A Blessing: May the God of Love First Get to You

May the God of love first get to you
Before the God of shame or wrath
May you know only the name of goodness and be cajoled by no dark spirits, masquerading as divinity
Prioritizing certainty, as they do, to justify all they sacrifice

And yet,
Since these, our human frames, remain so easily unmoved save by fear’s cold fingers
When you have been made afraid—that you will not be known and held, and that all the earth spins endlessly out of control, sending you to death
When, in short, you believe the world could never be benevolent—
May you, in the very core of you, feel the vine that entwines the heart of things, rising up to meet you, like a wind to sail a ship,
May you feel the Spirit’s breath, hell-bent on firing the work of God in you, and consuming every lie like chaff

May you feel a power in you, and know it, through and through, as God
Until you become immersed in this truth: you have always been held, from birth to now
And need no longer look up or about for God, out there
Since God rises like the spring, within

May you rehearse every memory—
Every bent leaf of spring
Every first scent of smoke in September
Every December cold that stoked in you the fires of aliveness
Which taught you the path long before you knew you were being tutored

And then, as God does, may you hold other trembling hands, to guide their way
Knowing what’s laid down in love always rises
And that death is a only short mystery with fraying wings

A Symbol in Steel

We walked across the frozen ground in February, to face what we must face
We could erase nothing, of course, and naming meant embracing

We would not doom ourselves to die alive
We would face it, and all our fear, and hope to thrive, but felt the truth:

That all courage is a death and a departure,
And as we walked to tell them that we could not accept their offer but would instead sail our little bark, through the cliffs, through the dark, and hope for brighter sails ahead, a steel hoop on the vacant halyard clanged against the flagpole, in the heartless wind

It struck ruthlessly, as if to strike our exposed fingers, heeding no call to silence, transcending the trees and the sound of any other thing

A reminder that some things do not bow down, and
A promise, clarion
That some convictions must rise above what others say makes sense

That our inner knowing mustn't be betrayed
Before the grave

Suddenly Awash in Sorrow

Suddenly awash in sorrow
So quickly grimed with dirt and muck, to find that
Grief has ransacked certainty
Has made all the things upon which I built my life, so stolidly,
Suddenly, only impossibility—
Pillaging every easy promise, and a future in which I could trust to know anything

And yet still, this morning
The sunlight was so sweet
And I think I actually saw the trees—
Stood and saw their branches and their buds
As they moved leafless in a cool, quiet breeze
Helping to scatter the cold mists of March

And One Day You’ll Be Taken From Me

We sat, on a Christmas Eve, beside our tree
The one our firstborn had been so proud of, for all its green
The same our three-year old cried over, for its lack of leaves
Such is the way of things: it’s hard to make everyone happy

And after they were put to sleep,
Because we could not find the remote, there was no tv,
So instead we read that story from Capote,
'A Christmas Memory'

After our tears,
As you sat on my lap, you said
"And one day you'll be taken from me"

Our dog looked up at us, as if to mark the truth,
And we laughed and I said, "Yes…or you, from me"
And we cried, but not in despair, nor touching all of our tears,
As there was yet work to do—
Cookies and milk to be set out, and presents to be wrapped

Yet sitting there at the folding of the year,
On its nearly longest night, at the very end of things,
At the feast which is like gathering curtains, to let in light,
We sat, pre-mourning
Grieving what, inevitably, is to be

It did not seem indulgent or petulant but, rather good and right
A ritual, even, to crown the night, for
This is the way of all things, strangely:
Joys and sorrows kiss
And there is a holiness—and even bliss—
In letting go

Then, like a wave coming back to shore, new strength pulled us forward
To heave our breath
To feel for light and good, firm ground ahead

To know of death and dying, yes,
But to keep rising
To forsake despair
For the here and now and for the future, and how we’ll need our wits about us
For what is coming quickly:
First the spring,
And then the way of things

Above all, for our children—for three dear hearts who need to see
Strength married to supple awe, merged with quiet fearlessness
And faith that transcends dread, without denying weakness

With sure knowledge, deep within our bones, of second comings—
Of life for the weary and the dead
Of mysteries pursuing us through rain and fog,
A hound barking at our heels, to find us, and lead us home
To the very heart of God

Afternoon Rain

It was such wonderful permission the rain gave us, solicitous and kind,
To sit still, do nothing, and remind ourselves that
Speed would have us rush on past, but in some things only slow is fast

We were unskilled at it, like trying to remember the cadence of a forgotten joke, or the movements of a magic trick
So I stood fumbling awkwardly at the doorway, wondering what to do

But when you invited me to lay down, the blankets brought it all back, and we sat with our backs against the headboard, hearing each raindrop splash

We were commanded to sit and be still, by God himself, that was clear enough,
And in this world where divinity seems a trick of things,
There was only Spirit in that room

In every droplet—booming down with such a magnitude of prophecy
Here and on the storm-swept sea which, four hundred miles away, we could sense and see so coherently, through the rain—
It was also clear that everything was being washed away and cleaned
Here and there and in between

