By Ilse Kramer
New dress
Size Small
That would be nice
Indeed
I welcome my new friends
And tell them call me Poet
That is my name
And always will be
New poems and new songs
What stays the same
Is my old place of worship
On Angel Street
I find
The winter of my life
Holds the most promises
Of all
But dare I hope
For that new dress
I once was small
Why can’t I be again
By Ilse Kramer
Be a poet, be a writer,Make it heavy, make it lighter,
Make it nobler and sublimer,
Be a wordsmith, be a rhymer.
Nonsense can make so much sense,
Your choice of forms is so immense.
Limerick, jingle. even pun,
Writing, sharing will be fun.
It is time for you to start.
Art and flowchart rhymes with heart,
And our services’ introitsounds a little bit like poit.
And a rose is still a rose, a rose
In your verses or your prose.
When your heart is glad or broken,
Send your story, send a token,
Send a poem, send a piece.… [Read More]
by The Reverend Caroline Patterson
You are both the destination and the journey
The answer and the question
The treasure and the cost
The ladder and the rungs
The voice and the silence
The mysterious and the plain
You are All.
We are One.
The Reverend Caroline Patterson is the Coordinator of Pastoral Care, Women and Infants Hospital. She graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was ordained at Central Congregational Church.
— by Ilse Kramer
We speak from the pulpit,
We say the Lord’s Prayer,
We sing and we clap,
We follow orders,
We say, I am sorry,
We Master the Web,
We comfort the sick and the sad,
We teach the children,
We lead and we guide,
We play the Aeolian Skinner,
We count the coins,
We plan the Film Fare,
We print programs and poems,
We hang pictures and wreaths,
We visit the lonely,
We sweep the floors,
We polish the silver,
We wrap the flowers,
We study the Market,
We catalog books,
We greet and shake hands,
We set the table and wash the dishes,
We weed the Courtyard,
We serve communion,
We serve the poor,
We preach the Good News,
We honor the white haired,
We preserve ye old papers.… [Read More]
O Wow
By Ilse Kramer
One time in the winter Joe, a cabinet maker who was doing quite well for himself, went to the City of Providence which goes all the way back to Roger Williams. He, Joe, was going to check out some very old furniture at an auction.
With him was his wife, Mitzi, still a teenager and pregnant. Joe was not the child’s biological father, but he loved Mitzi and wanted to take care of her.
It got to be dark, and the two of them needed a place to stay.… [Read More]
Night Sounds
George B. Delany
October 25, 2009
In the middle of night, awakening from deep sleep
I hear haunting sounds unmistakably in the woods nearby
Mysterious, rhythmic sounds I do not recognize
Drowsy, I slip into moccasins and quietly out the front door
Barely moving in the dark stepping slowly into night
Inching quietly toward a protected spot under the Chestnut tree
In that hour before dawn I hear the sounds directly, again
First one, only 50 feet off from high in the old oak tree
By the barn where for years we raised sheep and chickens
Then another gentle, Hoo….hoohoo… [Read More]
Fairy tale
— Rose Dunlap
“Tell me the story,”
The little girl said
“Of the Fair Mother God,” and she nodded her head.
“Of Mary, the Virgin?” (I found it quite odd).
“No,” said Rosie, “ I do mean the other,
I mean the story with the Fairy God Mother.”
Rose Dunlap, a Kindergartner at the Martin Luther King Elementary School, and a very good gymnast
Tempus fugit
— Rose Dunlap
In the middle of the night
The next day came so very fast
That straightaway, that straightaway
The morning said “Get up, get up.”
Rose Dunlap, a Kindergartner at the Martin Luther King Elementary School, and a very good gymnast
Tom Rice
— Hope Madison
The sun turns a cartwheel very soon,
It knows full well it’s not the moon.
The sun is then an arc of red,
(And Tom is not asleep in bed).
Clouds exercise a perfect timing.
And now the sun is slowly climbing.
Hope Madison was a faithful member of Central Church. She had cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair. Hope loved to be visited by Reverend Spencer and her sons Tom and Ezra when they were small children. – She wrote many beautiful poems. … [Read More]
POET’S CORNER: EXCERPTS OF GOD’S OWNERSHIP OF THE SEA
LEONARD SWAIN D.D. Reprinted from the Bibliotheca Sacra. Andover: Published by Warren F. Draper, 1864.
Sermon preached at the Central CC Providence, RI October 7, 1860.
THE traveller who would speak of his experience in foreign lands must begin with the sea. Especially is this the case if he would speak of his journey in its religious aspects and connections. For it is through the religion of the sea that he approaches those lands, and through it that he returns from them.… [Read More]
