Creating the World, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Creating the World


Jennifer Angelina Petro



Most of us know how

The world around us

Helps shape us—

Our morals, likes

And dislikes, ways of seeing,

How we listen, and to whom.


For the sake of this poem, however,

I am not just referring to the world

As society and culture,

And the morays we absorb

So easily and release so stubbornly.


I am speaking of the air,

The world-forces of creation,

How we are born into movement,

And how the boundaries

Of skin and bone are sung

Into form as we live, move,

And have our being in the world,

Literally sculpted as we go

By the responsive hands of space.


Now, here, as you move,

As you get up from your chair

To walk across the room,

As you go to dress, or eat,

Or kneel in prayer,

As you reach out to a lover

Or to pick up an infant,

Or hand the cashier your change,

Or receive an embrace,

Know, now, here, you

Are sculpting the world.


The very space you move

Within-to-with, you shape—


The air, the back space

And the many little circles

And planes you walk this day—

Become embodying language;

Your movements create

Form and living paintings

In space and time and breath,

The world responds

To your every movement,

Your every touch, and push;


You unfold and color the world–

As you propel forward—

The way parts and blooms around you

As if you were swimming

In a sea of impressionable air—

Because you are.


As you live through-with

This day, delineating your space,

Open your movements—

Your arms and the myriad

Of little dances you do,

Widen your gestures, welcome

And invite, give and receive,

Describe space with grace and purpose—

Adorn the world

With you.





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That Same Wonder

That Same Wonder
Joseph Anthony Petro



I am being
Step for step,
Morning by morning,
Evening by evening,
Breath for breath,
Pulse by pulse,
Desire by desire
Written, drawn,
Painted, sculpted,
Composed, arranged,
Sung, and spoken.
I am an expression
Of something, someone
So living, so vitalizing,
That it spills into my steps,
Pours from my words,
Weeps from my heart
In such a way as to both hide itself
And reveal itself at the same time.
It should come as no surprise
That wonder drips, no matter how
Sad I get, from every cell
Of my body.
I am being made, created,
Dreamed, formed
By wonder, and the same wonder
That assembles me
Dismantles me, levels me,
Emptiness me,
Adjourns and disrobes me,
That same wonder
I am being fitted for
Doctored by,
Dissolved by
Is the same wonder
That wants me,
Requests me,
Stomachs me,
Explores me,
That same wonder
That is my every breath and my last breath,
That same wonder that will lay me down
In the soft earth and raise me up
When I am ready to awaken,
That same wonder that will keep me
Dancing, learning, being born, full of grace,
Full of insight, full of cherry blossom petals
And moonlight, full of ponds
And stars—that same wonder, when I am ready
To be myself in full bloom
Will be there, here
Ready to catch me
When I fall.






Center of the Universe

Center of the Universe
Joseph Anthony Petro


Imagine the idea that you are the center of the universe
Is true. Imagine from where you stand a big bang unfurls creating everything around you.
Of course, some big bangs will be experienced as whispers,
Or deep sighs of acceptance after years of working hard to simply trudge
Another step. Imagine the universe blossoming through your blossoming;
That all space and time is hereby localized in you.
Imagine being a focal point of God’s light, an emissary of the moment—
The very ways and means of God’s omnipotence. Imagine it’s you and I
And every sentient being experiencing being alive all at the same time.
Imagine galaxies gracefully unfolding their arms from the center of your heart,
Stars forming from a single thought, planets set to spinning from an impulse
To play.

Imagine self-centeredness being a blessing.
Imagine it meaning something altogether different
From what we usually think it means.
Imagine it means the complete desire to serve and to share,
To create and to inspire, to let go of rather than hold on to.
Imagine it is the way in which we imagine self-centeredness
That selfishness of the most terrible kind arises.

Imagine opening your eyes and seeing everything revolve around you,
And imagine everyone else doing the same, so that everyone would see together
Through their own unique lens the eternal dance of now.

Imagine God seeing through you,
Breathing through you,
Thinking and loving and touching through you,
And the gift is you get to feel what it’s like
To be light,
To be breath,
To be a vessel
Of divinity.

Imagine then your choice in all of this is whether or not
To close yourself off and turn away, or to be yourself–
An absolutely true center of the universe.

Imagine making your decision and then turning towards the momentum
And joining the dance.




Limitless Possibilities

Limitless Possibilities
Joseph Anthony

Limitless Possibilities

Every seed is hand-crafted
and placed lovingly in a world
of sweetness and protection.
Every seed contains the hope of sky,
and the memory of a passageway,
and the deepest ache and longing for light.
And inside every seed burns a steady darkness.
Not the kind where you can just make out the shapes of things,
but the kind where nothing is visible,
and this is good, holy, necessary.
And every seed holds a question
Whose answer opens into vast,
Cathedrals of light. And then,
life surges further upwards, blazing slowly
through blindness, past hard places,
past bones and ancient relics of past generations,
through the sweet, congratulating earth,
through darkness, and out–
out into the golden warmth
of limitless possibilities.

light through the trees

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