The Call to Prayer, in Early April

There is a moment after I’ve turned on the radio
In the quiet, before the announcer moves us all along into the action
When the crowd claps, and you can hear a stray holler—
someone yelling “peanuts," perhaps—
And that small space of almost-silence, within the crackle of the crowd, becomes a prayer—
An imprecation of something great, just bound to happen
As sure as baseballs will sail the air

They are miles away, on a field in a city sitting prettily by a great roll of water,
And this day is the very hope of spring, with fingers now rubbed warm
This day is us, after the storm
And those watching are, like each of us, always coming home

Between me and all those sitting in that great temple,
Are endless creeks and hills—
Woodlands and hollows and fields
Getting ready to roil in summer heat and August’s pitiless humidity

There are children running, still, after all these years, to a swimming hole, in untethered glee

And places that no foot will ever touch,
In the hidden and unseen sanctuaries of the world, unspoiled

That short snatch of silence holds it all—
The possibility of finding still the sudden surprises which reveal
What we were looking for, all along
So that baseball become more than sport:
Becomes our humanity, and what it means to be, as we rise endlessly in spring

For now, we can pretend that all lives play out happily, if we do not look too closely,
And that the announcer’s voice, breaking the quiet, is God’s own, filling the earth
With the only goodness fit to interrupt it: the crack of a ball and bat

And we can imagine, all around us, spreading out in endless waves,
The next great town, and then the city limits, rolling ever away,
All rising again, to crest until we rise with them,
Our heads unbowed and our eyes open
As we move from here to there—
From hope to hope—
In endless prayer

The Shape of Truth, At Last

We finally came to understand
Beyond our world of binaries, which so closely held our hands and shaped the lands we walked on,
That everything is, instead, both-and

And truth, if you are to understand it (its shape if not its name)
Is always a merging—an estuary between sea and land—
As everything stands in tension,
The earth balanced precipitously and perfectly in orbit

Everything finds rest just beyond the storm demanding certainty
And now our hands stretch out, cruciform
At last able to hold the whole world

Unsure, perhaps, of certainty, we are finally assured of all good things
While a bird sings, unaware of anything at all, except the spring

A Collection, Alive and Flying

I have long collected trinkets and little pieces of beauty
Objects of tiny art and everyday artifacts, to set my mind apart from the ordinary
(Though the mundane is no bad thing)

My soul seems to sing in holding some thing held by many human hands before me
As if I am a part of something greater than me
A river winding its way, from mountains to the sea

When I travel to some new place
I might find a bit of bric-a-brac
A ceramic bird
A lacquered box
A rock
A painted word

They seem, altogether on the shelf,
To rise from the dust
Taking wings, these created things
Like offerings
Just as I hope to be
Some distant song to sing, until the notes coalesce, and,
All together, the notes fit best as a chorus, in many voices

From all corners of the globe, I see them rising
Their voices prying secrets from the deep, forgotten earth,
In mirth

I see them rising, at last, into the sky
Where creativity inside us finds all things flying, on wings
Like birds migrating from cold to the very heat of things
Longing for that country just beyond the ridgeline
And, finding the horizon no longer denies longing,
They fly in a perfect “V”, and find
The sky, finally, lets them loose
And sets us, all as one, free

As the Choir Sang

On the day when we woke in 1939, 
I stood in a choir room, surrounded by the voices of angels, as my best friend conducted them, and they spread their wings to sing for him 

They sang a song called ‘Spirit’
“Christ on my left
Christ on my right
Christ by my side”
As tanks rolled through the countryside, and into town
With blood along the ground

They will claim the Christ
(Of course, they will claim the Christ)
As tank treads mark the mud
And cities roil in blood 

Christ, have mercy
Christ, have mercy 

Someday, I too will die
My friend may go before me, or behind;
And though I wonder how wise we will be, then,
When we tend to the end of things 
One thing I know:
Some part of each other we will hold
Though we never fully put words to it
And never needed to, through all the years

It will be enough to know we tended to it, faithfully 
A comfort against the grave
Against death’s dark sting
As angels sing 

But I wonder what comfort have those who rise now, against the night?
And who holds the dying,
With the dark on every side?

Christ, have mercy
Christ, have mercy  

Pain is a Bony Beast

Pain is a bony beast, hard to ride, and everyone wants to get off, as fit to die 

In our flailing, we are most often thrown from its great back into the weeds, 
Like dust or detritus,
With no wish to get back on, and no hope of home 

But if you can find the courage, the same beast will take you there 
And bring you, on the winding path, back
Not only to yourself, but
To all that—once lost—is now 
More than found
On sacred ground 

In the barn which you did not build, in that good place
The beast (you will see, at last) is in fact a steed
And finding yourself strangely moved, and fearless, 
You will wrap a warm blanket around him
With a sigh and a long embrace
A knowing smile on your face

The Golden String I

Once you have tasted and know that the bright golden string runs through all things
How then can death have any sting?
How, now, can I fear that love will not lift me?

