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.