"May Perpetual Light Shine" by Patricia Spears Jones

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 17, 2017   May Perpetual Light Shine   Patricia Spears Jones

We have encountered storms Perfect in their drench and wreck   Each of us bears an ornament of grief A ring, a notebook, a ticket torn, scar It is how humans know their kind—   What is known as love, what can become  the heart's food stored away for some future Famine   Love remains a jewel in the hand, guarded Shared fragments of earth & air   drift & despair.   We ponder what patterns matter other than moons and tides: musical beats—rumba or waltz or cha cha cha cosmic waves like batons furiously twirling colors proclaiming sparkle of darkness as those we love begin to delight in the stars embracing            Copyright © 2017 Patricia Spears Jones. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem was started on my birthday as I was thinking about my mother who died in 2013—that she may really be happier in heaven. The title is from a Christian prayer for the dead. The afterlife is contemplated in a range of beliefs, and for me the idea of returning to the celestial is very powerful." —Patricia Spears Jones   Patricia Spears Jones is the author of A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015). She lives in New York City. Poetry by Spears Jones   A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015) "Characteristics of Life" by Camille T. Dungy "All the Names We Will Not Know" by Naomi Shihab Nye "Sitting at Night on the Front Porch" by Charles Wright Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038