I will leave the way of things and pass through the trees
Because the bright green spring is playing at the edges of all our vision, like sunlight
And such vision is prophecy
As is the smell of autumn smoke in my nose 

And the memory of Tangiers—which I visited during a long draught of sorrow, and whose beauty, then, was to me only a mockery—is now a hall of mirrors, 
Of shape and delight unending
A golden tangerine whose juice seems to swell all the earth with seeing 
Only because 
The string runs through it and now, I know
Through you and me 

The Shape of Inner Knowing

I had continual intuition, as a child, like a radar receiving recognitions, constantly, 
Of some shape, taking wings, out there, beyond the trees

They came to me like pockets of air, unexpectedly 
When, for instance, I placed my empty cereal bowl in the sink and 
Looked up, out the kitchen window, where a squirrel leaped to the next brown-leafed tree
The branch bobbing on the morning with its weight, like a buoy in the sea
I would sense something, out there, calling out to me

The whole street sits so quietly
And while everything rests, everything, also is moving imperceptibly
Even the tree has its slow, still breath, 
Like the waves, like the sea

The flower pushes up from its roots, the oak strains up, just so, 
But in-between it all, these little invocations come
These unbidden calls, 
Like a nighthawk that only invites on sight, and gives no sound
They bid you to slow down
And to simply watch

Everything, after all, is like bird-watching
It takes a certain, slower speed to see much of anything 
And there is always something waiting
Rising in the very shape of our desire
Just beyond the next horizon
Just beyond the sea
Waiting for the moonlight
As it rises through the trees

America, We Sing for Thee

If you stop between two docks, you’ll drop down and drown
And even here, on desert sand, you cannot stand for long
So, we are always moving on, for greener ground 

We are, after all, the land of possibilities, still
Grizzled by the years after our great victories, our minds now muddled as an old man's
But we have strength somewhere deep, beneath the ground, and youth to be renewed
We just can't remember where we set it down

We are unsharpened now
By the lack of enemies to wrestle, 
So we wrestle ourselves
And we tear our shelters down

But dear God over the blue-black desert this morning, the light turned all to gold and orange and red       
And we are not dead
We, through this convulsion, this tortuous path to morning (so we pray) 
Will find the morning glories, which give new life
As the poet said: may this be the darkness of a womb, 
And not a tomb 

So, America, 
We Sing for Thee, 
Which is Us
Which is You
Which is Me 

Only Perfection Will Take Your Soul

I hung the frames in my house at perfect angles, to make their symmetry agree with me
While in the bathroom, my son ripped out the toilet paper spinner
And looked up at me, quite pleased 

It still works, so I left it awkward on the wall
To remind us all
That perfection is not attainable
And not everything is a right angle 

A house, above all, is to be lived in 
It is no museum
And its incompletions can remind us that we are fragile, fickle things
And so is life
As a bird is a fragility on lovely wings
And so are we 

And since putting everything in order is endless 
Life is only, ever, about finding balance, and
Asking how much is enough, since
Between chaos and perfection, only one will take your soul

Remember, my child:
Beauty is found in the strangest places 
Thrives, in fact, in broken spaces
Once we accept how out of control we truly are

In a race in which we all go down to the ground
The goal is to arrive in the dirt undeceived about what you were running towards
For then, with clear eyes, the good, green earth receives you
And you become part of the imperfect spring, buzzing in its completion
In its perfect chaos
And you become a sapling, waiting for the second birth 
And the ordering of all good things

Before the Bright, Pink Morning

I don't think the dark night could forgive me
Should I pass through its shadows without quickening my pace or
If I neglected to pause by the woods to see the moon snuffed out by the trailing clouds
Though there is no storm
Or the moonlight removed from the leaves, inked to black, 
The infinite maze of branches bobbling somewhere in the breeze, though I can no longer see them 

All things are coming apart at the seams and always held together
And though you and I are passing through, we at least slow down enough to see how marvelous the evening is
The mystery unfurling on every side like a flood that will not subside until it has searched out every mountain copse and crevice and every far divide 

We have so many reasons now to take ourselves less seriously
And in that laughter—that bright, sad joy—everything finally feels of its true weight, at last, its right size 
Not heavy, not suffocating, 
Just warm and rising like a night heavy with its own invocation
And the necessity to give vent to all its prayer 
Before the bright pink morning

Give Thanks for the Ones You Get

There was a tree, pure and perfect
Yellow in its autumn leaves
On our way to Capital Reef
Beneath a black butte, in southern Utah
But I could not stop the car 
Because there are time when the clock will not allow it
Or the following truck disavows it
Or my children in the back cannot be asked to stop again
So, we pass the bend, as my mind spins, lungs sighing
A sort of loss like dying 
The tree so quickly passing, becoming
Yet another point of mourning
On that perfect morning, bathed as it was in blue 

So, too, there was light shining through the woods outside Yosemite
But my baby was crying and, as first things are always first, I kept on driving
Just as the mountain preened in the morning light, like a kingfisher catching flight
As everything sang to life around us

The ridge became another photo never taken
Like the spray of heather by the river, in the sunset
Or the geese overhead
Because the road, my bladder, the watch, 
Keeping pace in a procession
Said, “No…it’s time to go"

You must simply give thanks: 
Give thanks for the ones you get, and the others, let go, with gratitude

