SALLY WILDER DAVID - POEMS

Sally has taught for the Johns Hopkins University CTY Program and for Maimonides School in Brookline, Massachusetts as well as Westfield State College and DeVry University. Sally was the director of Writing for Lawyers, a course in persuasive discourse for first-year law students, as well as Assistant Editor for a public policy journal, at the Massachusetts School of Law in the 90's. 
 
Sally received her BA in English from Mount Holyoke College, her Masters in Teaching from Boston College, and a certificate in Professional Writing from UMass at Amherst.  

Ms. David has published poetry in Forth, Anthology, 3Elements Review, Athena, The Jamaica Plain Arts News, The Worcester Review, Voices (international anthology; Israel), Silver Needle Press, and The Anglican Theological Review; other poems are currently at major publications. Sally earned Honorable Mention in a Writers’ Digest (national) contest as well as First Prize in a Worcester County Poetry Association contest judged by Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver. 

Her forthcoming book The House with the Golden Windows was supported by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Wilbur.

​

​Whatever God You Are

whenever you find this, help us now.

If you are a Jew,
with your limitless powers,
give us rain in the proper season.                        
To honor you 
we chant Michah Mocha, no one is like you.  
You do not suffer, bleed or rise.

If you are Shiva, lift me
to your pearl-black sky:
show me the world 
without money or politicians. 
Burn my body,
scatter the ashes like confetti.  A parade.
Who will be arrested?  You will. 
That’s how we do things here. 
But we can’t wait till the Messiah comes.  
Or haven’t you heard?

If you are the Christ,
whole now, safe from our madness, 
make us human.
You won’t say 
I told you so. Instead,
you forgive us again; 
give us the will 
to find you 
again, and again and again.  

​

Going Up?    
     for Dean, age 5, in answer to his question  as we were getting into the elevator from the very lowest floor of our building.
​

At rock bottom
when there is nowhere else to go
sometimes we wonder

Is this it?  
Can there be any more?
Will things ever change?

And then
when you are down
on the lowest possible floor
and you doubt you will ever rise,
your self from the future 
tells your present self

Sure it will be ok,
you’re gonna be fine!
This is just one stop
along the way.
You are loved.
All is well.
Just wait and see!
Believe!   

Because that self 
has made it to the top 
and knows what’s going on later
so you don’t really need to ask.

But just in case,
as surely as Dean 
rhymes with Maureen, 1     

Yes, I am going up.



​

Field Day: A Vision   
              Sabis International School, Phoenix AZ

Today I saw you among them
brown hands holding the rope
they pulled in the tug of war.

When it slipped through their bruised fingers
like water and the other side won, 
Wind is blowing,        1

you walked among them
plaiting their ancient hair   
in cornrows like fields newly planted
this season I am here to notice.

You touched their fecund heads,
faces, lives 
like light raising a stony garden 
they said would never bear fruit.

1.  Shri Ram Chandra, a famous Indian teacher of spirituality, told a disciple that an action or outcome might still be influenced by fate, despite any spiritual practice or advantage: “Wind is blowing” regardless. ​