The Word of God
Arise,
you are a word in the mouth of God:
Unstoppable.
You are a word pouring forth beginnings,
unstoppable like early spring rivers.
Pouring forth beginnings you are noisy.
Like early spring rivers you are bright and dangerous.
You are noisy in the mouth of God.
You are bright and dangerous:
Arise.
—Laura Gail Grohe, Greenfield, MA
Laura Gail Grohe lives in Greenfield Massachusetts, and her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Poetic Medicine, protestpoems.org, and Contemporary World Literature. Having begun her undergraduate career in 1986, this spring she will be receiving her B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts.
I’ve never had much success working in form until I discovered the pantoum. Most times I’ve seen pantoums they were really long; I, however, was interested in writing a short pantoum. This summer I was experimenting with some of my finished work to see how it would change with different line lengths/breaks. I was surprised at how much more I liked “The Word of God” re-lineated, the longer lines fit the poem better, and made the repeated lines more interesting. I jokingly refer to this poem as a “pantoum on the sly.”