Monday, August 24, 2015

Sandra Duguid

Sandra Duguid grew up in western New York State. For twenty years she taught literature, composition and creative writing at colleges in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, and at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. She lives in New Jersey.

Her first poetry collection, Pails Scrubbed Silver, was published by North Star Press in 2013. In 2014 she contributed a poem to my blog The 55 Project.

John Leax has said of her poetry, "She asks her reader, 'Can you imagine?' and then with sure insight and shining words, she makes imagination possible."

This following poem is from Pails Scrubbed Silver, and first appeared in America. It was also awarded a prize in a contest from Calvin College.

Road to Emmaus

There have been crucifixions, too,
in our town—innocents
gunned down in their doorways
or in school halls; or radiation's
black outlines, three crosses
marked a sister's chest: no wonder
we walk in quiet rage, musing.

And who, on this road, will join us,
seeming unaware
of the worst news in the neighborhood,
but spelling out the history of the prophets
and a future:
---Ought not Christ to have suffered these things
---and to enter into his glory?

Could our hearts still burn within us?

Will we ask the stranger to stay?
Break bread? And how
will our well-hammered and nailed
kitchens and bedrooms appear to us
when we understand who he is
just as he steals away?

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.