On May 10th, People’s Church held it’s annual Poetry Service. The theme this year was Unity. If you’d like to watch the service, you can find it HERE. Below is a collection of the poems from that service.
Another Week on the Rez Pine Ridge, South Dakota: Re-Member
Listen to the birds in the still morning air before the work day begins.
Admire the rolling waves of prairie grass
and the small clusters of cottonwoods rustling in the breeze.
Watch a storm gather in the valley below our lodge.
Feel an appropriate amount of shame for what you learn about the confiscation of treaty lands by the U.S. military to use for bombing practice during World War II.
Get a stomachache when you talk to a Lakota man who was hired to help search for unexploded bombs in the Badlands and knows they failed to find them all.
Think about the Lakota creation story. Imagine if you knew the address of the Garden of Eden and an angry stranger insisted you sell it to him. Imagine you tell him it isn’t for sale. Imagine he takes it anyway.
Watch a 14-year-old white girl bounce a 6-year-old Lakota girl on piggy back, both of them laughing with delight.
Watch an elder bless three strangers from Michigan
who fixed a hole in the floor of her trailer.
Stand at Wounded Knee Cemetery
and honor the memory of those who died there
in two different centuries.
Grieve for their inevitable defeat in the face of concentrated hatred.
Pray for forgiveness and ask for blessed healing.
Learn some important words in the Lakota language.
Mitakuye Oyasin.
We are all related.
–Jacqueline Himelright(2013)
Beginning Anew—Williams Bay, Wisconsin
My mother said it was a birthday present I was too young to appreciate, but I would someday. On June 16, 1951, four families from our church drove to a modest white farmhouse west of town. Waiting in the gravel driveway was our pastor, another man, a woman, and two small children. We were the welcoming committee. I carried a bouquet of daisies. Pastor Warren introduced the newcomers: Janis and Milda Plisis, their daughter, Edite and son, Ojars. They were refugees from a displaced persons camp in Latvia. They traveled by ship to New York City, by train to Chicago, and by bus to Lake Geneva just nine miles away.
In recent days, church volunteers had scrubbed floors, painted walls, and moved in donated furniture and household goods. They spruced up the yard and planted a garden. Mr. Plisis spoke a few words of English, but that first meeting was mostly nods, smiles, and palms pressed together like they were saying prayers. Pastor Warren swept his arm toward the house. We followed the family across the yard and up five steps to the porch. Pastor Warren pulled a key from his pocket and passed it to the new tenant. Mr. Plisis unlocked the door with a shaky hand, stepped back and nudged his wife and kids through first. When I walked in, I saw the family huddled on the floor, arms braided in a four-way hug. Their sobs were the only sound in the room until everyone started to cry.
My father offered Janis a job that day—to join the grounds-keeping crew at the YMCA camp he directed. Edite entered my mother’s first grade classroom in September. Ojars followed two years later. With support from townspeople, the family settled well. Janis and Milda learned English along with their children, and all became US citizens in 1957. Janis became a church leader and an active volunteer. As a younger man, he had been one of Latvia’s star track and field athletes. He was Olympics-bound in 1940 until the Soviet Union’s invasion dashed his dreams. In our town, he became trainer for several young track standouts. Milda was a skilled seamstress and ran a small business in her home.
Janis and Milda remained in Williams Bay for the rest of their lives. Janis died at 89, outliving Milda and both of their children. My family had moved away seven years after we welcomed the Plisis family, but I returned when I was 20 for a summer job at the Y camp where I grew up. The first staffer to greet me was Janis. He had become director of buildings and grounds, and his family had moved into what had been my childhood home. We drank lemonade together in my former kitchen and recounted memories of that wondrous first day. We talked about journeys that come full circle. I told them their arrival had been my fifth birthday present, and I finally understood why.
–Mary Doud 11/3/25
Children’s Poem (from the Time for All Ages during the Service)
When I feel jealousy I ruin eveything,
I want power and riches.
When I feel peace,
I make a better place.
When I love,
I learn and grow.
