Martha

Martha

Heather Kaufmann

Luke 10:38-42

I am a sea
of distractions
and you
a floating island
in my midst
tossed about
by the tasks
and torrents
of the day
incessant
in their cresting
these foaming
indignities
these depths
of dreams
unplumbed

I am vast
in my capacity
to wind up
in a whirlwind
of water
and weed
above the sea
a salty encircling
tempest, filled
with the detritus
of the churning deep

What would it take to stop

to step
foot on the floating island
of your presence to listen
so attentively I fail
to see the sea about me
now calm and the Spirit now
hovering over the deep?

---

Heather Kaufmann
Poet

Heather's work has been published in Fathom, Transpositions, and Psalmody. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is currently working on a chapbook of poems in response to the Gospel of Luke.

Photography by Frosty Ilze