The Holy Absurd

Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Uncategorized /

September 28, 2026

Shifting

Grocery store under gray skies in Flint, MI.

Posted on September 28, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

SHIFTING

Red-brick turns to asphalt, strip centers as places of false refuge,
dirty devotions to objects, not people–

Who do you love? Who do you cherish?

In summers with my brown mom, there were no trips
to the beach or mountains.

We drove to the mall, the Subaru’s pleather seats my cloth mother
while she left me in the racks.

The grocery store stands in afternoon light under whole skies
the color of flint, an unlikely place of revival.

I race to the conveyor belt, bag oranges as bright as noonday suns,
cartons of oat milk, boxes of spinach, face obscured like Ophelia.

The young Black woman eyes me calmly, loves herself enough
to look at me and say–

I’d love it if you clicked here and read the rest over at EKL Review.

Image / Bruno Guerrero, Unsplash

Jenn Zatopek

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Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Traveling, Uncategorized, Work /

September 18, 2026

The Gifts of Exhaustion

Posted on September 18, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

THE GIFTS OF EXHAUSTION

I watch exhaustion unspool on this day
like the yarn Kayla the textile artist made
with her own hands and kind heart from–

Indigo leaves, juniper roots, the invasive cochineal,
the starburst yellow flowers of the emerald chamisa,
the thick orange petals of the cosmos flowers.

It is enough to remember to move to the chair with the
sleeping cat and ask myself–What do I need right now?
My heart knows pushing harder only mimics death, that

sitting quietly helps me love again my life–the house finches
and sparrows feeding on sunflower seeds, the stack of papers,
the clean pile of dishes, the slant of morning light on the desk.

*Dear readers, Kayla Powers is a plant-based textile artist based in Santa Fe, and her work is beautifully compelling, ecologically beneficial, and so restorative. Check out this exhibit I attended here.

Image / Kayla’s textile art at Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Santa Fe New Mexico

Jenn Zatopek

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Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Uncategorized /

August 21, 2026

Communion

Posted on August 21, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

COMMUNION

At church one night
I tear off pieces of flat bread,
place them in willing hands
while my partner holds the cup.
This is for you, I say to queer friends–
We who know what lack is
and love anyway. The light
in the big red barn is dim, and
a song plays while Mister Rogers
croons in his warm voice,
I like you very much.
Tears spring to my eyes.
A woman with a bearded dragon
on her chest smiles widely at me.
I bend down to give bread
to lively kids. Everyone’s faces
illuminated like the stars at night.

II.

Even on the days when
rising from bed is a Sisyphean act
against sheer dumb exhaustion,
and I have to cajole myself–
Yes, yes, I can, I can,
I want to rip off the doors
as I inhabit this space.
I want bread broken for billions–
in warzones, in dilapidated houses,
unfriendly cities, godawful prisons–
Can you imagine it?
Everyone’s hunger satisfied,
every heart fueled by loving presence.
But wait! Communion isn’t
for the churchy few.
It’s in the loving gaze
of a friend as they listen.
A hummingbird hovering by
glass windows to peer at me.
A stranger’s kindness
as they wave me into traffic.
The swell of evening winds
through cottonwood trees.
Can you feel it?
This is me feeding you now,
and you touching me
with your heart.
Tell me how you find
yourself in another’s face.
Tell me what it’s like
for you to love.

Image / Helena Lopes, Unsplash

Jenn Zatopek

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Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Traveling, Uncategorized /

August 14, 2026

Two Years Ago

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

TWO YEARS AGO

A man and a woman sit together in their respective houses.
They watch each other on Zoom, faces framed in light.
She twirls her curls while he asks about her writing,
her Zen practice, her psychedelic journeys.
He holds a beer in his hands, and she thinks, for courage?
Then she knows why when he says to her haltingly–
I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.

Oh, the woman feels frantic inside, like falling in a dream.
I see her days later, watch the woman collapse on the carpet,
note how her lover holds her tenderly. See the man marry
his foreign lover and search for her face at last fall’s sesshin.
I hold the woman gently and whisper what I’ve learned
on this strange, circuitous path of love–
how we go on still and shine, like the morning moon at dawn.

