New Commissioned Poems: Five Sonnets from Sarah Crowley Chestnut
"Then, I heard the Lord in the given line."
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One of the hopes we have for this newsletter is to commission new poetry from the talented poets within the Rabbit Room community. After all, that is the mission of the Rabbit Room—to cultivate and curate works of art, music, and story to nourish communities for the life of the world.
That is where your paid subscriptions come in.
We reinvest the funds from paid subscriptions back into the hands of poets, allowing us to commission fresh and inspiring poetry. By becoming a paid subscriber, you step into a time-honored role in the artistic process—a patron, contributing to the creation of meaningful work.
Without patronage, artists face greater challenges in creating and sharing their work with the world. Because of digital technology, you no longer need to be a wealthy philanthropist to support artists and patronize the arts. Our vision is to connect a large number of micro-patrons to poets doing excellent work in pursuit of a simple goal: to bring their work to a wider audience of readers who will benefit from and enjoy their poems.
Which brings us to Sarah Crowley Chestnut.
Poetry Spotlight: Sarah Crowley Chestnut
Sarah Crowley Chestnut lives and works at L’Abri Fellowship in Southborough, Massachusetts with her husband and two children. She keeps a small vegetable garden, a sourdough starter, and a messy desk. Sarah’s poetry has appeared in CRUX, Red Rock Literary Journal, LETTERS, Christian Century, and elsewhere.
Sarah brings wisdom, theological depth, and a careful way with words to her poetry. In these sonnets, you’ll find echoes of transcendence grounded in the everyday details of human experience and the mysterious alchemy of making words into meaning.
We share them in hopes that you’ll find something valuable hidden inside them, as Sarah writes in the final sonnet:
“Then, the fraught edge of myself was hemmed.
Then, I was gathered like a foraged meal.
Then, I was fed. Then, I was clothed. Then, I slept and slept.
Then, I heard the Lord in the given line.”
Good Company
I am the timid, cowering person shrinking into the shadow of my mind. Also, the lambaster desperate to un- riddle my inertia, lay blame, turn some lost key in some fictitious lock and emerge powerful, impressive, sung like a tune from God’s own throat. And there’s this: the me that likes to finger the links that form the chain that keeps me bound. It’s that metallic clink sound… See now: the real drama is on the page. Abraham journeyed on stage by dark stage. The angel is prodding you. Wake up. Get dressed. Follow hard. Follow me. You’re not the first to disbelieve you are free.
Every Last Meal a Difficult Welcome
Bolognese wafts from the kitchen, fogs windows two girls write their names on with greasy fingertips. Wooden spoon to lips, Mary tests the balance: stewed tomato, pungent oregano, caramel onion, generous pinch of coarse salt. And wine with a heavy hand. With this sweet reduction Mary stands in the abyss and makes pasta: indigo apron criss-crosses her body like arms, holds her, like a husband. Iridescent olive oil slick is a messenger. These ingredients have become one. Nothing so ruby-red as bolognese in good time. How long will she stand in the sinking center of the house making food he cannot eat? You, Lord, who purportedly see all things, have up to now ignored all prayers for healing. Each entreaty pads room to room like their cat, Harry, on the run. Supplication skids over kitchen tiles— black and white blur evades the pursuing girls. Welcome diversion? Mary ladles sauce over a tangle of noodles. Welcomes (dear God) conversion. –For Mary Romero Ferguson, in memoriam Ben Ferguson
Woodwright
Pungent stain laces pine-perfume air. Sawdust everywhere. Curls of cast-off from rough-planed planks. Cherry. Poplar. Pass after pass, the sander makes the wood glow. You must move with the grain. Sage paint scuffed from each knob gives that distressed look. Like a step into your grandad’s mind: capability the color of Levi’s. And something you just can’t teach. He is know-how. He is spatial thinking. The Father pulls his favorite book from a shelf he made. The Son rests his feet on a stool he made. The Spirit pauses at a mirror he made and smiles at the beveled frame. Already they welcome the woodwright by name.
Nathanael
Hot as a fig wasp and alone beneath the ficus, dodging vineyard labor, I stitched my fingers to the fingers of the tree’s lobed leaves, still seething with my latest fly-bitten lie: I’m off to work, father… That’s where Philip found me and no wineskin could hold the ferment of his news. He gushed on the half-run: “Messiah!— Nazareth!—Come!” I slouched my skepticism toward the man. Yes, I looked. But he saw, saw through me, called me to clarity, called me clean: Israelite indeed in whom there’s no deceit! Fig leaves cling like a shadow, but now I’ll wrestle to receive his dream: Jesus of Nowhere, Jesus of Everywhere, only you can undeceive me. --John 1:43-51
Psalm of Pressing
Then, the given line was a word I did not resist. Then, the tambour of the line was liquid amber. Then, I understood hesitation is only itself. Then, I sat in the September grass and said: “So be it.” Then, each line was a table, a bowl, a cup, a spoon. Then, both moon and meal were simply the way forward. Then, I stopped fretting over paths and pasts. Then, the voice that drives and rides my breath was unburied. Then, I simply replied. Then, the fraught edge of myself was hemmed. Then, I was gathered like a foraged meal. Then, I was fed. Then, I was clothed. Then, I slept and slept. Then, I heard the Lord in the given line. Then, I wept, you are blessed, you are blessed. –After “The Psalm of Then” by Nicholas Samaras
Oh goodness, sonnets are a magic all their own and these are woven so well. Well done! I especially like Woodright, with the three reflections of God as father Son and Holy Spirit.
I am speechless. So many incredible lines and images in these poems: "holds her, like a husband," "You, Lord...have up to now ignored all prayers for healing," "Jesus of Nowhere, Jesus of Everywhere," "both moon and meal were simply the way forward," "gathered like a foraged meal," and the list goes on and on. Does Sarah have a book out? I'd buy it.