In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am inviting several poet friends to join me in my daily endeavor of paying poetic attention to the world. This week I am sharing the practice with dear friend Amy Tingle of The Creativity Caravan. Follow her on Instagram at @tingle for daily doses of inspiration, creativity, shenanigans and community based delight.

(On April 13, the US Military dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) on Afghanisatn. The 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition is, in some circles, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”)
.
we say ‘mother’ to mean
the place from which we come.
the who through whom
we travel to arrive here.
the body that feeds us into being.
the being that gives us her body
to be.
.
not this, or any, bomb.
not ever this, or any, bomb.
we will never call that phallic fist
that shatters bodies into bits
that leaves behind
a deadly mist for miles
an open gape of unmendable ache
we will never call this ‘mother’.

photo and poem by katherine ferrier ©2017

Take small comfort,
and by small I mean
glimmers of faith.
One milky ray of sunshine
piercing the storm clouds,
orphan feathers,
the single cat’s eye marble you roll in your palm.
What else do we have
to grip with our tiny
sticky fingers
but hope?

photo and poem by Amy Tingle ©2017