Susan Cowger

Art & Poetry

Art Poetry

Scars

Making love in a thousand dif’rent darknessesold scars look like frost ` ... read more

DO NOT RUN

Uh-Oh. April is National Poetry Month.You have an assignment...Don’t run! It’s only a haiku—the 17 syllable English form of a kind of Japanese poem. But the parameters are simple. NO, it doesn’t have to have all that HDM (hidden deep meaning). More like small observations. In a nutshell:3 lines of syllables (5,7,5)A mention of nature. And a ... read more

Crossing the Grand Canyon

Crossing the Grand CanyonO God of angels, stranded on the headof a pin, my God of the depths,who speaks only with spacesbetween words and worlds,whose heart wrings out clotted rivers deep inside,whose breath touches every unknown and naked cliff,You who made my expanse bare, You the InsistentInvisible, O God, whose absence is presenceof both dread ... read more

The problem is self-government.

So the blah blah comes up again and again about what they call the fix, a change, finally. Here is a blanket statement for you: The problem is self-government. If people will not govern their own actions, necessarily the government needs to do it for them. If people do not have a baseline for right and wrong, necessarily a government needs to ... read more

Habits

“We imply and often believe, that habitual vices are exceptional single acts, and make the opposite mistake about our virtues.” –CS Lewis –Ok, let’s talk habits. The word habit generally has a negative connotation—something in need of a change. Implication: addictive behavior. That word addictive adding to the distaste.Singular slips. If one is not ... read more

A Rock Called the Universe

A Rock Called the UniverseI have a rockI call the universe,palm sized and somewhat flat.Here, press itbetween your hands.Warm the universe.What is it about smooththat makes you think soft? Brush the expanse around your lips,where most the nerves are.The universe is nothing at alllike flesh. Lick the rock,the universe smells like rain,like a storm ... read more

Looking Back

Looking BackMemory is mere observation.Truth is what wasn’t seenThat made the bird fly. ... read more

Emptiness

Thomas Merton calls the believer toward emptiness, his mystic leanings showing like a slip. However, Merton's love of emptiness by no means implies vacancy. He considers that if one empties themself of self, the natural outcome is inclusion of all others. Thus the irony of empty meaning full. Come on, you gotta love that.My goodness, I didn't ... read more

25 Random Things About Me (ala FaceBook)

1. I will not answer chain letters, in fact, this FaceBook ice-breaker very much resembles a chain letter in the way one is “urged” to send it to 25 “friends” with the blah-blah to continue the m. m…, oh never mind…2. Sorry. Random point number two: my ability to speak too soon, too much, an exaggerated sense of being right, however, in ... read more

Social Justice

Perhaps you’ve all heard the saying:In essentials, unity.In nonessentials, liberty.In all things, charity (love).Once we are agreed on who Jesus is, these are the rules of banter about how we then shall live.So let me toss this out into the fray: I am troubled by social justice. Between “be good” and the “do good” I fall distinctly in the “be” ... read more