ON SITE ONLY. NO ZOOM. Led by Brett Millier assisted by Rev. Tricia with Ronnie Romano on piano. Brett is a member of CVUUS, our choir, our Board, our rhubarb pie bee team, our radical love granola maker and so much more. She’s taught English at Middlebury College for years and brings us her devotion to literature and Ruth Stone’s poetry. 

See details of the service here: OOS Aug 27, 2023

Join us for social hour in the Fellowship Hall following worship.

Poems by Ruth Stone (1915-2011)

Advice

My hazard won’t be yours, not ever;

But every doom, like a hazelnut, comes down

To its own worm. So I am rocking here

Like any granny with her apron over her head.

Saying Lordy me. It’s my trouble.

There’s nothing to be learned this way.

If I heard a girl crying help

I would go to save her;

But you hardly ever hear those words.

Dear children, you must try to say

Something when you are in need.

Don’t confuse hunger with greed.

And don’t wait until you are dead.

Second-Hand Coat

I feel

In her pockets; she wore nice cotton gloves

kept a handkerchief box, washed her undies,

ate at the Holiday Inn, had a basement freezer,

belonged to a bridge club.

I think when I wake in the morning

that I have turned into her.

She hangs in the hall downstairs,

a shadow with pulled threads.

I slip her over my arms, skin of a matron.

Where are you? I say to myself, to the orphaned body,

and her coat says,

Get your purse, have you got your keys?

Mantra

When I am sad

I sing, remembering

the redwing blackbird’s clack.

Then I want no thing

except to turn time back

to what I had

before love made me sad.

 

When I forget to weep,

I hear the peeping tree toads

creeping up the bark.

Love lies asleep

and dreams that everything

is in its golden net;

and I am caught there, too,

when I forget.