Bonnie Naradzay

 A Poem is a Spiritual Suitcase
  
 Do not wander from your path any longer, for you are not 
 likely to read your notebooks or your deeds of ancient Rome 
 and Greece or your extracts from their writings, which you 
 had laid up against old age.
                                                                         Marcus Aurelius                                                                                                                     
  
 A poem is a spiritual suitcase, 
 so take everything out.
 In a dead camel I found a mass 
 of plastic bags as big as a large suitcase, 
 touted to cure the sickness. 
 I took the whole thing out. 
 The life you dreamed about is here 
 but the tone seems off.  
 Invite the stranger to a feast, 
 which is where you need to go.
 Cross out the scholarly quotes 
 and the part about airmen 
 roving through tomato fields 
 in Spain, hunting for unexploded 
 hydrogen bombs.  Aurelius died 
 near the Danube, far from Rome, 
 and here you are, perplexed by how 
 to part with possessions and notebooks.
 Jesus beckons to a tax collector
 and Matthew looks surprised, 
 points to himself and asks, 
 “Who, me?”  It actually happened, 
 but who would believe it? I thought 
 I’d seen everything. Then he rises to go 
 to the banquet.  When we are empty, 
 we fill our lives.  
  
Copyright 2021 by Bonnie Naradzay

 
  

Author’s Note

I enjoyed constructing this poem for Mike Maggio’s Poetry Month challenge.  This assemblage came from two of my published poems – “Filling Our Lives” and  “Now we are all sons of bitches.”  It also includes phrases from a recent article in the Washington Post that transfixed me.

Bio

Bonnie Naradzay has led poetry workshops for many years at Miriam’s Kitchen, a day shelter for homeless people, and at a retirement center, both in Washington, D.C.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review