Digging for God
Praying with Poetry
Anne M. Higgins
Illustrations by Maureen Beitman
Digging for God
Praying with Poetry
Copyright © 2010 Anne M. Higgins. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-807-4
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7290-2
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New American version, NAB, copyright 1971, by Catholic Publishers, Inc.
The best place to find God is in a garden.You can dig for him there.
—George Bernard Shaw.
Acknowledgments
“Tribute Poem” How the Hand Behaves Finishing Line Press 2009
“Second Antiphon in the Style of Hildegard” NCR February 21,2003
“Sister Anne Robb Writes a Letter” How the Hand Behaves; COMMONWEAL October 11,2002
“Go out to the Woods and Feel the Tree Bark” How the Hand Behaves Finishing Line Press 2009
“Sitz im Leben” SISTERS TODAY November 1983
“The Roofless Church” ANTIGONISH REVIEW Summer, 1982
“Rain on the Hedgerows” At the Year’s Elbow Wipf& Stock Publications 2006
“Junk Drawer” Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky PlainView Press 2007
“The Snake Plant” WELLSPRING Winter 2001
“The Rose in the Chapel” NCR October 19, 2007
“Thomas Merton Checks on His Trees” WINDHOVER Spring, 2002
“Angry Enough to Die” LALITAIMBA
“Saying the Rosary” WINDHOVER Spring, 2002
“Garden Gloves Huddled” How the Hand Behaves Finishing Line Press 2009
“Heliotrope” SISTERS TODAY November 1981
“Perennials” How the Hand Behaves Finishing Line Press 2009
“Six” UMBRELLA Fall 2008
”At the Lake that was once a Volcano” THE MARS HILL REVIEW #20, 2002
Eden
Genesis 2:8–9
Tribute Poem
Praise for late sleeping day,
waking up without alarm,
for corkscrews,
corkscrew call of
yellowing lustful goldfinches,
butter,
opposable thumbs,
lusciously plush perfume
of viburnum
blooming in the woods
just now
just now.
Name five events, situations, or experiences that you appreciate—
go for the ordinary and undramatic ones.
Write a poem of praise to God for them.
Second Antiphon in the Style of Hildegard
O You who squeeze the wind
until she howls,
who wring the rain until
she gushes,
send electric waves
rushing through the cord
to jolt the vacuum cleaner
to roaring life,
I praise your power
moving in the homeliest of things.
Roses on couch cushions,
lamp stands, small city gardens,
bath water slipping down the drain,
steel wool scouring egg crust off the iron frying pan.
List five objects in your everyday life that you would call “the homeliest things.”
What gift does each of them have for you?
Sister Anne Robb Writes a Letter
Having turned in my stamps,
signed on to silence,
I dream
the old friends
open their empty mailboxes.
In dreams,
they come to visit,
dressed oddly,
staring and shy.
In dreams,
they shout out to me
from the other end of the church.
I trace their names
in the sand of my palm
and God
washes them
into Himself
Imagine yourself on the seashore, writing a letter to God in the sand.
What do you say?
Summer Morning in the kitchen at Seton House
Sitting at the small square table
facing the window, refugee
from the country of longing
where clouds of grief
obscure the mountains,
country cooled by sorrow, heated by dread,
blasted by gusts of panic,
I finger the coffee cup.
Here, the weather is more benevolent.
Mild winds ruffle the oak tree.
The lavish sun ripens
hydrangeas and raspberries.
The intimate sound
of the hummingbird’s
arrival at the feeder
interrupts my fragile silence.
Sit at your kitchen table at a quiet, solitary time. Pay attention to your surroundings— to what you eat and drink.