Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm David Kern, and today is Friday, June 16th,

2023. Today's poem is by an American poet named Kathleen Norris. She was born in 1947 and is still

working today and is best known for books like Dakota, A Spiritual Geography,

The Cloister Walk, Amazing Grace, a vocabulary of faith, and several other books.

And she has also written five or six poetry collections as well.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called Little Girls in Church.

I'll read it once, offer a few brief comments with the help of an anthology,

the notes on an anthology that I like, and then I will read it one more time.

So here is Kathleen Norris's Little Girls in Church.

One. I've made friends with a five-year-old Presbyterian.

She tugged at her lace collar, and I sympathize.

We're both bored.

I give her a pencil.

She draws the moon, grass, stars,

and I name them for her, printing in large letters.

The church bulletin begins to fill.

Carefully, she prints her name, Kathy, and hands it back.

Just last week in New York, the Orthodox liturgy was typically intimate, casual.

An old woman greeted the icons one by one and fell asleep during the Great Litany.

People went in and out to smoke cigarettes and chat on the steps.

A girl with long brown braids was led to the icons by her mother.

They kissed each one, and the girl

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