Yes, it’s been almost five months since I last posted. I have few excuses, really.

For three weeks in July and August, I toured Poland with the Hope Singers. Writing about a trip like mine can be hard—how does one accurately and objectively describe large-scale worldview adjustments? But here’s a poem (because who says poems need to be objective? Subjectivity is half their beauty) that begins to describe my tour experience. Or at least, it describes a program on our second day of tour.

---

Day Two 

have you seen
my heart?         I left it first
in Kolbuszowa, I think, at
the centrum kultury.         have you asked
Craig, the American?         have you asked
his wife?         his kids?         maybe
the lights guy knows

have you seen
my heart?         have you asked
our audience?         those unexpected people,
did they take it like they took
our program— our concert—
our muddled radośćią?         and call for
an encore?

have you seen
a heart full of prayer, and
half-learnt Polish texts, and connections
too vital to be faked?         a heart
full of sandwiches and coffee and hospitality?
have you seen  a heart
drenched,         a Szczebrzeszyn chrząszcz*
in a summer thunderstorm,
in a sudden outpouring of
foreign grace?

---

*Wół mnie pyta: “Po cóż pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?”
We’d stopped in Szczebrzeszyn earlier in the day to see the beetle. Plus, Brzechwa’s famous poem remains one of my outstanding memories of tour.

P.S. I love feedback. If you have questions or comments about the style or the content of my writing, leave them at the bottom of the page. Or message me privately via my contact page.