For six years From 92 to 98 My mother lived with us … I have paused now After writing those words Because to give true texture To that simple declarative I have to reveal Our ragged raveled family Cut to pieces too often By jealousy and illness Alcohol and abuse You see? Already to write just that Grows a weed in me That offers no shelter Even before the worm destroys it And I sit, burning and cursing And feeling sorry for myself That is why my words stood still A minute ago Because what grows in my now stillness Is just simple stillness Silence Sweet sweet quiet But to appreciate what it means to me To snuggle with Woody Within this tightly woven Wide warm quiet quilt For you to appreciate that I would have to show you my family’s rags And I would rather not Or maybe, all I need tell you is this: My mother When she lived with us Got up early, went to bed late And kept CNN on her TV, loud, louder, loudest Despite hearing aids and surround sound So that even in my bedroom A floor and a more away I could hear the words of the talking heads Louder than my own thoughts Maybe I don’t need to tell you More than that For you to glimpse The gorgeous flowering Of silence in my home And what it means to me
Uncategorized
August Day
Early morning
Quiet expectations
Lulled by birdsong
Purple morning glories
And soft light
Mid-morning
Rising heat
Morning glories close
Ever valiant impatiens
Meet the rising heat
With patient persistence
Noon
Now impatiens
Begin to droop
Longing for
Life-giving water
A small garter snake
Submerges itself
In our small pond
Air heavy
The day’s breath stills
Still as unwanted death
Mid-afternoon
Distant thunder
Moves closer
Heavy air
No longer still
Rain
Reviving rain
Thunder and lightning
Life renewed
House lights blink
Once
twice
Thunderous lightning
Thrice
(lovely word that – thrice)
Reliable electricity holds
Rain cascades
Recedes
Leaving behind
Triumphant impatiens
Evening approaches
Heat dissipates
Quiet returns
Weary world now
Anticipates sleep
“perchance to dream”
Beyond
This day
Done
This night
Dark
The Spirit Groans
“the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26
Can you hear the Spirit groan
Through my inadequate too empty words
What shall I write
For what shall I pray
For the families of dead children
For the grandmother of their killer
For our nation
For our souls
“We shall not all die
But we shall all be changed”
Once I read those words
As describing mystery
Life after death
A new creation
Now I read them as a prayer
For this life here
For the no longer United
States of America
Now I read those words
And pray
God of compassion
God of mercy and grace
God of love and grief
God of power and might
Please, God, I groan
Change us
Before we kill
again
Hopeful
With bows to Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins
If hope is the thing with feathers
– And, ah, bright wings –
Then faith is the greening leaves
And nest-making twigs
High in the branches of love
Rooting down deep
Into my soul’s soil
Hope nests like the robin
Waiting patiently
Wisely
Knowing beyond knowing
Sitting in her nest of faith
That eggs will hatch
Fledglings will fly
Finding other trees
Soul-rooted
That need hope
For awhile
Before autumn’s onslaught
Fells the leafs of faith
Then yields to winter’s freeze
That ices over even love
As my soul struggles
Yet always
Sometimes sooner
Oft times later
Spring’s resurrection
Alleluia arises
Freeze yields
Bare branches bud
And hope wings back
To build a nest of faith
In a tree of growing
Living love
I Beg To Differ
Today is not
the first day
of the rest
of my life.
Today is not
the last day
of the best
of my life.
Today
is simply
now.
Just now
That mystical
Magical
All of my life.
The Kingdom of Heaven
The church’s Sequoia
I cannot climb
Its towering branches
Block the sun
Its massive trunk
I cannot hug
On the dry ground beneath it
Nothing grows
BUT
The Christ’s mustard seed
I cup in my palm
Careful not to blow it away
I cradle it
Trusting not to lose it
I bury it in my soul’s rich soil
Soon, by the grace of God
I nest in its low branches
What God Wants
I spend my life
Trying
Trying
Trying
To figure out
What God wants
What does God want me to be
…to think
…to feel
…to do?
How does God want me to worship
…to live
…to love
…to die?
What does God want me to believe
…to know
…to let go
…to learn?
I keep asking myself
What does God want?
Because I keep doubting
I keep forgetting
That
All God wants is me
Just me
However I am
However I am not
She just wants me.
Love
My heart sings With the ordinary I hold his hand As I wait for Word to load He watches an old western Texas Rangers With the sound turned off And closed captions on Because he is deaf My eyes fill with tears Unshed Because they are tears of joy No need to water my cheeks Just fill my eyes As my heart fills with his love Nothing extraordinary about tonight Except everything As always.
Christmas Eve
Dark-skinned baby Jesus
Lay quietly in the manager
Atop the three year old’s
Mondrian lego dump truck
Wise men watch
Quietly
Too wise to intervene
In a child’s over-excited
Stubbornness
Macaroni and cheese
And sweet potatoes
Insistently eaten after
Boston cream pie
But before the
Made by himself
Cookie dough cake
Gathering
Crumbled wrapping paper
Carpeting the floor
Neighbors bring
Christmas greetings
Cookies
And – oh blessed gift –
Their three children
Five adults talk
For over an hour
As four children
Play
Inside and outside
A Christmas miracle
Worth celebrating
HUSH!
Hope speaks in silence When I let my mother tell Again With yet more exaggeration Some never was version of our past Happy family Happy father (Drinking? Mania? Abuse? Arrests?) SSSHHH
Hope speaks in silence When I let my sister-in-law praise her God Her very personal god Who answers her prayers And saves her family Always Even when they are hospitalized Because they didn’t vaccinate (Prosperity gospel? Pre-election? Inerrancy? Prayer warriors?) SSSHHH
Hope speaks in silence When I ignore that Facebook post By a friend who applauds So many things I despise (All lives matter? Pro-life? Homophobic? Sexist?) SSSHHH
Hope speaks in silence Hope that I will learn better How to love Those that I would Too easily Make enemies of HUSH!
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