Say "thank you," and try to stamp them on your soul, 
Those miracles 
Let your eyes linger and engender hope
Pretend you might return (knowing you won’t) 
But even so, know that it's right to go
With a smile, because you got to see it
You saw it, now let it go 

And above all,
Give thanks that autumn unyielding, in unending pictures
Will always bend more photos towards you than you could hold
Blowing down like a house of cards
Any thought that we can carry the weight of gold 

After all
The mountain will still be there
And God's gifts are older than the mountains
Made new each morning
For eyes made hopeful 
For hands held open
For any open, trusting soul 

Every Bush is Burning

In the back of the church, in a storage room just beneath the holy father’s feet
Sat a pile of icons, dusty but stacked up neat
Each meant, in some future life, long delayed
To be a holy moment of grace, like a spotlight on a stage 
On which the mind can step, remembering that every hour is blessed 

On the stone floor, instead, they became a metaphor
For something I had not time to put words toward, 
My body lurching forward, my eyes only just catching sight of them

As we walked through the nave and into a blue sky morning
The world was already focused and on its way, with no time for saints
Everything too busy to be delayed

But the icons, as if with hands raised, kept saying
“Every bush is burning 
Every plant awake 
Leave us here in dust; let us go to rust
But if you see
I mean: truly look and see
That will be enough”

Everything a Type of Protest

I.

Everything forms a type of protest against the great lying down which is our lot 
Our destiny—the big sleep that hangs above us like a city sheet, waiting to fall down 
The gritty darkness of night, of fog 
As we bleat about like sheep

So, too, the professor asking for a whiskey, neat
While the bartender beats a sad retreat
Is its own ritual of resistance
And the drink a protest
A litany cursing defeat
A ceremony of prolonging and resisting sleep
As he stares into the darkness, unblinking
Rage swelling beneath his feet
Anger pointing him back to courage, swift and fleet 

I like to think he left that bar and went to get the girl
And began the good hard work of letting go and letting the wind inside his heart, like God
A spark to start an arc of fire
I like to think his protest became a life of love

II.

It is possible, after all:
I have felt the invitation of the Holy Spirit on my fingers and how, burning in the discomfort of welcome, the day rises to teach you even while it greets you
I felt that same presence one green summer, all summer long, 
Mistaken, called by some other name—youth or lust
When it was God’s own presence
A burning bush, except the whole world was on fire 

That summer, we rose on adolescence and thrived on indolence 
Broken only by the strain of good, hard, and sweaty work 
And we learned 
That even work is protest
And that every good deed laid down in love
Is to be resurrected in a great throng 
As crowds sing songs on the streets of some skyward Jerusalem, here on earth
With signs and banners flung 
And rainstorms come to wash away the wounds and endless words
Leaving us only knowing, which needs no speech

As the water drains down in gutters, looking for the sea
The streams can find no ocean (for the sea has been made no more)
And no more signs or banners of protest are needed
As there’s no more death 
For death has been protested by God Himself
As God carries a banner, 
As God is trampled under endless feet who do not see Him
As God rises skyward like the no-more sea 
As God sits, crowned at last,
Above all things 

Resonant Pitch

There is a place in the church where suddenly every sound resonates,
Creating the most marvelous shell of tones,
Which echo down like edicts from a throne

I’ll be standing there, talking about God knows what—baseball or the blood of Christ—
When suddenly my being shakes as the sound strikes
And with the amplification, something within me rises
I look around, mouth agape, in the great gratitude of surprise

Sometimes the other person hears it, sometimes they think me strange, as I look up and keep talking to keep the noise from stopping
Then I stop and stand in its refrain, say nothing, as the echo becomes its own sermon and a song
To remind us all
That love is always specific, and finds us in a specific place
Like sunlight on our face
A quivering in our body
A quaking in our bones
An echo that leads us home

And that God, like reality, wants to close in on us like
A great wall of sound 
Like noise
Falling to the ground

The Long, Endless Becoming

I always assumed that in the endless metaphor of the cocoon
I would be the butterfly, and the chrysalis the pain of life

But what emerged this bright burning morning, after the black ravens deposited their laments and mourning
on the grass
And the geese told us that all must keep moving forward and, whatever come to pass,
All would be well
Was a bright new image that I could only call God
Taking wings as it did on the orange flood of day,
After a long waiting, as in a tomb 

I did not know which stood first to greet me, as they all rose at once to meet me
The sun 
The fearless aspen
The humble stand of wild flower
The hummingbird so sure and certain

But through me, like a quail taking flight, though the stalks of my heart,
A great surprise of tears found me 
Overwhelming me and, like dog casting off water, shook some unnamed sorrow from my mind
As if everything—the morning and my body, too—had been carrying such heavy news and, longing to be free
Found a path upon which to bloom 

God, I say
Because that is what God is
The healing morning that shakes darkness like crumbs from a tired picnic blanket
God the long, endless becoming
The day that always blooms
The butterfly reminding
That all things are made new

Flowers Growing in the Street

There is something about Jesus telling the religious dudes that rest serves men, and not the other way around
I imagine he said it with nonchalance, as when he drew on the ground, refusing to engage the crime of judgment or hate—
The very thing religion breeds when grounded in anything but love

