First Things RSS Feed - Deborah Warren https://www.firstthings.com/author/deborah-warren en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:51:58 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/deborah-warren 60 Collect for the First Sunday in Advent https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/12/collect-for-the-first-sunday-in-advent https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/12/collect-for-the-first-sunday-in-advent Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0500 Afternoons end early, in December.
When the day dissolves in night, remember
Lucy, who took on the night,
embodied it in herself—removed her eyes,
and offered them to God, a sacrifice
tendered in the palm right hand.
Blind, she is the patroness of sight,
the incandescent porteress of light.

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]]> Rebekah's Ultrasound https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/03/rebekahs-ultrasound https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/03/rebekahs-ultrasound Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0500 Jacob and Esau struggled in the womb
right from the start. Rebekah’s ultrasound,
quite early on, revealed the embryos:
yin and yang, two fat big-headed commas
grappled together head to toe;
Rebekah only twenty weeks along,
they were duking it out in there already.

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]]> Common Cause https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/05/common-cause https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/05/common-cause Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00:00 -0400 When Solomon was born, birds came soaring,
waddling, swimming, flapping around the air.
They cheeped and honked to celebrate the day;
a few chipped in to give him a layette—
eiderdown, eggs, and less-appetizing things.

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]]> Tough https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/01/tough https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/01/tough Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500 The Spartan boy who steals a fox
endures with fortitude the roiling mound
scratching at his proud breast under his tunic,
claws hooked in his skin: he keeps
its V-jaws veiled beneath an impassive mien.
The shoppers chatter past without a clue
while it thrashes and tears into his flesh in panic.

He weaves among the helots and hawkers;
the canines engrave his ribs”he lurches around
the Lacedaemonian ladies in the street.
The longer and closer it’s kept, the deeper
the secret gets its teeth into his veins”
he collapses. The rusty beast springs into view
and out of the town on even redder feet.

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]]> The Magdalenes https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/001-the-magdalenes https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/001-the-magdalenes Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Magdala on the Via Maris
hosted the caravans;
Egyptian traffic”glass in ingots,
ivory, lapis, apricots,
papyrus, ostrich-feather fans;

the Magdalenes laid out their fish
for salting near the inns;
behind the fly-specked drying racks
day and night the willing women
catered to the Bedouins;under the towers of the town
the virgins and the wives
spun and wove and dyed the flax”
Magdala’s celebrated linen
smooth as young flesh: Crowds of lives”

the merchants and maids, the easy girls,
the cityful who spun”
who salted fish”and maybe one
remembered, and the rest are gone
into oblivion.

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]]> Poetry(March 2003) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/03/poetrymarch-2003 https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/03/poetrymarch-2003 Sat, 01 Mar 2003 00:00:00 -0500 Imagine the way those horses came
plunging and foaming like a race
undammed, and how the hot hooves crashing
scoured down the hills of Thrace.

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]]> Jerusalem Artichoke https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/01/jerusalem-artichoke https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/01/jerusalem-artichoke Tue, 01 Jan 2002 00:00:00 -0500 It’s not , though: Anyone can tell you this is
absolutely not an artichoke.
And the Jerusalem that it professes?
Some Italian costermonger spoke
about the sunflower”the English heard
not girasole but Jerusalem ”
and, naming these vile tubers, they conferred
an accidental dignity on them.

People say a flower shows us
certain proof that there’s a God;
is Helianthus tuberosus ’
ugly tuber”sunk in sod”
proof of the devil? If the flower
needs the root, the devil’s sent
expressly by a higher power:
Neither thing’s an accident.

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