Terry Lucas
Mud Sparrows
It was Jesus’ hands that made them, unfledged hands squeezing meaty Jordan mud till wings oozed through his fingers, setting brown lumps down to dry in unforgiving sun. Then the accusations from the men who saw him: “Working on the Sabbath is a sin.” Jesus’ only answer was to close his eyes and stretch back callow arms, open unscarred palms and give one clap. It was Jesus’ muddy hands set the sparrows flapping toward the heavens, shedding clods of earth, hands that called them back each day to bathe in dirt.
About the writer:
TERRY LUCAS is the author of two full-length poetry collections: In This Room (CW Books, January 2016) and Dharma Rain (Saint Julian Press, October 2016). In addition he is the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks: Altar Call, selected by the 2013 San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival for the anthology, Diesel; and If They Have Ears to Hear, winner of the 2012 Copperdome Chapbook contest (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2013). He has received numerous other writing awards, including the 2014 Crab Orchard Review Feature Award in Poetry, the fifth annual Littoral Press Poetry Prize, and six Pushcart Prize nominations. Lucas’s poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in dozens of national literary journals, including Best New Poets 2012, Green Mountains Review, Great River Review, PoetryFlash, and South 85 Journal. He has taught in the Chicago public school system as a Master Poet in the Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center’s Writing Center and is a guest lecturer for the Dominican University Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. Terry is a 2008 MFA graduate of New England College, having studied under Gerald Stern, Maxine Kumin, Alicia Ostriker and Michael Waters. He is the former Co-Executive Editor of Trio House Press, now serving as an Assistant Editor in order to devote more time to his own writing, as well as to his poetry consulting business.
Image: The Anxious Journey by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). Oil on canvas. 74.3 x 106.7 cm. 1913. Public domain.