Rest is for me, and then,
“The world is not for me, but I am for the world"
That’s not a bad mantra for liberty 
You start trying to do something, with the right motive
And then, since you can’t do a pure anything on your own, you have to let God in,
Laughing, as with an old friend who wonders why you were so long away

Or you can just pretend you’re good enough and then take precious things, like Sabbath rest, and make of them a contest
To prove how desirable you are, and good

Meanwhile the dog lapping at your feet
And the flowers growing in the cracks of the street
And the fire that rises into the night
Give not one thought to how good they are and just want love and sun and light

Let us always remember:
Jesus was accused of being drunk and loving bread too much
And, in general, having too much fun

What the Sage Said As We All Listened with Rapt Confusion

Well, of course it’s easier to chase flitting images, illicitly
And dismiss this as natural, our true longing, than it is to truly touch flesh,
Let alone press hearts
But if there’s no spark of love, we are left in fantasy,
Which is why pornography is not so much sin
As utter waste of time and attention 
Remember, boys: Even wanting love is enough for love
As the first bud of flower, no matter the size, is always enough for the morning and the day, and never to be despised 
And who said we were made for easy things, anyway?

Memory

Even if the world were full of talking bears or beasts 
And no one stared or thought it strange in the least
And even if by thinking we could fly
And with our wishing touch the sky
We would find other fantasies that render incomplete
This world of dirt beneath our feet
Our hearts still longing for the next thing
The absence of which would smart and sting
Which is why
We miss the many miracles, endless, and all around
Begging, longing to be found

Somewhere there may be creatures dreaming of a blue sky 
And machines that pierce it, taking people from here to there, over oceans, deep and blue
To great cities encircled by forests blooming green in endless hues, in springtime,
And full of things called flowers, called forth by mist and rain and showers, so chock full of scent it’s shocking
And nights rising on endless plumes of orange and pink, as evening falls
And stars begin to blink 
While the miracle of a hard rock, with dirt and sea, sails around a sun 
Their heads shaking at the wonder of it all

The Unchanging Smell of Fire

I take great comfort in the universal smell of fire and flame
Which met my senses, an old friend I could call by name,
As I rode my bike beneath the bridge
Where someone near me must have stood, in their backyard, burning wood

I suppose Genghis Khan also stood in the same holy pause before a campfire
And wondered, perhaps, about his life and its constant strife 
Before brushing away his doubts, like wisps of smoke and spark 
And Caesar and Charlemagne, just like the Christ, they smelled the same scent 
And so it graced their cooks and maids, too, like perfume
The poor and rich alike to smell the flame 

We humans walk out variations in power—given us by chance and place—but our humanity, equally graced, has the same sense to comprehend the mystery, without end,
The same blood and brain to entertain 
That refrain of smoke and flame finds us, whatever our station or our frame 
No wonder the prophets said that all the dread earth (and all of us), would be burned in fire, and born again, then called by God, by name

I have stood in the smoke of fires in Nova Scotia, worlds away
And the yellow-clad forests of Maine
And the canals just west of Oxford, near the shires where fleet foxes 
Reminded me of Beatrix Potter and my childhood

Young years come to me as I smell the scent, 
Days filled with books bound in orange with yellow leaves inside, inviting us to walk, side-by-side, by forest brook 
Or, to sail the world, 
This earth of water and barges and the holy space amidst the darknesses  
All touched, on holy mornings and dark night, by the holy smell of fire
As if the world is its own priest ever sending up incantations for the dead
Always spreading incense, at its feet, that we should stop and say a prayer
Before lifting holy heads

A Liturgy for the Morning

This morning I cleaned up the cards that we left out on the couch
After you routed me in Go Fish and I yelled “ouch” in mock pain as you collected the last three sets, prolonging your reign as champion

This has become my morning liturgy
Of praise, reminding me of all good things, as the sun comes up, 
You pull me away from tea, to say
Our Father, 
Our Mother,
Four kings,
Four queens
And this is a good order for starting things

Prayer changes with the seasons and this time is fleeting like a little fox
(Just yesterday you told me you’d like to walk to school alone, and so it goes)
But I am praying now this Psalm of you, in the only moment I can hold, like any—the one just here and now
Beholding you, and how
Full of miracle you are
You of the little hands and face and the laugh of grace
Whenever you steal my final ace

Oh thank God, the Faithful, for thumbs to hold these cards 
And to lose to you, as you learn how smart you are
And thank God the warm sun cutting through the dusty miracles of morning
Of which I am one

And above all, you, my dear
A doxology of promise
A prayer inviting me to remember that love is always loss, the pain of hope and longing and that we only choose between griefs:
Of regret and sacrifice 
And that only one, in the end, is loss

I will count that cost

As sets of aces fall, and jacks and eights
At this gate of you,
Through which God’s face shines, each new day
Letting bright, good mercies through

Serra Retreat II

I also sat in the chapel watching a flight of birds on the hillside across the canyon, abiding, thinking whatever birds think at 11 am on a Friday morning, when the priest came by, in the stillness of the after-service, to blow out the candles

