We are grateful to Gary Margolis, Executive Director Emeritus of the Middlebury College Mental Health Services and Associate Professor of English and American Literatures, for sharing his new poem with us.

For As Long As You Need Them To

You say your church is weeding

on your knees in the garden.

Listening to the hummingbird

whir her wings. Burying a bulb

the voles ate, when there was a break

in winter. You say I can pray any time

I want to, inside a mosque,

a synagogue, a church. Or whispering

to myself. I wish the clouds would

unveil the sun. God is dirt

you say. Stones, worms

and rain. Every one syllable

word. And longer ones. Say

sentiment and sentimentality

and then say seed, dig and hole.

And come back in, when it rains

so hard, you have nothing more

to pray to the earth and your

mud gods, you tell me, will stay

caked to your boots, for as long

you need them to.