Poetry by LA Felleman

Jumping off Point, & Bow to your Partners

Poetry by Laura Felleman

Jumping Off Point

After the Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon


river-carved canyon walls are most 

auspiciously viewed at dusk when 

the lowering sun intensity brings out  

depth in each rocky ribbon

how pitiful when one of your company

usually a man at midpoint of aging

too insensitive to perceive the expanse

extending out towards him, scorns

sarcastically wonders if she is a leaper

woman balanced on the rim dangling

bandaged blisters over the edge

quietly absorbing the land’s expression

you grasp this stranger 

fellow trekker into vast

shedding accumulated layers as

cliff colors freefall through you


Bow To Your Partners

After The Trinity and the Kingdom by Jürgen Moltmann


Herr Dr. Moltmann's Trinity word was

Perichoresis, or Rotation

Think the pirouette of planets

Picture the dosey doe of the multiverse

Three persons with one permeating essence

Swaying and perfectly synchronized

A hand gently resting on a shoulder

Footsteps respectful of neighbors

The divine inner life illustrating

How we are to be each to the other

Currently, LA is a financial analyst at the University of Iowa.  Before that, she was a seminary professor.  Prior to that, she was a pastor.  She credits the Free Generative Writing Workshops, the Midwest Writing Center, and workshops offered through Iowa City Poetry with her growth as a poet.  To give back to the writing community, she organizes a writers open mic at the public library (or via Zoom during pandemics) and serves on the advisory council of Iowa City Poetry.  She is the author of the chapbook, The Length of a Clenched Fist (Finishing Line Press) and blogs at  http://lafelleman.blogspot.com.

Inquiry

Thoughts on these poems, provided by the poet:

Seminary professors tried to train me in systematic thinking.  To deserve an A+, all of the -ologies in my doctrinal system had to agree with one another.  The christology had to be reflected in the pneumatology, which had to inform the ecclesiology, which had to be consistent with the eschatology, et cetera.  Above all else, my ethics were to be grounded in and compatible with my doctrine of God.  If God was a liberator, then my social commitments had to be liberative.  If God was a savior, then my social impetus would be to save.  And so forth.

I wrote the penultimate paper required to graduate and received my degree.  However, my system of tightly interconnected beliefs only lives in that paper.  My actions and behaviors are not guided by a logical system of faithful doctrines.  I wish my engagement with the world was always driven by my most cherished values and commitments, but my day-to-day betrays that most of the time I’m following animal instincts.

Instead of writing more theological treatises, I now write poetry.  The momentariness of a poem feels truer to my lived experience.  Instead of an overarching control system, there is me in this moment feeling what I’m perceiving, and sometimes fleetingly aware of a compelling More behind the veil of daily distractions.  

What do you observe when you take a moment to lift the veil?

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