Silencio
My mind chatters
like a squirrel in an elm.
My silly heart follows,
wishing not to take the helm.
But nature has a message
if I but quiet down:
"Do I hustle?" asks the oak--
" I am sentinel to the sky."
"Am I rushing?" asks the lake--
"I reflect as time goes by."
All of creation
joins in the song:
SIT REST SILENCE
that you, too, may BE-long.
Still Born Poem
Sudden word-pangs
And images, long curled in fetal stillness
Stirred, and stetched,
And nudged against the womb-walls of my mind.
It seemed the ripe-time,
Very edge of birthing!
But mid-wife, Beauty,
Somehow lacked the gentler touch.
She was TOO swift,
Too savage.
And that first ecstatic cry came forth
A mute—
To be forever swaddled in a
wonder-silence!
Winter
Winter- - -
In your bitter ragings
And your whitened shrouds
Endless seeming - - -
You are yet less powerful
Than
A one-day’s
Blooming rose!
Ice Folly
Cold and rigid, now,
you neither run,
nor rest
nor fall.
It seems that
all your need
is just to cling
to some sure thing
and yet ambivalent,
your thrust is downward!
Brittle beauty,
treacherous, too, as you hang—
a suspended, frozen longing!
Perhaps you air to bridge the gap?
But please,
not freeze on freeze!
Could you not chose
drop
by icy drop
To lose that glacial form into warmth
Under the snow?
Oh God
GOD
slipped into the coffin with me.
He didn’t move---didn’t even say a word---
Didn’t even rustle the shirred taffeta
Surrounding me.
TOGETHER
We listened to my accolades—my grand
Accomplishments known far and wide!
(Once when it got too preposterous,
He poked me in the side.)
A FEW
Really honest friends recalled
(of course in “sotto voce”) some
details that were far from grand.
(Made me damn nervous—till He reached over
And squeezed my hand
Reassuringly!)
IT’S GOOD
These things don’t last too long.
We were both impatient for the final prayer
And song
To end the whole charade.
So, a final sprinkling and a
Fastened lid set off the slow parade
WE LISTENED
To some blowing noses.
Listened till the last grin, and we
Laughed
And laughed
Right on into the DAY!
Woman at the Well
Observe the Life Lover!
He tends to travel barefoot,
On the sands
And if he stoops and lifts with gentle hands
Some cast-off from the shore’s debris
Watch him carefully.
He’ll seldom focus on the texture
Or the hue
But tip and turn the “treasure”
To assure himself
A better view
Of what’s inside.
With strange intensity he’ll peer
into the pink and hidden folds
Or—better still—
He holds it to his ear…
Strange
How life-lovers tell of catching
rhythmic lappings
or a tempest swell
while others laugh at one
who’d listen to an empty shell!
Comment to a Tree
You bend and bow
Curtsy and lift
Laugh and Shudder
And lift again.
Wind
sets your rhythm
I
brace and stiffen
stand firm
resist
and break!
Dyslexia
“I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA.”
That’s helpful.
We like precise parameters
and clean, clear closure!
But it’s in among those OTHER letters—
All twenty-two of them---that we
live our “lives of quiet Desperation”!
If only once those inconclusive jottings
would arrange themselves into a word,
a phrase, a sentence that would MEAN!
Merely a suggestion, God, but have You ever
thought of shortening your alphabet?
And---pardon me---but
MUST IT BE IN GREEK?
Crazy, I Know
(Luke 17:18-30 or John 5:33-36)
I don’t usually
run to crazed men
ranting about repentance,
sandal straps and
succession planning.
But he seeded in me
a desire for someone
to assuage my hunger
and to slake my thirst.
Over Much Beauty
One shouting, glory tree enough—
Or, better still,
One branch.
One singing, petaled branch enough—
Or better still,
One flower.
Beauty spare, lean, whittled to a size
I
Can contain
Is pain
Sufficient.
By world, when you turn prodigal,
Spilling splendor in such riotous array,
I can only close
The shutters
Of
My
Spirit
As against a gathering storm,
And move cautiously away!