Jeremiah Webster

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Clayjar Review

Sep 22, 2024 | clayjar.review | Shane Schick |Megan Willome |Jeremiah Webster |Amy Lannigan

Published: 2024-09-22 Toil, both physical & emotional, can be one of the most rewarding elements of existence. It presents a beautiful dichotomy of pain & delight that cannot be found in many aspects of daily life. It is through toil that we become deeply intimate with the frailty of our frame. Our hands crack & blister, our emotions become fatigued, and our human limitations are exposed. We lose our tempers or lose our way or maybe just lose too much sweat or needed sleep.
A Terrible Mercy Is Born

Jan 23, 2024 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

LiteratureMercyThe Magazine In Melville’s apocalypse, Starbuck refuses to meet Ahab’s evil with a loaded musket of his own. This essay appears in the Mercy Issue of our print magazine. Moby Dick (1851) is the supreme fiction, Delphic oracle, and apocalyptic parable of the American Republic. It forecasts the inevitable demise of a society built on greed, ecocide, demagoguery, and fundamentalist zeal.
De Anima (On the Soul)

Nov 20, 2023 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

Praying Beyond Mortal Hope Jeremiah Webster recently released a new book, Notes for a Postlude: PoemsWith no liturgyand no word from grieving parents,my son scans the obituary pageof The Seattle Times for newsof Oliver’s death. This is how he mourns a friendwith no pyre for the body,no processional, or last-ditch libationto gods who scuttle beneaththe waves of the Acheronwith its cold and constant dark.
On the Nature of My Premature Soul and Its Capacity to Know God in the Incubator of Twenty First Century America

Mar 6, 2023 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

If I die before I am due,rack it up to reliableAmerican optimism,that preternatural instinctto find beauty in the shadowsstolen from Japanese bodies,goodness in fossil fuel trade routesonce locked in a sea of glacier,and truth in the incredulousmimicry of the megachurch. Let the judgment be mercifulon a soul cradled in comfort,a soul pastored in capital,a soul that forgets it’s a soulin a gilded market of grift.
Extinction Event

Feb 27, 2023 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

Mrs. Melwood was adamantthat our children would never seeAmerica’s patriot bird,the bald eagle: blotted and botchedfrom our collective memory. She spoke with an authorityhard earned by years of primaryschool instruction, her furrowed browsa fatigued witness in repose,certain of the bird’s destiny. So we sat at our fourth grade desksand drew preemptive depictionsof the last eagle in crayon,the last eagle in acrylic,the last eagle with a mohawk,the last eagle benediction.
Tulips - Mockingbird

Jan 27, 2023 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

Don’t touch the tulips, but they beckon, blushin a resin vase, eleganteven with cut stems divorcedfrom Washington soil, and my daughteris a blithe Eve in this reenactmentof the Garden. Don’t touch the tulips,but she leans, fingers outstretched,tummy-folded along the edgeof the kitchen table, for a petalthe variable of sherbet.
The Weeds of Eden

Jan 20, 2023 | mbird.com | Jeremiah Webster

sprout from the blood of Cain,coil hooked vines around verdanttrunks, green stalks, skirtextraction with leaves that mimicindigene. The weeds of Eden talk secession,sanctimony, hijack waterwith tapping tendrils,are imperviousto fertilizers designedto weed out hatredof vegetable neighbors. The weeds of Eden are nakedand have no shame,look upon the wilt of deathand laugh, are pliable,brittle, savage,a syrupy sick.