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In the News

2/26/2019

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In the News
By Tess Baumberger
Fall 2003


In the news a child kills another child
then tries to kill himself.
The police intervene by shooting him.
At least he is not dead,
only injured, still afraid.
And the great blue universe
holds it breath and waits,
swallowing hard, and blinking.

I stand at the window, hugging myself,
and watch my child sitting on the front step,
holding a stick, watching the cars go by.
He tells me not to bother him, 
he’s doing something.
I don’t know what exactly,
one of those eight-year-old things.

I remember at his age playing in our grove,
making propped-up houses,
shaky teepees built of sticks,
carpeted with grass,
with the scent of our horses nearby,
their knickering in the lilacs,
the reassuring crunch crunch 
of their feeding, their tails’ swish-swish.

Later he walks around the house,
under the maple tree that’s still resisting
autumn’s siren call to yellow.
He swings the stick and sings,
in his off-tune way,
to a world only he can see.
And I notice how his hair is curling
just like his father’s, in the back,
the blonde honeying to brown.
His face is changing, yet again,
His limbs are lengthening,
his mind is deepening
and I no longer know all his secrets.
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The horses move in my mind
to the place where that’s all right,
that place where birches 
compete with water
for who will be more silver and serene.

Later on, waiting for our pizza
and watching television,
he sort of insinuates himself 
half way onto my lap,
not wanting to admit
he still likes to do this.
He leans back as though
it’s an afterthought,
his hair in my nostrils,
his weight on my chest,
his breathing slow, relaxed,
his fingers stretching thin and long
looking more and more like my own,
like my sisters’, like my father’s.

And the green of the evening
lights the shadows of the day
and eases into crevices
worn into the world,
worn by the world.
The great blue universe
clears it throat and hums 
in its off-tune way.
And somewhere in the night 
a family begins, again, to live.
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Nereids

1/28/2019

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I discovered the notes for this poem in a notebook uncovered while tidying my books (see this post).  The poem describes something I saw at the ocean, but with a fanciful ending.

Nereids
by Tess Baumberger

The ocean nymphs are out today,
in disguise.

Dresses held aloft in one hand
as if dancing in a forgotten ballroom
or some rowdy town square,
they wade further
​
into the lacy froth,
laughing, splashing.

They glance back and then disappear
a
s their abandoned men
​s
tand slack-jawed at the shore.
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March Trees

1/28/2019

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March Trees 
By Tess Baumberger

The snow relinquishes its hold
with torturous reversals,
Brown earth reasserting.

Forsythia bark blushes orange-red 
anticipating its gaudy display
waiting to burst from her branches.

Maples are first to try on green
A merest pastel vermillion
Cast about their upper branches.

Sky begins shifting to deeper blue
To offset the returning sun’s
Warmer, warming glory.

For a change so incremental,
"Spring" seems to precipitate a word.
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December Dawn

12/6/2016

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This is one type of sonnet, which I wrote a few years ago (when I was entering the autumn of my days, instead of well into it).

December Dawn

By Tess Baumberger

Day grows from quiet within wider calm,
its stealthy bright seeping through my lintel,
and flowing soft upon outside mantel
of trees awak'ning to December dawn.
A mother breeze coaxes the childlike leaves
to settle, reluctant, to wintry sleep
whisp'ring the prayers their fertile souls may keep
beneath the shelter of her lacy eaves.
As I approach the autumn of my days,
so much within clings, sighing, to my limbs.
The gentle warm dispels my hopeless haze
while Spirit breathes its reassuring hymn
that even coldest evenings of the year
conceal a subtle, everlasting fire.

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My Mother Came Home to Me

12/3/2016

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My mother passed away over a year ago, and finally this week some of her things from her home came to mine.  

My Mother Came Home to Me

by Tess Baumberger

My parents came home to me
in the deep rich bedroom 
my grandparents gave them

when they married - 
My dad’s tall dresser
where he kept his candy bars
until he wanted them.
Three pairs of eyes would look at them
on tiptoe until temptation was too great.
He is evident in the cribbage board
he made with his own hands.
It contains the laughter-banter
of the many games we played
right up until the end.

My mother came home to me
in her wide dresser and mirror,
the sleigh bed where ’d sit
as she cleaned out the drawers,
organizing her jewelry box, 
untangling necklaces, placing pins. 
Wrapping presents on that same bed
to put beneath the tree, thinking of
the delight they’d bring each person.

My grandmother came home with her
in the arch-backed tufted chair 
that once sat in her cozy home.
I would sit there curled with a book,
wandering in other worlds.

