First Things RSS Feed - Luci Shaw https://www.firstthings.com/author/luci-shaw en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:51 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/luci-shaw 60 Flathead Lake, Montana https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/08/002-flathead-lake-montana https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/08/002-flathead-lake-montana Sat, 01 Aug 1998 00:00:00 -0400 Lying here on the short grass, I am a bowl for sunlight. Silence. A bee. The lip of water over stones. The swish and slap, hollow under the dock. Down-shore a man sawing wood. Christ in the sunshine laughing through the green translucent wings of maple seeds. A bird resting its song on two notes.

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]]> Weather Forecast: Prolonged Dry Period https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/10/002-weather-forecast-prolonged-dry-period https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/10/002-weather-forecast-prolonged-dry-period Wed, 01 Oct 1997 00:00:00 -0400 The cattle who should, according
to folklore, be lying down at the approach of rain,
stand skeptical in a field of ragged green. The sky,
a surging pewter, exhibits a tatter of gulls. Like cows, I live under a conditional heaven;
clouds keep tearing apart, then mending,
heavy with partial images. Moments ago
a sheaf of rain, weighted with promise, breached the foothills. Now its silver ghost
breasts the cow pasture, looms closer, then passes
barely a hundred yards to my left. It
never even blesses my forehead with its fierce mist. In tune with the random weather,
its errors of judgment, I wait. But what?
A wind from the south? A green
perfection? A seven-year drought? The forecaster preaches his dogma, predicting
high pressure as irritating as intractable optimism;
he may prove wrong. I long to be soaked through.
I want it to pour, relentless, for weeks.

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]]> Sparrow Falling https://www.firstthings.com/article/1994/01/sparrow-falling https://www.firstthings.com/article/1994/01/sparrow-falling Sat, 01 Jan 1994 00:00:00 -0500 A shifting net of birds swelling
over the pasture, turning, an amoeba, 
now dark and granular as dying, now 
an invisible, a thin fluid slicing light. 

Folding, the winged black knot splits. 
Plunges. My heart tumbles in the dark, and 
against the backlit sky I am a bird—one of 
a crew of sparrows, a weightless ha'pennys- 
worth. 

We fly bunched, then abruptly string ourselves 
parallel on threads of phone wires, 
vibrating as a thousand voices hum 
through our beads of claws. And off again. 

My retina crowds with flight patterns 
inking the hollow where wind has sucked 
away, leaving the sky a great 
stillness. God. These are not 

words of birds. Some cries are black 
beyond language. I feel, clotting 
on my tongue like a shadow feather, a sparrow 
is falling. A sparrow is falling.

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]]> Careless Flying https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/04/careless-flying https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/04/careless-flying Mon, 01 Apr 1991 00:00:00 -0500 I

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