The womb of creation
Those words nest in my mind
And shiver down my limbs
(I have resisted Googling the phrase
I suspect it is a rather common imagery
But not to me)
Listening
Christmas morning
To the start of John’s insight
Sitting behind my mother
My 99 year old mother
In the sunlit activities room
Attending Mass
In the assisted living unit
In the beginning
God exhaled Their Word
Into the void
And the void was no more
In the beginning
God’s Word
Was the womb of creation
And then again
Later
In Mary’s womb
Was the Word of creation
Year: 2023
Jonah’s Lament
Three days!
THREE DAYS! I spent
In the belly
Of that goddamn whale
Three days! Because You
YOU
Were so determined
to have me
in Nineveh
Three days! All dark and slimy
Belched up
Finally
On Nineveh’s beach
So I told them
I warned them
Mighty YHWH
Would smite them
Then they make this big show
Led by their weaselly king
Sackcloth and ashes
Wailing and gnashing of teeth
Big bloody show
And now You won’t smite them
Smite them, damn You!
Three days!
In a whale
And You won’t smite them
What kind of god are You?
What kind of prophet does that make me?
I’m so angry I could die
Go on, kill me already
Why not?
Why those three days
Of darkness and terror
If You’re going to go all soft again
And spare them all?
Oh no, You won’t smite them
Instead You kill that lovely bush
That shaded me
From YOUR hot sun
Now I suppose You want
Me
To rot in Your hot sun
Probably for three days
Three days of my life!
Three days in a bloody great whale
Vomited up in Nineveh
Why, I ask You, why?
All I ask is that You smite
Every last man, woman, and child,
Every beast and bird
In Nineveh.
But all You smote
Was my bush.
Three days in a whale
And I don’t even get
To see Nineveh
Properly
Smote.
Three days!
To watch a worm-eaten bush
Wither and die.
I’m so angry I want to die.
Oranges & Lemons & Bells
Yesterday
Parking at Mom’s
I noticed the three bells
Atop the steeple
Of the Catholic Church next door.
This morning
On Facebook
Appeared one of those random
Suggested-for-you posts
The bells of Notre Dame de Paris
In procession
Led by the largest bell
Taller by far
Than the robed men
(yes, all men --
Catholic priests and deacons
One assumes)
Lining the aisles
And now
Rilke’s poem
Of a bell tower
Oranges and lemons
Sings my memory
Synchronicity
Chimes my mind
How will I pay
That pesky piper
Dancing macabre
Through the cathedral
Piping my years
In notes
Higher by far
Than the smallest bell
Ring the changes!
Living is dying
Dying is forever never
How will I pray?
I do not know
Say the great bells of Bow.
Old Age
For six decades I created.
I grew in my family.
I grew in myself.
I grew in knowledge.
I grew in love.
I grew in responsibilities.
I grew in losses.
And I see everything I have made
And, indeed, it is all very good
Except for the parts that are very very bad
Or in between
Or the parts that I don’t remember
Or don’t want to remember
Or the parts that were both good and bad
Like childbirth
And parenting
And marriaging
And divorcing
And, well, come to think of it,
Pretty damn near all of it.
And now
In the seventh decade
I rest
Grateful
Though too often
This Sabbath time
Is feared and despised
Yet still
I rest.
One Unreal Day
One day
Some day
I don’t remember when
I put my youngest child down
And never again
Carried one of my children
One day
Some day
That must have
happened
But I don’t
remember when
One day
That happened
But I don”t
remember when
Because
It never happened
Not really
Justice O’Connor’s Last Task
Sandra Day O’Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor
One in a million
First in history
THE most influential vote in the Supreme Court for decades
First of the “sisters-in-law”, those heroes of my middle age: SDO and RBG
Definitely, the BEST thing Reagan did (IMHO)
Sandra Day O’Connor, the ultimate moderate liberal conservative.
I don’t want her to rest in peace.
I don’t want RBG to rest in peace.
With their powerful spirits freed from failing bodies,
I want them to HAUNT us and help us.
Screw the oligarchs,
screw the “deep divide”,
let our future be a nation of idealists,
governed by realists.
God Questions
We know God rested on the seventh day.
But what did She do on the eighth day?
Was the seventh day a full stop, a period?
Or just a pause, a comma?
Did the Clockmaker
once the world was wound
Withdraw into Her back room
Workshop
cluttered but organized
filled with small precise pieces
Waiting
to create a universe
to be
Wound?
Or did She stay?
Did She pause
to observe the wounds
in Her tightly wound world?
Does She stay still?
(Yes, still, quiet)
Does She reach out --
gentle,
gentle --
with a craftswoman’s sureness
to touch –
delicate,
delicate,
oh so delicate –
my soul?
Does She still the clock’s hands
and give me pause?
Just Sit There: A Nested Meditation
Don’t just sit there.
Don’t just sit there:
do something.
Don’t just sit there.
Do something
to give meaning to your life.
Don’t just sit there:
do something.
To give meaning to your life
is the greatest accomplishment.
Don’t just sit there.
Do something
to give meaning to your life.
Is the greatest accomplishment
always something visible?
Don’t just sit there:
do something
to give meaning to your life.
Is the greatest accomplishment
always something visible
or might it look trivial?
Don’t just sit there.
Do something
to give meaning to your life.
Is the greatest accomplishment
always something visible?
Or might it look trivial
as if you were just sitting there?
Tide and Vine
We had oysters last night Large oysters Raw oysters On the half shell Twelve oysters Six for each of us Four varieties Of PEI oysters That’s Prince Edward Island Three times four is twelve So we had three of each Of the four kinds Forgive the foray Into lower mathematics Let’s return to the oysters On the tray set between us Oysters Lemon wedges Waiting to be squeezed Dripping onto oysters Open On the half shell That tray of pearly oysters On their rough gray shells Each set of three Embraced by bright yellow Sweet stingy lemon wedges And on its own low pedestal Just off center on the tray A soft almost white Mound of grated Grated what? Parmesan? No too soft looking Mozzarella? No not soft enough Having exhausted my current repertoire Of likely cheeses, I stretched forth my hand Delicately pinched a single short string From atop the elevated pile Brought it slowly to my nose Not cheese, not much smell really So I ate it Horseradish Thankfully pretty mild horseradish Then came the intimate pleasure of eating the oysters. But here is where we will discreetly employ that favored metaphorical device And draw the curtain on our two young white-haired lovers Facing each other’s eyes and hands and bodies Across the small wooden table for two In the small bar-restaurant In a strip mall of all places In quiet off-season Niagara-on-the-Lake
Trying to Pray for Peace
How shall I start a prayer for peace In my often troubled heart To whom shall I pray To God, to Allah, to Yahweh, to Jesus To one of the Marys Mary, mother of Jesus Mary Magdala, tower of strength Mary of Bethany, resurrection believer Or to Martha, server of divinity For what peace shall I pray? For my own freedom from anger For my family’s freedom from misunderstandings For my children’s freedom from heartbreak For my grandchildren’s freedom to grow In peace My, my, my, my My prayer for peace feels unpeacefully selfish Like a pearl found buried in a field That I bought so I could forever miser that pearl That pearl of peace Created by what ancient oyster In what long gone sea Now a field Waiting for my shovel To fling wide the dirt From that pearl of peace
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