ALEA PEISTER

Alea is a poet whose work meditates on embodied spirituality, grief, and pilgrimage. She lives in Orange county, where she delights in long walks in her old, tree-lined suburban neighborhood. Her writing has been featured in Ekstasis, Whale Road Review, The Curator, Art for the Isolated, and Biola University's Lent and Advent Projects. You can find more of her work on her website, www.forthesakeofsharing.com, and on her Instagram, @alea_peister.

CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY, BETHLEHEM

In the Church of the Nativity

dust clots every crevice

in every wrought

metal orifice.

Of course

we cannot comprehend

simplicity,

or discern

how we might inhabit land

divinity has touched

but worship the land

instead.

Here

is how I think it must

have been within

the first cathedral:

his exhausted Mother

cradled him.

Her skin touched

human skin. He wept. God

breathed.

Read more of Alea’s work in Solum Journal Volume I.

Listen to our interview with Alea on Solum Podcast.