by Laurie Shenkman

    After the Paradox of Love ....

comes the circle,

mill for threshing, and a tree, and a garden, and love's delight

is but a family come full circle.

Having survived the paradox of love

we eat the bread of our own hands

without humility but with praise

for the man, our father, who set the feast before us.

That poetry might survive the paradox of love,

the world's rending,

is not this poet's dreaming but her service

to a circle, seeing to be a mill for threshing

and shaking the laurel tree.

That poetry might grow into a garden

is love's delight, is the poet's life,

in a family come full circle.
 

Peace offering; the bread of our own hands

and not a dream, not for ourselves,

but for each other.

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