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The Pen




A fingertip red with crushed berry seed,
a stick carving letters in dust,
sharpened stone pressed into clay,
a whittled fox bone on a tablet of hardened wax,
glue, carbon, and bone-black pigment mixed
ink slides down bamboo onto papyrus,
the swan’s flight feather scratches parchment,
a quill becomes metal in our hands,
refill the fountains, words soak
cotton, linen and wood
a ballpoint rolls between thin blue lines,
a plastic stylus, silent on a illumined screen,
fingers clack quickly now through an alphabet of keys.


Fluid extensions of the arm
vessels we make and fill, using what we have,
changed by this profound need
to write our hearts.

About the Author

Julia Baker

Julia Baker, a 2011 Goshen college graduate, has many places she calls home. She just moved to the Whitewater River watershed to begin studies in Theopoetics at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, IN. She tussles and plays with the complex wonder of embodiment through penned words and the flow of watercolor paint.