This too was a poetry, a flight of birds, as he bent his body and summoned a breath of wind to smite the flame, and walked out, as if he had not just tamed a dragon

A body
This temporary arrangement marshaled to do things, deeds great and small, burning with sensations
Miracles there are on every side, and even blowing out a candle can be an act of love, 
The smallest things take wings when done with presence, here and now

When he left, the room was too much quiet and I was grateful for the faint hum of cars beyond the hill on the highway as the great world curved up around me, on every side
Hemming me in, as God and love and life always do, until we cry uncle 
And suddenly, it was too much miracle, 
The parting of a sea in me
And God, mercifully, let me drift back into my unseeing ways
And the daze which keeps me consolable 

God, too, hides his presence, after all
Lest we be smote like a great flame
Or scattered like sparrows across the sky
So He allows us remain in whatever amount of miracle 
We are willing to abide

And like birds 
We are
Watching and waiting, 
Preparing ourselves to fly

As We Strain to Lift His Arms

We read in school the story of the hands of Hur 
He who with Aaron of the oil-drenched beard, lifted Moses’ arms, as battle stirred

Metaphor or history falls beside the point
Sometimes a tale is true as poetry,

But I simply did not know nor could I fathom then 
And still, I can hardly comprehend
It’s God’s own arms we all hold up
Heaving, heaving on the everlasting arms

We who groan in prayer and sorrow, looking up,
To stars whose cries are burning eyes far too far from Him to lend their help 
Or the succoring kiss of friendship
So we are all He has  

As we learn, again, that God is always crucified and 
Is hanging now ragged as a war-torn heart
God Himself the battle and the battle’s end
As we all, with battered hands, strain to lift His arms 

Wabi-Sabi

When I am done with this porch 
I will leave the broom sitting vigilantly over beams so freshly swept
A cleanness kept 
A tornado ready always to strike at Wichita, 
Looming mercilessly to threaten all 
With cleanness 

The broom hangs as a prayer of welcome, accepting that all things change
Everything changes and nothing stays the same
And we will never be done sweeping 
We will always be in the business of cleaning and pushing at the chaos of life and love and loss
It is our lot
And glad or grungy we can plot it

In the past, I would put the broom away, for to say 
“This job is through”
But now I gladly shake the hand of imperfection
And leave incompletion dangling
Hanging like an unfinished note
A shave-and-a-haircut but two-bits has left town 
With the cousins and the family goat

And in all this incompletion, I have learned to find the voice of God
Who shines so brightly through jagged edges and on broken hooks
And the just bent pages of holy books, fallen from their shelves 
Though, “Blasphemy" some old self says, for the Holy One is all complete 
“But don’t you know?” I say
God shows best in places out of place
And Jacob walked with an ungainly gait 

The Japanese have made an art of celebrating the imperfect—the worn down in good use, the broken and repaired
A vase, say, sealed back to life with golden paste
So the broom hangs like gold glue over the porch, promising to repair the world 
And we are all, of course, not only the sweepers but the boards
And the vases, held together by something healing that, if we will let it, reflects light up from holy places 

That is the task: create order out of chaos knowing chaos will take backs its place
Dust will fall, and dust you’ll chase 
But do it with a smile and a grateful face,
Do all this, 
And call it grace

God’s Own Poems, Like Sparrows in the World

The rhythm of these little birds—sparrows, I think, or finches
Lands like God’s poetry on the branches

They are nervous, these birds, like unsettled fingers, 
Startled, perhaps, by the beauty of the bright world

But then they fly in uncomprehending grace, quickly heedless of any beauty or the forested space of green which leans in to befriend their tiny frames 

Since each beat of the wing is driven by hunger, they have no time or thought or feeling for anything other
than beating wings and the daily hunt to quench the sting 
(How things change depending on our perspective and our place)

Like all living things, they are driven forward first by the beauty, then by the hunger of the world 
With inscrutable, searching eyes, they pine, they dive 
But still, beauty can divert their eyes, and surprise them

Just as poems must be sent out, like Noah’s dove,
To take in the world from above
And keep things in perspective
Some bright, right thing to find
So God’s own self is always sent hungry into the world
Like a poem, a word, a dove

Since God needs to take wing and remember
What dirt and dust taste like
And the joy of alighting on supple springtime branches
As hunger, for a sunlit moment, recedes, and we hover—with God and the spring-bound birds—above the fray 

Hours Before Finishing a Sermon

Tonight I will have to beat this sermon into shape
I will sit at my desk like a blacksmith at his anvil 
And each stroke will make fall into place
The space for speaking and breathing 
A canal through which I’ll push some hope, a weary bark
On words hot enough to move the soul, and cool enough to not get fired 
(It’s no wonder Jesus built things, then for three years didn’t have a job)

But first I enjoy the jumble this afternoon of ideas which do not have to land
They are birds that race each other, gracing unthinking skies 
It is no pride for lilies to exalt in their grandeur
And no sin to sit here without sorting, just letting the wind from glad wings beat and beat
The line between procrastination and delight is a thin thing
And all these breezes are echoes of the future, when kites will stay afloat without the wind

