Pantoum Poetry on life, death, and church

My typical reflective essay format is feeling too tidy for the messy stretch of life I'm in. So I've been experimenting with poetry, specifically the Pantoum format. Pantoum is a poetry form that originated in Malaysia in the 15th century (That's the 1400s for those of you, like me, who find this language confusing). A Pantoum can be any length, but the basic structure is repeated 4-line stanzas in which the 2nd and 4th lines of one stanza become the 1st and 3rd lines of the next stanza. It's common for the first and last lines of the poem to be the same. Here are 4 of mine:

A Pantoum on church

I guess I’m a church lady

Middle pew on the right

Singing, serving, speaking

Either devout or pathologically loyal

Middle pew on the right

Vacant during a pandemic year

Either devout or pathologically loyal

Returning to ghosts and resurrection

Vacant during a pandemic year

My soul fed by post-evangelical real speak

Returning to ghost and resurrection

Where are the meaning-making structure of this time?

My soul fed by post-evangelical real speak

Singing, serving, speaking

Where are the meaning-making structures of this time?

I guess I’m a church lady

A Pantoum on Early Death

I wish to die in my sleep at age 97.

Retiring gently from a life well lived.

It’s hasty and unfair, these premature deaths at 48, 52, 61…

Yanked mid-stride from dreams, imperfection, dailyness.

Retiring gently from a life well lived.

I hope to ease out with minimal pain and gentle goodbyes.

Yanked mid-stride from dreams, imperfection, dailyness.

Who promised life would be fair?

I hope to ease out with minimal pain and gentle goodbyes.

Let me skip the difficult, character-building chapters.

Who promised life would be fair?

Each next breath, assumed, but not guaranteed.

Let me skip the difficult, character-building chapters.

It’s hasty and unfair, these premature deaths at 48, 52, 61…

Each next breath, assumed, but not guaranteed.

I wish to die in my sleep at age 97.

A Pantoum on Aging

I checked the 2nd highest box, 56-64 years

The vertebrae crackle in new places

My soul’s angst and passions on replay

I’m wise, yet still naïve

The vertebrae crackle in new places

Not a grandma, except at the gym

I’m wise, yet still naïve

Always remembering, always learning

Not a grandma, except at the gym

TRXing for strength and balance

Always remembering, always learning

New thresholds blow open my understandings

TRXing for strength and balance

My soul’s angst and passions on replay

Always remembering, always learning

I checked the 2nd highest age box, 56-64 years

A Pantoum – Why Church?

Why church?

Why not a French salon or a meditation retreat?

Why this flailing progressive place?

Religion – unifying or destructive?

Why not a French salon or a meditation retreat?

Where the wise and disciplined gather.

Religion – unifying or destructive?

Both grounding and divisive.

Where the wise and disciplined gather.

Leaders and marginalized, side-by-side.

Both grounding and divisive.

Misfits from all corners of society, drawn towards an anchor.

Leaders and marginalized, side-by-side.

Souls fed, questions held, trauma healed.

Misfits from all corners of society, drawn towards an anchor.

An integrated whole - faith and life, in and of the world - intertwined.

Souls fed, questions held, trauma healed.

Why this flailing progressive place?

An integrated whole - faith and life, in and of the world - intertwined.

Why church?