Poetry and Readings

In the beginning, the Earth spoke… the wind carried memory through trees older than empires a fiery sun reminded that transformation is both beautiful and risky stones stood, grounded and still, carrying the wisdom of time before time and water, ever flowing, taught that life is movement and change We gather today in this moment from mountains streams and marshlands from inland cities and dry desert plains from industrial hubs along great lakes to small homes along a bubbli

beloveds…. we were never meant to hide in closets and we were never to be spoken of in whispered corners by a world filled with others afraid of their own reflections we are from the flame of channing’s truth olympia brown’s relentless-ness lou alcott’s defiance of societal expectations, and thoreau’s solitude of freedom – freedom of solitude we are here, heirs of a theology that says LOVE is love the soul is not gendered that covenants live in hearts not just in courtroo

from the Wisdom of Solomon 2:23 by Kimi Floyd Reisch, 2021, adapted 2023 Queer People : We are a gathering of diverse people, woven...

An Inclusive Reading of 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 8 by Kimi Floyd Reisch, written in 2021, adapted in 2023 for Easter 2024. Giggling is...

for Prince, in the style of Diane Wakoski Peace Doves art installation seen in the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool in July 2021. The doves - perhaps they are harbingers – float ever upward, touching the clouds. Our lives are made of minutes and seconds that define us. As we are formed of and by the world, the dove is molded and shaped by the sky. Like all things of this world, the dove eventually floats back to earth. It does not share the lessons it learns as feathers brush

I wrote this after Pulse, early on the morning of June 13, 2016. I was at an Annual Meeting of the MN Conference of the United Church of Christ, after a national gathering of affirming and mostly queer clergy. I heard the words at 15 Called across a crowded hallway Dyke, Fag, Tomboy, Queer. Words turned into bullets – shattering Drumming into my head and rending my soul Words have power. I heard the words at 44 Gay, Immoral, Evil, Different, Shouted into microphones By politi

an homage to Mary Oliver, one year after her death. You do not have to prove yourself worthy You need not toil and endure hardship to...

We have lost too many, Too many friends, too many families, too many jobs, too many rights. They even tried to take our dignity. May...

Some people enter stage left, and never exit. Relationships shift, distance tugs at the seams, but their presences hold, endure. These...