Barbara Swander Miller

Category: Poetry

  • A celebration of the muumuu

    The closest I could come to  the muumuu of my aging hippie friend was a Chambray dress hidden on the clearance  rack at Walmart. Prefaded, loose and long. As I wriggled my arms inside its buttery fabric and let it fall over my head, it granted me instant permission to be free. Free from importance.…

  • The Coelacanth Still Scares Me

    Suddenly, now that I have  time to think,  things aren’t  the same  anymore.  Suddenly, things that  were factual,  aren’t.  Or things that were fringe are mainstream.  Case in point: Pangea. “No, of course the continents were never all  hooked together,” my fifth grade teacher snorted.  Even though we looked  at a map and could see the…

  • Keeping Score

    “You can do anything” rang through my ears when I was growing up. It wasn’t true. I knew I’d never be  a ballerina.  But then… I never wanted to be. “You’re just like your mother and your grandmother,” my dad would exclaim in wonder. “Anything you try, you can do.” Maybe there was some truth …

  • Processing

    Finally, it’s too much. I can’t even scribble a bullet-pointed list of events. To remember. To grieve. To honor those who emerged from outside my world. My heart is full, but my head is numb, reconciling what was with what is and how I now think I know the truth and its many shades.

  • I Am Called

    Toes ever edging toward the labyrinth, I am called to tread its ancient spiral. Kicking my sandals with their daily dust aside, I hear the winding, brick-lined path beckon me closer, closer to my spirit… … and that of God, residing in my journey inward. Barbara Swander Miller June 23, 2023 Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center