Calvin Ross, Our Class Poet Laureate, “Wrinkles in Time”

Calvin Ross, 2023

   Wrinkles in Time

        (after Madeleine L’Engle)

I toss a lasso in the corral of my mind, Voila! I’m 9

roping a cow to ride bareback on Grandpa’s farm.

I hug my wife in our bedroom, and we’re walking

barefoot on soft white beach sands of Destin.

Then front row for UH-oh Jimmie Rodger’s concert

in his Branson theater, she sighs and says, I’m 16.

 

I know a fellow who chants rituals with friends

in a sweat tent. At a certain Celsius, with mythic

incantations, he calls upon ancient Peruvians

for their spirits to return through millennia

to sit in a mandala circle for cleansing together.

 

Do you take communion in sacred whispers

of the Eucharist, Mass, or Lord’s Supper?

What occurs within memories of your flesh

when the liturgist proclaims improbability:

the wafer dissolving on your tongue is a taste

fresh from the first century? the sip of wine

you pause to slowly savor, an elixir of blood?

 

Mystifications dance in nanosecond quick steps

through our expansive minds—as galaxies

exploring a universe. Imagine a sleight of hand

performance on the tapestry of space and time

folding pleats from the soul’s there and then

to touch, to awaken our waiting here and now.

 

Editor’s Note: Calvin has contributed two other original poems to our website. Click on the underlined titles – Old Long Since, an Ode to the New Year and Keeper of the Plains

Calvin has been an active member of the Poetry Society of Tennessee. In addition to a number of stories for this website, he wrote about using story-telling in his ministry. See “Ministry: Finding Purpose in Pastoral Care and Ethics.”

 

 

 

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