Coming Together
The act of coming together
To Unite in the quiet defiance of division
To interlock
to intertwine
To Tether together with intention
We Unite
To build Connection
To find Community
To Belong
We Unite
In Knowledge
In Courage
In Strength
And in the stubborn will to press on
We Unite for Truth
As we shed;
As we become;
As we bloom
We Unite in Wholeness
For love
For peace
For gratitude
A shared current carries us all forward;
It carries us through resistance
through fear
through all that asks us to let go
Whether we choose to stand alone,
or come together
and stand as one.
United.
–Written By: Ali Campbell
The Conductor
(For David Carew)
At the end of rehearsal,
he tells them to wear black for the concert.
He means that black is the color
of the universe—not just the absence of light,
but the space between galaxies.
He tells them to pull their hair back
so he can see their faces.
He means that their faces
are starlight for the audience,
their voices the vehicle
transporting each listener
to an unexplored place
where all voices, all souls,
transform in a unified moment
of sound and spirit.
He tells them he has a dream
of how the music should be.
He means that their purpose
is to share a collective dream
charted by the composer,
guided by the conductor,
expressed by each individual
voice and instrument as they
soar beyond the ordinary
to fill that dark space between galaxies.
–Jacqueline Himelright (11-11-11)
The Counselor
I ‘ve been reading my novels
into the night,
falling in love again
with Anne Tyler and Baltimore.
She accompanies her characters
through hundreds of pages,
and finds something,
weaves something
out of all the frailty.
But they were meant to
escape the pages,
spirits calling,
leaning
out of her words.
Some of them
have wandered into my office
and I use her instruction
to help stay suffering
for the moment.
What is inspiration?
And how did we end up here
at this great table,
dining with the plain
and the beautiful.
–Don Miller 11/25
Friends
Two nights ago
while driving home
I came upon
the largest moon
hovering over a celery field.
The brightest portal called to me
along a path
so earthly and yet not.
He needed me, I think
to bow and reach
as if I’d slapped him
on the back.
His fleshiness
was leaning on the green.
The friends
are prone to tender bonds
and both surprised
that heaven and earth
could be so close.
Yet one to rise
and watch the other
bumping back toward home.
—Don Miller 4/26
The Miracles
By fire and smoke gutted, the combustion
of our name, my daughter. By smoke and fire
sooted, mother mine, the home
you kept apart for me, me apart for.
Closeted, content at a century’s third
quarter, my daughter, parting company
with all but you. With all but you,
mother mine, done at a century s
half, cooled from vibrancy to ashes.
Abide in the columbarium, my daughter,
gracing a chamber hard by mine.
Yes, rest we must with the faceless,
mother mine, for nothings in a name.
The Narrator of Other People’s Stories
Right now, we are writing the story
Future generations will read
And it’s hard to understand
Why so many characters
Are siding with the villains
But their reasons are the same
as yours and mine
We all have a stubborn rebel that stirs
within each of us,
That must stand up and protest
When other people
Try to be the narrator in the story
We are writing for ourselves
If you have been digging for answers,
And find hard times instead of treasure,
Don’t wait for someone to rescue you
Keep digging deeper
Go to the deepest places
Underneath all the noise
And listen not only with your ears,
But with an awareness of your arteries,
the pathways to the heart,
So you can feel another’s truth
Tenderly,
With them,
Within them,
As if their truth were your own
We are all born into the same predicament,
The finding of our way
out of the holes we fall into
Which path do you want your inner rebel
to follow?
One that points towards the heart?
Or one that feeds the monster
within each of us
Who thinks he knows so much
That he has the right to be
The narrator of other people’s stories?
Oneness
It is the way dandelions freckle lawns
with sunshine, poison ivy embraces
dying trees, forgotten asparagus
loses itself in fields of overgrown mint,
wild strawberries from bird droppings
co-mingle with cultivated shrubbery—
and they all sip from the same soil.
It is the way they connect under earth,
mycelium strung like fairy lights
among roots, indiscernible as individual.
From this angle, all is one, one is all.
Attempts to separate singular strands,
impossible as braiding a single hair.
