Category Archives: Poetry

My poetry. Mostly Collects

Wanting Memories

Wanting memories to appear
with strange juxtapositions
that flow to the woods,
I study the hawk circling
then landing on a winter branch
watching it view the ground
for only movement that it sees.
I dance with my amazement
at how the certainties of yesterday
continue to appear as idols in my life.
I wonder, are there necessary
idolatries that God does not mind?
How does one know how
to resolve the paradox
that all will be revealed in time?
Will another dimension be needed?
Once again my poems become questions.
Perhaps questions make memories.

Dance and Song

The poet writes 
of a secret subtle awareness
as if there is a pairing 
of a quietly playing child 
with some about to be revealed 
divine and human connection
dancing between 
the carefully stacked blocks 
of time and space.

At some point 
the distance between finitude
and the infinite became small.
Onlookers watched in amazement
as a single bird appeared in the morning
alighting on a branch
against the blue sky
singing a simple song
welcoming the sun.

On Burnt Paper

I am a desert stranger 
filling the rooms of my house 
with my wandering presence.

Standing naked under the stars
once held an attraction for my eyes
but too often starlight blinded me.

I have been held in the arms
of nightmares of old where the winds
shook the branches of my life.

No longer do I cede such power
to the elements created by chance
at the very beginning of time.

The feeling of being complete
fills me as I write these words 
from my past down on burnt paper.

Undone

I survived my last spontaneous love affair 
in what used to be called the insane asylum
by demanding at all times for God to be removed
from the heavens and given into the hands of the people.

New students of the divine were more than pleased
to see the moment of promised serenity and deep peace
when grace lifted itself off of the pages of studied texts
and crept into the pockets of all who walked by the window.

There will come a time when driven nails will actually
remove themselves from all bleeding hands
and lean bodies will fall gently down from the trees
upon which they were to have spent eternity.

“I make peace and create evil.” Isaiah 45:7

Surely the desire to create evil comes
from some crooked past untouched by the divine.
Or, does this line join all the other buried texts
that make us uncomfortable when standing
before the burning bush and with each other?
One does not mention the nature of the whims of God
in polite company seeking to drink tea in peace.
Is it any wonder that redemption then waits
for us on the other side of how we spend our time
passing each other over with our judgments
that come from some tiny space inside our hearts?

The Upcoming Day

A myth and a symbol trade places
on the pages of history.  The absolute
moves to the margin to create more space
for the relative.  Interpretation surprised
everyone not familiar with how the words
became written.  The dance between simple
and complex astounded all onlookers
as one bowed to the other right before
the music started.  There was one who sat 
in a corner looking in at the grasping play
exasperated with the showiness of it all.
Most left early determined to get a good
night's rest before attempting to take
what was learned and form the light
for the upcoming day.

Sorrowing

"Serene is what happens to ourselves." - Rilke

But only after the visit of sorrows
that wander from one soul to the next.

To cry and get through to the place
and time of not crying is the yearning
of all who are full of sorrow.  

The moss in the garden accepts every falling tear 
sorrowing the rock upon which it and every 
absolute eternity rests in serenity.