My mother came home to me
in the swanky swag lamp 
and the delicate spindle table,
in hand embroidered runners
and whimsical salt and pepper sets
my sisters remembered but I never saw - 
penguins, chicks, beer bottles, 
pigs with “I’m salt” and “I’m pepper” on their bellies.

She entered my home in bread pans and cookie cutters,

in glassware and a favorite bowl,
the stand that held the cakes
I would bake for every birthday.

My mother’s heart beats in the ticking of
of the mantle clock I bought for her in high school.
She sings to me in its chiming of the hours.


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Dancing

5/24/2016

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Dancing
by Tess Baumberger

Hair almost white, 
​skin nearly translucent, 
tiny-boned, frail, failing.
Mind disease-disordered,
she kept rising
from her hospital bed
trying to escape.


Dark hair, braided
skin mocha rich
robust, healthy, alive.
Trying to keep the lady safe,
she intercepts
holds her in her arms,
and dances.


Two women,
heads back, 
laughing like girls,
before a sunny window.
Dancing in a circle
back to her bed.
The lady’s feet still 
know the steps.
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Theophany

3/5/2013

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I wrote this poem during a time of questioning and discernment when I was in seminary.  During a winter trip, some of my questions were answered in this mystical moment.  By the way, a "theophany" is an appearance of God on earth.
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Theophany


by Tess Baumberger

I am in Sequoia National Park.
It is January,
the first sunny day
after the first snowfall of the year.

The only sounds are
unfamiliar clacking of my
rented snowshoes
and the muffled thuds
of snow dropping from trees,
far-away-firework sounds.

I stop at a cool collection
of sequoia sisters
circled,
cinnamon-stick
brown, and red.
Blue sky and bright sun
interspersed among their
frowsy hairdos.

And a cloud of snow
meanders down,
forgetful  of gravity,
lazily, a boy kicking his heels,
not ready to come in to dinner.

The sun lights it into
a cascade of crystals,
a curtain composed of
diminutive diamonds,
gently wavered by the wind.

The snow continues
to thud softly
behind me.

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And God is here.
And it’s been a long time
since I’ve seen her,
this clearly.

And joy overflows
my eyes, and takes
hold of my body
and shakes it,
convulses me. 

How can the world
hold
so much beauty?

How can my
small
heart contain it?

Why have I been
called
to witness it?

What can I
do,
but proclaim it?

The sisters
smile,
knowing smiles,
long,
crooked,
sideways
smiles.

The snow curtain
listens,
glistening.

And God
holds
my hand.


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Meditation

3/3/2013

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Meditation                                  by Tess Baumberger

To live the life of a tree,
To stand and rest 
so silent, so composed,
each day a meditation.

To feel your toes 
curled in the earth,
to feel your limbs
stretching to the sky,
claiming sun and life.

To feel yourself expanding
as each ringing year drops
a pebble into your pool.

To feel your thick skin 
crackle as you grow.
To cloak yourself slowly
in green hoar-frost mosses,
furry, drinking mist.

To spread your several hands
in diverse directions.
To feel your thousand fingers 
drumming in the wind.

To feel your blood flow
down in long-drawn winter,
hunkered under earth,
then whistle up again in spring,
and burst a chorus of buds,
an enthusiasm in green.

To drink the sun in gracefully.
To breath out slowly oxygen.
To stand observing everything.

The patience of a tree.
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Soul Lifts

3/3/2013

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This is probably my most-published and beloved poem, used often for worship.





Soul Lifts                                     by Tess Baumberger

Wouldn't it be great if you could take a picture of your soul?
Then when your mother wanted to brag about you 
she could show people the picture and say,
"That's my daughter, doesn't she have a beautiful soul,  
all sparkly and many-colored and flowing all around her?"

Wouldn't it be great if we walked around 
surrounded by our souls,
so that they were the first things people saw
instead of the last things?
Then people would judge us by who we really are
instead of how we look.
Imagine no more racism, ageism, sexism, 
fatism, shortism, homophobia.
Imagine falling in love with who a person is, 
just by looking at them.

It would be a kind of cloaking device,
hiding physical faults defects 
or even perfections.
I'd want it to be mandatory.
Then people would work at making their 
souls more attractive 
instead of their bodies and faces.  

Imagine people knowing by your soul 
that you really need a hug.
Imagine people helping each other 
and their souls changing colors
or growing.

Imagine soul gyms 
with exercises to get your sagging soul in shape.
Imagine the long lines forming for soul-lifts
at churches, temples, mosques, synagogues
or nature's mighty cathedrals.

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    Author

    Tess is a poet and writer who works as a hospice chaplain. She rights poetry for worship, meditation, and joy.

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Photos used under Creative Commons from andrew lorien, susivinh, pstenzel71, puliarf, Magic Madzik, Eddi van W.