Poem-a-Day - "The Miracle of Giving" by D. A. Powell

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November 9, 2023

The Miracle of Giving

D. A. Powell

Twice Christ took the bread apart

with his human hands that he used for

such tasks, once with fish and once with wine,

the grain a pattern of tribute, distribute,

as he worked the division of himself into

feeding others with his body, taken but not taken,

there but not there, it was two times

two times two. Ever body got some body

who will feed them even when there seem hardly

enough to go round. When I hungered the word

fed me. Even so, so many others hungered

he needed a hundred more human hands.

That was when I said here take mine.

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“I wrote ‘The Miracle of Giving’ during a Thanksgiving holiday, a meditation on Christian values during a time when Christians seem more focused on erasing and policing the lives of others rather than embracing or serving their neighbors and loving one another unconditionally. My inspiration for the poem was Rev. Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial Church, which provides meals, education, outreach and healing in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. Williams famously removed the giant cross that stood behind his pulpit and told the congregation, ‘From now on, you’re the cross.’”
―D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell is the author of many titles, most recently Low Hanging Fruit (Foundlings Press, 2022) and Atlas T (Rescue Press, 2020). The recipient of the 2019 John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he lives in San Francisco.

Atlas T
(Rescue Press, 2020)

“When Giving Is All We Have” by Alberto Ríos
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“Why They Went” by Elizabeth Bradfield
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Thanks to Steve Bellin-Oka, author of Instructions for Seeing a Ghost (University of North Texas Press, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Bellin-Oka’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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