Crazy Quilt
From Jane Wilson Joyce, Quilt Pieces (Gnomon Press, second printing, 2009).
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
is cracked. California is splitting
off. There is no East or West, no rhyme,
no reason to it. We are scattered.
Dear Lord, lest we all be somewhere
else, patch this work. Quilt us
together, feather-stitching piece
by piece our tag-ends of living,
our individual scraps of love.
Jane Wilson Joyce (PhD University of Texas, Austin) retired in 2012 as Luellen Professor Emerita of Classics at Centre College in Kentucky. A classical scholar with wide-ranging interests, Joyce regularly taught classes in Latin language and literature, ancient epic and lyric poetry, Greco-Roman drama, classical mythology, and creative writing. This poem comes from her book The Quilt Poems (1984).
Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net
