MEDITATION ON RADIANCE SUTRA #77 – a poem by Elaine Fletcher Chapman

MEDITATION ON RADIANCE SUTRA #77

I close the blinds to traffic on Harpersville,
trash people threw last night while passing.
Later I will pick up plastic cups and wrappers
from Sonic and McDonalds. Cigarette butts.

I open the blinds facing the reservoir, morning
light through the newly budding leaves. Some
call it scrub brush. I call it forest, the woods.

We take what is offered. Attempt to make
it our own. We are temporary. The parsonage:
Not a borrowed house, but an earned one.
When the choir director lived here, the living room
housed his practice organ.  Walls hold

vibrations. Yesterday, when waking from a deep sleep,
I heard the chords from a chorus of soft Amens.

Elaine Fletcher Chapman (formerly Elaine Walters McFerron) is the author of a volume of poems, RESERVOIR forthcoming with Saint Julian Press in late 2020, Hunger for Salt published by Saint Julian Press and a letterpress chapbook, Double Solitude published by Green River Press. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching Literature at Old Dominion University, Chapman worked on staff at The Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College for 18 years. She founded The Writer’s Studio where she teaches poetry, nonfiction and an ongoing class, On Keeping a Journal. She also provides editing services and organizes Poetry Readings and Crossing Over Writing Retreats.  For the last 39 years she has worked as a therapist in private practice. Also she is a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation teacher. She has poems forthcoming in Hoot Review, Cloudbank and Poetry Pacific. Her poems have been published in 8 Poems, Rabid Oak, The Tishman Review, The EcoTheo Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation, The Sun, Calyx, Poet Lore, 5AM, Salamander, and others. She was guest blogger on The Best American Poetry Blog and The Solstice Literary Magazine blog. She now lives on the West side of the Chesapeake Bay near the James River in Newport News, Virginia. She also spends a great deal of time in the San Francisco Bay area. Trailer and Poetry Videos for Hunger For Salt: www.vimeo.com/elainefletcherchapman or http://www.elainefletcherchapman