It is the way universes exhale
a billion light years away, a billion years ago
and today, I wake breathing that breath,
then offer it to you. My exhale, your inhale—
same breath exchanged by grass,
all that life wrapped beneath its ragged
spring shawl, still moth-bitten from winter.
Winter, whose melted snow woke roots
so essentially entwined, which feed the ground
I walk on, pretending to be separate
from it, from anything alive anywhere.
It’s a lot to accept—all this Oneness.
All this connection, so heavy.
How to hold the Everything of it?
How to find a bigger name—expansive
enough to live inside with all that we are?
I know it gets confusing—tangled
as those roots’ fungal braids underground.
But can you imagine being anything
anywhere else? How would we even try?
Have you ever noticed your breath
catching on an errant speck of pollen?
Tears in your eyes without knowing why?
Or a sudden stab in your heart,
as if all the extraordinary ache of living
just happened to you all at once.
–E. Bullmer May 2026
Poem- A Summary of Sermons
“We are part of ongoing creation.”
It’s up to us to lead this great nation.
So let’s create what we all think is best
And say the heck with all the rest.
“Salvation is collaborative.”
without love, hope seeps right through a sieve.
So join to be a “fountain of love”
And shine like all the stars above,
Bringing light to a darkened world
with open hearts and arms unfurled.
–Ed Smith April 21, 2026
Safe to Hurt
(From a small group experience at our church family camp)
The anger.
The pain.
The relentlessness of days,
pushed through one by one,
Leaves my body and spirit knotted.
Into this circle I bring my wounds.
In your loving arms I find refuge.
My tears flow at last.
They dampen your shirts
along with the tissues.
The knots begin to melt
under the loving touch
of your hands.
–E. Smith December 15, 1988
Screen Saver
l
It was innocent
enough to start with, dude, first
thing this a 111 when
2
I looked in to get
up to speed (I won’t say which
social media
3
’cause then they’d sue, but
you know anyway) I found
this site with a chick
4
who looked just like me,
and she said Listen close if
you don’t wanna be
5
a dick, and then she
lowered her voice and waved Corne
here, so I brought my
6
phone nearer my face,
and then she said We’ve got the
glue that’s gonna stick
7
the slices of your
life back together, you’ve been
too long in pieces, then,
8
like she was brewing
trouble, she lowered her voice
more yet and waved Corne
9
real real close, Sweetie
I’ll tell you the big secret,
so I brought my phone
10
right home to my nose,
that’s when she yelled April fools!
and popped out of view 11
like a thought balloon,
taking her window with her,
and me with my phone
12
glued to my nose, bro,
no, don’t you follow? I can’t
get it off, it’s stuck,
13
homie, not a bit
of lipstick or blusher or
eyeliner and not
14
a drop of muck like
snot or drool or tears but it
won’t come louse except
15
maybe pry my skin
off, and if anybody
knows all there is to
16
know about gadgets,
it’s you, now do your magic,
what? say that again,
l7
you can’t get your own
nose unstuck, what do you mean,
Why would I want to?
Something about Elderhood
(“Something” by George Harrison)
Something in the way she moves,
And you can tell she has arthritis;
Something in the way her knees click,
So hand her a walker now,
You don’t want to see her fall,
Don’t want to see her fall.
Something in the way she sees,
Can’t find the forest for the trees;
Something to do with cataracts,
She needs some bifocals now,
Can’t read small print anyhow,
Can’t read small print no how.
You’re asking me how she survives,
With help from friends and relatives (long i)
She keeps on going no matter what,
Her first goal’s to stay alive.
Something in the way she drives,
Don’t want to be the one behind her;
Sometimes she goes through the stop sign,
So pull over as and let her through,
Her soap opera starts at two!
Soap opera starts at two. (repeat)
–Words by Karen Tinklenberg
The Universe Speaks
The deep mysteries we seek
are all around us.
They weave in and out
of our loves and our worship.
The only mandate
Is to slow our step,
learn to unwrap this life,
the gift of it.
If you must pray –
take your longing
to a distant star,
and then reach back,
whisper
your tender affection
for the earth
as precious
and always.
–Don Miller 4/26