This summer The Well is featuring a series of poems by women. Ruth Goring invites you to approach them curiously and meditatively.
"Manna"
by Luci Shaw
They asked, and he brought quails,
and gave them food from heaven. — Psalms [sic] 105:40
I’m not asking for quails for dinner
and, if they flew in my window, at mealtime,
in a torrent of wind, I would think
aggravation, not miracle.
Time is so multiple and fluid. If I lose a day
flying the Pacific and gain it back
returning, perhaps the prayer I offered
this morning at first light
was known and answered last week.
You never know what a simple request
will get you. So, no plea for birds
from heaven. Rather, I will commit myself
to this quotidian wilderness, watching for what
the wind may bring me next—
perhaps a minor wafer tasting like honey
that I can pick up with my fingers
and lay on my tongue to ease, for this day,
my hunger to know.
Photo by Nature's Beauty from StockSnap.