Image / Two years ago on a bright morning walk, Japanese Gardens

Jenn Zatopek

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Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Traveling, Uncategorized /

August 12, 2026

You Have to Understand

People rowing at the Colorado River with Austin city skyline on a bright sunny day.

Posted on August 12, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND

I grew up on the dusty plains of North Texas, scribbling poems into plaid journals, singing in choirs, swinging upwards into blue skies on playgrounds–my heart a sweet songbird looking for wings while my mother’s house was one of air and fire for my joy, my ecstasy at living.

You have to understand the weight of sorrow I was gifted, how recent grief bent me to the floor where tears became bricks and earth my mortar. Even when pain shrouds me, connection is the rickety bridge I cross between the canyons of loneliness and the solace of healing. How this moment becomes my sanctuary–

Our hike by the waterfront, the Colorado River smelly with scum, thirsty elm trees blowing in winds, blasts of dance music and the harsh cries of grackles. Summer heat alchemizes sadness while I walk with wings unfurling, taking my place right where I am, changed into something else. What? I don’t know. Does it matter?

I am the ground on which we walk the city, the soft grasses which cushion the birds and unhoused who rest in shade, the emptiness of sky above which holds everything, everything in love.

Image / Tomek Baginski on Unsplash

Jenn Zatopek

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Community, Family, forgiveness, Hope, Mental Health, Spirituality, Traveling, Uncategorized /

August 4, 2026

Rocky Mountain Glory

Posted by Jenn Zatopek on August 4, 2026

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GLORY
– After Alicia Mountain

We found the cabin after dusk,
so many hummingbirds overlooking the valley.
I sang as the two-lane highway gave way
to cliffsides dropping swaths of green below.
Lily Lake shimmered blue in the afternoon sun.
We scrambled up the ridgeline, getting lost
coming down. There were ground squirrels,
chipmunk, deer, and elk. So many elk!
I couldn’t go to the restroom because of the baby,
a soft brown body, first steps. I really can’t explain it.
How happy I felt, so young. This was what I always wanted.
One sunset we gawked at a family of turkeys crossing the road.
We hiked a river of bluebells, felt thunder in the distance.
We sat at boulders tossed down in a landslide last century,
an old alpine lake streaming through meadows.
I watched parents helpless to contain their children
splashing in the river, speaking their own language.
There were lots of birds. Bluebirds. Western Tanagers.
Juncos. Northern Flickers. Robins. Red-Winged Blackbirds.
Up high we gasped as snow fell on the granite peaks while
green hills unspooled before us. I know nothing lasts.
I remember sagebrush touching me as I fell upward into sky.
When I sit still long enough, I can smell the pine,
feel the winds brush my skin with the windows rolled down.
The lashing of afternoon rains, how it rattled inside me like a drum.

Image / Rocky Mountain National Park

Jenn Zatopek

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Hope, Spirituality, Traveling, Uncategorized /

July 14, 2026

What is Freedom Anyway?

Alpine tundra mid day in summer at the Rockies.

Posted on July 14, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

WHAT IS FREEDOM ANYWAY?
– On July 4

Today on the alpine tundra we stood with our kin from other nations,
all of us transfixed as three elk approached the green meadow
while the cold winds blew, all of us astonished by their cinnamon flanks
and chocolate-brown chests as they bent down to feed on the grass.

Did you know hurricane-force winds blast through the tundra in winter
where moss campion flowers, bluebells, and alpine sunflowers
lay dormant, how when spring arrives with her seductive warmth,
they come alive again and lift their heads to the sun?

I stood in the sea of humanity, loving the diverse peoples before me,
dreaming of what could unite us instead of what divides us–
brute force in policies and–a foreign woman smiled at me, letting me
stand by her as we admired the elk, only the unsayable between us.

Image / Alpine tundra at Rocky Mountain National Park

Jenn Zatopek

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