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    Bread and Other Miracles
    Bread and Other Miracles
    Bread and Other Miracles
    Ebook100 pages33 minutes

    Bread and Other Miracles

    By Lynn Ungar

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    About this ebook

    Ever since I read Lynn Ungar's Camas Liliesa poem that has touched the lives of thousands of peopleIve hoped she would publish a collection of poetry. Bread and Other Miracles is a wish come true. These poems come from and speak to many dimensions of what it means to be human. But they have this in common: they take subtle, complex, and elusive experiences and make them accessible without diminishing the mystery. They give the reader a chance to walk around and into the miracles of everyday life, to dwell more deeply in self, other, nature, and spirit. Immerse yourself in this world of words and find yourself more deeply immersed in the world of your own life. Parker J. Palmer (author of Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateOct 10, 2012
    ISBN9781477273593
    Bread and Other Miracles
    Author

    Lynn Ungar

    Lynn Ungar lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her wife, teenaged daughter, two dogs and two cats. She serves as the minister for lifespan learning for the Church of the Larger Fellowship, an online Unitarian Universalist church.

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      Book preview

      Bread and Other Miracles - Lynn Ungar

      Part I

      Blessing the Bread

      Blessing the Bread

      27643.jpg

      Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam,

      hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.

      Surely the earth

      is heavy with this rhythm,

      the stretch and pull of bread,

      the folding in and folding in

      across the palms, as if

      the lines of my hands could chart

      a map across the dough,

      mold flour and water into

      the crosshatchings of my life.

      I do not believe in palmistry,

      but I study my hands for promises

      when no one is around.

      I do not believe in magic,

      but I probe the dough

      for signs of life, willing

      it to rise, to take shape,

      to feed me. I do not believe

      in palmistry, in magic, but

      something happens in kneading

      dough or massaging flesh;

      an imprint of the hand remains

      on the bodies we have touched.

      This is the lifeline—

      the etched path from hand

      to grain to earth, the transmutation

      of the elements through touch

      marking the miracles

      on which we unwillingly depend.

      Praised be thou, eternal God,

      who brings forth bread from the earth.

      Boundaries

      27653.jpg

      The universe does not

      revolve around you.

      The stars and planets spinning

      through the ballroom of space

      dance with one another

      quite outside of your small life.

      You cannot hold gravity

      or seasons; even air and water

      inevitably evade your grasp.

      Why not, then, let go?

      You could move through time

      like a shark through water,

      neither restless nor ceasing,

      absorbed in and absorbing

      the native element.

      Why pretend you can do otherwise?

      The world comes in at every pore,

      mixes in your blood before

      breath releases you into

      the world again. Did you think

      the fragile boundary of your skin

      could build a wall?

      Listen. Every molecule is humming

      its particular pitch.

      Of course you are a symphony.

      Whose tune do you think

      the planets are singing

      as they dance?

      Hawks

      27657.jpg

      Surely, you too have longed for this—

      to pour yourself out

      on the rising circles of the air,

      to ride, unthinking,

      on the flesh of emptiness.

      Can you claim, in your civilized life,

      that you have never leaned toward

      the headlong dive, the snap of bones,

      the chance to be so terrible,

      so free from evil, beyond choice?

      The air that they are riding

      is the same breath as your own.

      How could you not remember?

      That same swift stillness binds

      your cells in balance, rushes

      through the pulsing circles of your blood.

      Each breath proclaims it—

      the flash of feathers, the chance to rest

      on such a muscled quietness,

      to be in

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