POETRY

Lifting the Veil

A shovel poem about finding peace

Artwork by the author.

peace has reached you here, before the veil.
— excerpt from A Course in Miracles

all beings desire to rest in peace
even the one raging, banging out discordant notes has
an underlying wish for a loving hand to have reached
into their heart, to find You
the secret desire, with no name even
to call for You to hear, to be here
hope beyond hope You will answer before
the world crumbles, the world burns, the world implodes, the —
no! let such thoughts vanish, and She who enjoins Silence come lifting Her veil.

— Janaka Stagnaro

Thank you for reading my Shovel Poem, which uses each word from a line and places it at the end of a line in the new poem, although Ruth Boukhari did hers using the word to form the beginning of her lines. The image that arose while writing this was of the Goddess Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, veiled with a finger to her lips to be quiet enough to listen to the Silence and thus find wisdom.

Here are some great examples of Shovel Poems by Ruth Boukhari, Felipe Leon U., and Zivah Avraham 👁️that…