Aaron Smith

“The Lectern
Some rise on eagles wings, this one is plain,
Plain English workmanship in solid oak;
Age gracefully it says, go with the grain.
You walk towards an always open book,
Open as every life to every light,
Open to shade and shadow, day and night,
The changeless witness of your changing pain.
Be still the lectern says, stand here and read
Here are your mysteries, your love and fear,
And running through them all, the slender thread
Of God's strange grace red as these ribbons, red
As your own blood when reading reads you here
And pierces joint and marrow ... So you stand
The lectern still beneath your trembling hand.”
― Malcolm Guite, The Word within the Words

“A fox. Tentative, she sets one paw onto the ice. Then another. She hesitates, for she knows how fickle the river can be.”
― Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

“We need both the words, and the Word. We need the Word undergirding the words, the Word shimmering through the words. This is how I have approached the scriptures both as a believer and a poet.”
― Malcolm Guite, The Word within the Words

“I learned to let prayer shape the way I saw the world, to "behold the lightener of the stars" as the Celtic Christians did in their ancient prayers, and to understand that the Creator's breath blew also in the dark and void places of my heart.”
― Sarah Clarkson, Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention