Hello all! 25th Overness poem for you today. Feels like a milestone. I’m excited about this shift into Deuteronomy territory and today’s poem is in conversation with Deuteronomy 1:6, which reads~

The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain.”

This is the first time I’ve ever attempted to write a poem from a personified mountain’s perspective. It was good fun, and I enjoyed talking to Tania Runyan about it, too. Also, good to know: Mt. Horeb = Mt. Sinai.

Here’s the poem:

An Overness / The Mountain Has a Word With the LORD

~Deuteronomy 1:6

Here are Your people, LORD.
You declared it in the Great Council—
the Heron heard You, as did the Hawk.
But, look—these human-creatures huddle in my shadow,
a multitude who moan and sway—their weak
limbs hang, their eyes survey the dust.
As for me, I lift the rocks You reckoned
for my highest peak in highest praise!
My path leads ever up but only Moses
knows the way. I hear (do You?) his humble
steps, drawn by a spirit-song
he barely means to hum. But all these others
—cowering? They have stayed here long enough.

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Y’all. I got to see the full spread proof of my new book this past weekend, Yahweh Loves a Desert, and OH MY! It’s so beautiful. Here’s the front cover, (the white edge is just from the screenshot, it’s not part of the book), designed by Ned Bustard, God bless him~

I’ll be sharing more news here (like the back cover, which brought me to tears!) as the time for publication draws near~but here’s something you could do for me:

1. let me know if you’re going to be at Lifting the Veil and

2. if you’d be willing to buy a copy there! That might help things along!! This is my small-time version of a “pre-order” let’s say, but it doesn’t obligate you.

3. AND if you have any suggestions of poems of mine that you think I should read during the Poets in the Round~ please tell me!

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It was this poem below from Yahweh Loves a Desert that came to mind while working on the Overness poem I just shared:

1 Kings 17:20

They call me Troubler,
Drought-Throat, Brook-bent
Wanderer—I am
Sidon’s choirmaster, where (Yahweh—
why?) no one sings. We thirst
while questions like vinegar
fill our mouths—I wait
with David’s How long songs
winding a way along
my dreams, into the rhythm
of my step, my staff  (how long?
how long?). Her home—what has been
mine—sits silent at the table
of this tragedy, prepared
by you? Her cup
overflows,
though the valley
of the widow’s mouth
is gullied out, edge-cracked,
sunken. Look!—on the bed
her only son lies dead—And you?
Your silence, Yahweh,
eats away at tender
flesh—if I lay down
this question, please
pick it up. Play the harp again
for us, for her. I hear a call
(you? LORD my God?)
to the upper room. The wailing
has begun. If I, under this
mantle, stretch out
myself across the boy—
if I lie down
into his death, tell me—
who will rise again?

…and one silly extra. As a matter of principle I make these videos for you all with only one take, so as to avoid temptations to overly curate how I look or what I say (something plaguing the human race right now). It is what it is every time. But I had to start over again for today’s video because I couldn’t stop laughing!

Further up & further in,

Anna