IN POETRY
Evanescence
by Bonnie Thurston
Bonnie Thurston taught New Testament for many years before leaving the academic world to live quietly in her home state of West Virginia. She is author or editor of twenty-one theological works, has published six collections of poetry, and contributes to scholarly and popular periodicals. An internationally known Merton scholar, her doctoral dissertation was one of the first on Thomas Merton. Thurston is an avid reader, gardener, cook, and lover of classical music. blbthurston@gmail.com
Bonnie Thurston taught New Testament for many years before leaving the academic world to live quietly in her home state of West Virginia. She is author or editor of twenty-one theological works, has published six collections of poetry, and contributes to scholarly and popular periodicals. An internationally known Merton scholar, her doctoral dissertation was one of the first on Thomas Merton. Thurston is an avid reader, gardener, cook, and lover of classical music. blbthurston@gmail.com
—for C. R. H.
The most real things
are not substantial:
knowing oneself loved;
hearing that rarest word,
a glittering truth.
Think of real things,
fidelity, faith, freedom.
Consider a perfect rose.
Its velvety petals will
fall in tonight’s rain
that washes the dawn.
Beauty is intangible,
its evanescence enduring
joy and, perhaps, enough.
The most real things
are not substantial:
knowing oneself loved;
hearing that rarest word,
a glittering truth.
Think of real things,
fidelity, faith, freedom.
Consider a perfect rose.
Its velvety petals will
fall in tonight’s rain
that washes the dawn.
Beauty is intangible,
its evanescence enduring
joy and, perhaps, enough.