I feel the longing for that place
And the pain as something is lost in each pounding of the hammer
Something lost when what could be becomes, instead, what is
And it’s good, what’s left in my hands
It has thick weight, like a metal sheaf of paper
But all the bright woodland birds which flitted about me are gone
And I am bereft at the loss of such good darlings 

This, though, is simple human fate: learn to live in loss
Enjoy the sparks and even dross that glow then fade away
And still hold on to what could be, while tending to what is
In this balance is nature’s secret:
Of trees and birds, bee and breeze,
All with such different lives—of moments, of centuries
All engaging, joyfully, the art of ever becoming 
Which gives us hope for what yet might be
A time and place when little birds will never land 
Yet never lose their strength

The Philosopher’s Sermon

The most serious judgment of all, perhaps, is that we get exactly what we want 
If there is a God, He (I know God doesn’t have a gender, but just go with me) 
He, in love, gives everyone what they choose 
He cannot force any soul along a path  
He is limited by uncoercing nudges 
The wind, the light, a hand on the small of a back 

No one will be in heaven who does not want to be there 
No one in hell who isn’t satisfied, in some way,
And no one will be surprised, either 
It all just extends out, this life, like a ripple from the steps we now walk

If you walk up to someone in hell and say, “Are you happy?”  
“Yes, of course,” they’ll say 
And of course, he said, leaning over his lectern, 
Hell isn’t a place at all  
It’s a state 
A state, perhaps, that many of us have long embraced

Then he stood straight, gathered his papers, and looking up, paused and said, at last, 
“Dismissed, good day”  
His brow furrowed when he looked up, confused as to why we all sat there still, 
Waiting for the next page 

Sometimes Death is Necessary

The celebration feels like birds landing on my open hands
But always flying off
Like trimming a bonsai tree with shears just too small
It’s hard to get my heart around it all

Christmas comes blustery and red
With visions of sugarplums plump in our heads
But a day clothed in pastel?
And we are surrounded by so much spring
That the mystery is almost drowned out by our over-seeing and yet, our not believing that
The day that turns to night will turn to day again 

But then I remember that
We pruned our rose-bushes two months ago
And that became its own Easter
I thought we killed them, but
The holy hush—not three days mind, you—but six, seven weeks
Turned them all to burning bushes
And it was too much metaphor
Life, life on every side, orange and red and white
The resurrection and the life

We are destined to walk, if we will, as he once walked,
In the cool of a garden
Up a long, lonely trail
Into the perfect sacrifice of love which keeps whispering,
“Sometimes death is necessary,
Keep walking, still”

Opening Day

The new year as a new babe is a bit tired
But I do like the idea of an old man facing death well and death that goes up in confetti
So sure, let’s go with tried and true clichés; they’ve paid their dues:

In its young days, being raised right
The year smelled leather, began to shape the form of ball and, most important of all,
Formed the memory to mark its life, the association distilled to one smell—
Leather and cut grass

And if January first was the day of birth, last month the year became mature
Took the car out, got its heart broken underneath the football stands, 
Found itself at a bonfire, making eyes across the smoke,
Tried its first illicit act

The year left home, too, in its rusted car, full of stuff,
To become a scholar, to run the halls of wisdom
Before it runs the bases 

And now, thank God, having tasted heartache,
No heart can come broken to Opening Day,
When hackneyed hope springs eternal
And the year is suddenly reborn
No hearts broken at 0-0
When the smell of leather and cut grass removes all the sting of coming loss

There is, if we are ever lucky and blessed, the joy of union beyond ourselves
With something that transcends our mortal frames
And what great irony: we transcend within them, in their prowess and their power
In this, the best work, of filling the earth and subduing it, on perfect grass
And white lines running towards the bliss beyond

With popcorn, with peanuts, with dumb smiles
Which is to say, with hope
On opening day
 

The Place Where God Already Is

"Listen to the rain, we have so few nights to enjoy rain,”
I said, lying in bed with my wife, having read a book about how Christianity is subversive,
and that we should use cloth diapers on our babies and shop only at co-ops
And maybe this is true, or some of it, 
But I had no energy for the imagination of it
Not even guilt, just too tired to try anything but listening to the rain
When my wife said, 
“You know what I pray when I dance?”
All my thoughts hid from her, “No,” I said. “What?”
“Lord, give me this dance. Give me this one dance.”
I squeezed her leg, because it made sense to me
Somehow, the mystery is: 
All we do is enter into the place where God already is
the dance, the rain, the tired bed

Pages

It is clear by now there will be no great work, no magnum opus
No statue looking down serenely on crowds grateful for what I gave
No volume held with awe-struck hands by someone who,
Having poured over the pages, felt saved

But my God, my world is just so bright around me
The sun burning on my daughter’s face, as she faces, with no hint of guilt nor guile, the coming day
As my son smiles and embraces, with quiet pleasure, the first orange light

I want to tell them
Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, flourish it
Pass down unwritten pages of life and love
And that tree will stand in the coming city with its many gardens
Where there are no statues, just oaks so full of sap they almost droop,
And seeds, flowering
As bees surround and crown
Their many leaves  

