“Ten Facts About the Towers” by Richard Leach

February 2, 2015Posted by

Richard Leach

TEN FACTS ABOUT THE TOWERS

1. They have not always been there.
2. They are ten miles high.
3. Everyone can see them.
4. No one speaks of them.
5. No one writes about them.
6. No one photographs them or sketches them or makes any image of them.
7. There are lines strung between them.
8. The lines between them are almost unseeable.
9. No one knows what power the lines carry.
10. We know the lines carry power.

—from Rattle #45, Fall 2014
Tribute to Poets of Faith

__________

Richard Leach: “I’m an ordained minister and was a pastor from 1978 to 1999. The sacred poetry I’ve been writing since 1987 is widely published, set to music, and sung as hymns and anthems in many denominations. I continue to write for singers in church, but since 2009 most of my work has been secular and self-published. My faith is orthodox but not conservative. American Christian churches far too often play chaplain to militarism and injustice. For me, the poetry of faith should be deeply honest about anything it speaks of, and should be surprising because much received wisdom is false—and because it’s more fun that way. Those ‘shoulds’ shape all my poetry. The hymns and anthems are more biblical, the other work more humorous and surreal.” (website)

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