Trigger
No…
You don’t Just say,
“I’d like to write a poem today”
But “ordinary”
Turns upside down
when a bird and a squirrel
settle down
(together)
to enjoy the same tossed out
Bread Crusts from Breakfast
The Opening of Eyes
(based on Luke 24:13)
They can
be forgiven
their blindness.
After all,
who expects
to see
a dead man
walking?
Their opening
of eyes
came
in the
breaking
of the bread.
What opens
my eyes?
A Day Called Easter
(based on Luke 24: 1-12)
In the pre-dawn darkness
they worried their way
to the granite grave.
The whispered:
“How will we?” froze
on their lips
at the sight.
An open, empty tomb
and other-worldly words
of reminder, remember,
and resurrection
sent them scurrying
to the others
mary-questioning
the while,
“How can this be?
Huddled together,
amazed and afraid,
knowing and unsure,
they discussed:
“If Jesus’ words about
rising from the dead
were true,
than so were all the others.”
“Could it be,”
they mused, “we must
live, as Jesus did,
threatened with resurrection?”
Gift Received
The gift received this day, no words can describe.
Yes, you, O God, have answered my plea.
It is you who give me life,
even to the ends of the earth.
We are truly all one in reality,
yet in practice, we have miles to go—
learning to listen, to deeply hear the other.
Insights are planted when such is done-
even miracles by way of vision, sound and whatever
symbols God’s presence will occur-
if only we trust in the One who is and was and will be.
The God who holds no guilt
but only pardon and infinite love-
a love shadowed in darkness of the unknown
a love to be revealed only in eternity, where
the life span is but a spark of eternal presence,
where the Light of God’s love
can never ever completely be fathomed.
Why?
Because we are not God!
ON THIS MOUNTAIN
(Is 25:6-10; Mt 15:29-37)
On this mountain
There is food,
feasting,
flowing fruit of the vine;
There is fasting from tears,
forfeiture of sorrow.
On this mountain
There is freedom from physical constraints,
fishing for fragments,
foraging for flour loaves
On this mountain fallible followers find faith.
Springtime
It's February and I feel Spring in the air.
They tell me it's Winter, but I know differently.
I know it's Spring. Why?
Because I saw cedar wax wings yesterday
nibbling at the dried berries on a small tree in the court yard.
They tell me it's Winter with the flu and colds around the comer.
But I know differently
because the snow has melted leaving unexpected puddles in the parking lot.
I know it's Spring because the white snow of December has turned to the gray piles of February.
They say it is dirty and not pretty
but who cares with Spring so close by.
Those gray piles will turn dry grass into green sprouts.
Yes, I know it's Spring because I hear a robin miles off
yet coming close to sit on a branch in my heart and whisper, "Yes, it is Spring
and I’m here to cheer you with my song.”
Sophia of Solitude
When you knocked at the door of my heart,
I opened it and found an old friend which I had long forgotten.
I have to relearn to enjoy your company.
My heart has forgotten your warmth, love and security.
Help me refurbish my knockers so you will not pass me by,
as I indulge in business and the mundane..
Let our friendship never die.
MYSTERY OF SNOW
Snow has a beauty of its own. Whence does it come?
How does it form? Why here-now?
Scientists have all the answers.
I have my own.
***
Snow has God's DNA.
It reflects the All Pure and Holy One.
The white dusting is part of His creative plan. A surprise, like Manna for the wandering man.
He shapes each flake in His Divine hand. No crystal duplicates another-
Just as we are unique from our own bother.
All is in His Godly design for our season,
He knows our winter loneliness, long and bleak with reason.
Hope exists with the pledge of Spring,
Waters our bareness, promises on the wing.
Yes, a new 'morow will hover.
Fresh life scintillates 'neath the white cover Sense the brightness of snow,
As Alleluias are formed beneath, below.
When You Walk
When you walk
In the light
Learn from the light
And
When you walk in the dark
See with new eyes!
The Woman at the Stable
You have it all wrong!
I would never be at a distance from the baby.
You would have found us both lying in the straw.
Jesus swaddled in my head cloth lying in the crook of my arms,
my head resting on Joseph’s lap.
Like the night, we were half spent.
Your sanitized crèches don’t honor the
bloody, body-cleaving experience of labor.
I can accept that.
What is unacceptable are the depictions
which have us separate.
No mother would leave her newborn thus.
9 months of mutual presence don’t end with delivery.
Jesus is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.
We would not be separated.
Of course I adored him,
but not on my knees as subject to royalty,
although he was of the royal house of David.
I adored him with my eyes, my heart bent
with tenderness and love beyond all telling.
Let the artists draw and the sculptors mold this nativity –
a trinity of connectedness. Three become one.