Poem of the Week

Emily Warn has been a park ranger in California, Montana, Michigan, and Washington, as well as a website program manager at Microsoft. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Shadow Architect, The Leaf Path, and The Novice Insomniac, and her poems, reviews, and essays have been widely published. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Warn taught creative writing and English at the Bush School and at Lynchburg College, where she was the Thornton writer in residence and then associate professor of creative writing. Most recently she served as editor poetryfoundation.org. Warn divides her time between Seattle and Twisp.

Cantillations

by Emily Warn

How do you remain faithful when boredom sets in? Sages
offer numerous rules of piety, precepts, commandments,
vows, proverbs, and aphorisms, all compiled after revelations
that shattered the structure of existence. The purpose of all
rules of piety is to extend revelation into ordinary life. They
are survival tactics that help us withstand tedium, our
disappointed expectations that something dramatic will
happen—the sky open, a pillar of fire light our way—if we
do this and that. For example, if you stand in a field in the
month of Elul when the red dwarf rises above the tree where
the shepherd has tethered his goats, you’ll see divine light.

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