Remind me, frequently, please
Eternal loving God
To return again and again to rest
Upon your quietness
Remembering always
Never forgetting
In the busyness of life to
Name You, to know You as
God of my life, my peace and my strength
poems
I Am Told
Long ago
Before my memory formed
I learned that letters form words
I sat on my father’s lap
I am told
In the small apartment
One bedroom
Over a garage
Around the corner
From my mother’s family home
Come evening
I sat on my father’s lap
My sober laughing father
Long before alcohol and illness
Stole his laughter
I sat
Snuggling close
I am told
As he read the newspaper
Every day
Long before we owned a TV
Although even then
He preferred reading the news
He read aloud
Right through the paper
News and opinions
Obituaries and ads
I am told
And so I learned
I am told
In those small evenings
That letters make words
And words make meaning
And meanings make feelings
And later, in the time of memory
Those words and meanings
Made a retreat for me
A cave of words
A security of worlds
A beauty of escape
From my once gentle father
Immanuel
God breathed their Word
Into the void
And the void filled
God breathed their Word
Into the world
And the world bloomed
God breathed their Word
Into the flesh
And the flesh awakened
God breathed their Word
Into the woman
And the Word was made flesh
God breathed their Word
Into me
And the Word is Immanuel
God with us
Upon Reading Tennyson
Wring out the old rag
Dripping water
Dirty
From cleaning dishes
Piled too high with excess
Bring in the new cloth
Dry and clean
Handmade
To lay the table
With plenty for all
Wring out the old lies
Dripping promises
Empty
From bought lips
Filled too long with greed
Bring in the new truth
Bright and sure
Shining
To fill our nations
With goodness for all
Wring out the old wars
Dripping blood
Red
From bodies
Sent too young to die
Bring in the new peace
Ringing out
Loud and long
To fill our spirits
With life for all
Atonement
Twelve steps to atonement for alcoholism’s hurts
How I wish I had such a clear, straight path
Well-maintained
Sign-posted
Broad shallow rock-defined gravel-filled steps
On the trail to the summit of atonement
Perhaps atonement would be easier
had I not eschewed my family’s generational
alcohol-soaked sin
Perhaps atonement would be easier
had I not eschewed my family’s generational
Jesus-soaked faith
Perhaps atonement would be easier
had I not eschewed my family’s generational
French-rooted home
Perhaps atonement would be easier
had I become a quite different I
A New Orleans alcoholic Cajun Catholic
Perhaps, but probably not
GLORY
Gifts and garlands
Lessons and carols
Ornaments and wreaths
Remind me
YOU are Immanuel, God With Us
Gaza and Israel
Light and dark
Ours and not ours
Russia and Ukraine
YOU are them
Grant me always
Love of You
Only let me
Remember always
YOU are everything, everyone, everywhere
New Year’s Prayer 2024
Dear God
Let me care
less
about my words
their beauty
their rightness
their rhythm
And more
about
Your single sufficient
Word
breathed into the void
creating this universe
reflecting Your glory
Womb of the World
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
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.
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