Tide's Come High

Wake up, Jenny, for the tide’s come high
And the moon’s riding orange in the bright October sky
But the geese by the river sense that autumn is a-quiver
By the blue band of winter, sailing up the river

Sailing up the stretch of sea, girl
That’s where your true love should be,
By the brown and burnished heather
Where he pinned your hair in feather
Cause the boy couldn’t buy a golden ring, girl
The boy couldn’t buy a golden ring

Wake up, Jenny, for the tide’s by your side
And the moon’s riding low in the blue October sky
Out across the bay, the waters rush and play
But they pile on the rocks without shame, girl
And they’ll pile down on you just the same

Sailing down the stretch of sea, girl
That’s where your love let you be,
Past the brown and burnished heather
Where he pinned your hair in feather
Sailing for to buy a golden ring, girl
Sailing for to buy a golden ring

Wake up, Jenny, for the tide’s at your breast
And the moon’s gone to rest by the blackened raven’s nest
Cold as the morning is the ocean in his mooring
And it’s time for you to up and go

Sailing down the stretch of sea, girl
That’s where your love you will see
By the brown and burnished heather
Where he pinned your hair in feather
He’s gone and he’s bought a golden ring, girl
He’s gone and he’s bought a golden ring

Lie down, Jenny, for the tide has touched your lips
And you’ll soon taste the darkness, beyond the ocean’s kiss
Unforgiving in its blackness is the ocean in its passion
But there’s morning far beyond these broken dreams, girl

He’s sailing down the bay straight to you, girl
That’s where your love your face will see
By the brown and burnished heather
Where he pinned your hair in feather
And he’ll cry and he’ll throw away the ring, girl
And he’ll moan and he’ll throw away the ring
 

The Humbled Puritan

I always thought in protest,
As any Protestant should
That frills are frivolous
And guilt their just dessert
(And dessert a guilt)

But I see you there: The Wine Drinker
The same as He the wine did make
And still with perfume’s scent
Upon your robe’s bright filament

With no shadowed brow for pleasure gained
But a prayer of thanks and mercy
To the Father, 
Same Who made the rain to fall
And cleanse the land, with pleasure instead of pain

So here’s to you, my glass I lift
And as it kisses both my lips
I join creation’s song (I think)
And the secret of the saints--

Those who've learned to worship
Of this earth’s goodness
Where, like rain,
Pleasure need not leave a stain

Baseball

These men are common, like us
Felons and poets
In a game that makes them gods all afternoon

If you can find some glory that transforms you, seize it!
If you remain the same thereafter
What does it matter?
All any of us taste is a mere moment, anyway

So if it’s the game that restores you?
Let its poetry become part of you--
The perfection of 90 feet, from here to there
And let the beauty of a baseball curving at the far end of physics
Transform you
And the slow waiting in between slow your soul down in this, our sanctuary

Good God, I don’t have to play
Just give me warm evenings
Redeemed from the haze of summer’s sad heat

I’ll worship God all night
Starting at the long, slow slant of sunset
As they turn the lights on and we stand and sing like monks
In chant before, with once voice, saying our simple blessing:
“Play ball”

Praying in the Bathroom

I like to pray in the bathroom
When I shower or run the water
Or make of it the necessary room it is

It’s not a sacred space
Though of course we learn that every space is sanctuary
Everything a burning bush

It’s just that
With my hair askance from sleep
My indefatigable cowlick defiant
And my body bulging with new creases
Showing its age as I sit or stand or wash
It seems so much easier to say, with Abram,
“Here am I
And yes, I have nothing figured out
Not today, tomorrow, or yesterday”
And I have learned to say that it’s all okay
And that heaven then unfurls all around me
Weightless in my unclenched fists

These words—“Here I am”
Make it so much easier to pray
Make it possible, perhaps,
Since prayer’s prerequisite is dropping pretense
And becoming honest
Standing in our nakedness

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Watching her struggle
Like an injured bug upturned on its back
Her breath searching, like so many legs desperate for something to hold onto
Reveals
The full brutal ugly of death
Which she labors into, helpless

But the nurse is smiling--
Cell phone to her ear--
As she walks by

Her charts mark the courses that are wandering ever nearer,
Inevitably, to the vanishing
Like bare strings that, broken, must fall into the dark below

That’s just the way of things
Which can be pushed aside for hours and hours
(The nurse, after all, talks about her weekend plans,
And something about a boat
And where they’ll catch it and where they’ll land)
That’s how most spend their lives:
Batches of hours and hours, pushing it down into the underground

But, then
It comes
And it comes to You

As my wife comes out
She smiles
Then collapses into the breaking of tears
That is the unsheathed honesty of a soul
With no energy left for holding itself back
(Which is what ‘normal life’ is, anyhow--
A holding back)

If not You,
No helpless are helped
If this is not truth and true
Pity us
And pity all who came before
Who labored on these shores
With no real hope of crossing

Somehow in her tears against the senseless farce of all of this
Something makes sense
As when a sky is pierced, just for a moment,
By sun
Before the black rumbles down again
And light is gone