Take Me to Where the Poets Live

Take Me to Where the Poets Live

Sarah Spradlin

Take me to where the poets live,
who smelted sand and built glass castles 
for the fire that burns within them, 
who scavenge serenity from ceremony
and out of those good bones of tragedy
ransom blessing.

They whisper requiems into the weaving wind, 
wield words 
to draw up meeting-mountains from ocean depths,
every cobbled stone an ebenezer 
to again woo near Divinity.

Take me to where the prophet-priests have pitched their tents
on the edge of many beautiful and terrible things,
who have forged houses out of words
and left shovels by the entryway 

to seek and find,
to dig up that skeleton key of meaning,
to feel it clink into place and open the door,
to be welcomed in by truth 
once veiled in verse and rhyme. 

Take me to where those winsome wayfinders, 
who by the well-worn paths of paradox and parable,
have returned wandering flocks 
to still waters and green pastures.

Listen, you weary wanderers:
I still trust a poet’s psalm 
to pierce then pry then blaze.
Listen and follow:
when on darkest nights all other lights have failed,
they will lead you home.

---

Sarah Spradlin
Poet & Farmer 

Sarah has been published on Story Embers and Kingdom Pen. She released her debut digital chapbook, Beneath the Mango Tree, in Winter 2021. You can read more of her work on her Instagram, @sarah.spradlin.

Photography by Marina Reich