR

MY HOUSEMATE BOWS A THOUSAND TIMES

BEFORE

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