light

Why do the insects swarm to the light?
Does some inaudible voice
call to them as the sun sets,
as the cool sets in?
Do they gather because the
night is filled with emptiness,
because they imagine predators
beyond the boundaries of the
glowing porch light?
Does the music of their wings
demand they find partners
for the dance?
Or do they sense, in their tiny,
nearly brainless frames, that
life is too short to spend it
in the darkness?

There is No Silence

There is no silence deep enough
to bury a mother from the glaring
light of involuntary love
so completely
that when the firstborn cries,
she can imagine it was
only the wind outside
the window of her heart.

No, even in what could be called silence
she hears his voice in the
movement of the air in a winter-stale house.
She strains her eyes in the darkness
to see the light of his dreams.

There is no silence long enough
to soothe a mother into
healing sleep after
day-long bleeding out her love.
And when the baby stirs,
she runs to the cradle
to cover him with her warm, dripping life,
as she gives again
more than she possesses.

There is no silence.
No, none.

Heat

The heat today was like a stone
which had set under a week of suns.

This stone lay under my pillow,
putting in my head pictures of
long ago Junes spent
hopscotching down cracked sidewalks
and skating on scalding blacktop.

The rain came tonight, and
felt like the tears cried over
skinned knees and broken
pieces of white, dusty chalk.

heartbeat

Have you ever held
a wounded bird in your hand
and felt its heart
beating against your pulse,
racing the moments,
heart flying though its wings cannot?
I am a bird, afraid of flight,
looking for courage in the clouds overhead.
How can a creature forget to breathe?
But I do forget for long moments.
Then gasping, I face the
wind head on, waiting for it to lift me.
Hold me in your hands.
Feel my heart beating against your pulse.
Hold me to the wind and
whisper in my ear.
Fly, fly, love, fly.

The Secret

There is a secret I haven’t heard yet

But I will recognize it when I hear it.

The sound waves of belief will reveal

The face of truth, the anonymous, timeless

Hidden reality of “Who”

I may be blind, but I can hear

The echoes in the hallway. The feet are beautiful

And I tell the Who to walk into my center.

The Family Tree

We bought the house

next to the one my

great-grandfather built.

Property lines have been created

since the farm was sub-divided, so

in my backyard stands the ninety-year-old

white pine he planted when

his children were as small as

mine are now.

My sons cannot reach the lowest branch.

I wonder if they can see the highest?

An ice storm glazed the tree and

all its needles,

Weight strained against its strength and

then cracked a limb,

broke it off at the trunk, and

down it crashed across the alley.

My sons dance around the fallen

arm of the tree as

Great-Grandfather’s children may have

danced around the sapling one May.

It smelled like life, green and piney,

but isn’t it death?

Bleeding from its wounds?

Saw in hand, I walked to the still

beautiful green thing and,

failing to move the whole,

hacked away at the parts until

I could drag the main limb

off the road.

My feet were soaked, my hands sticky

with the remembrance of a

man I never knew.

Mountains, Water, Birds

Mountains of rock

crash into the sea.

Your shoulders are

the new mountains to me.

Water spreads wide

as far as I can see.

Your eyes are all the

world’s oceans to me.

Birds lift their wings

and soar away free.

Your smiles are the

wild eagles to me.

Sunshine dances

on the mountains,

shines on the sea,

warms the flying things,

like your love

which

gives life to me.

11-12-98

Jigsaw

The card table stands in the

center of her room, puzzle pieces scattered over

like pebbles thrown at the sand.

The border is finished, the edges are

holding together, but big holes

gape, mocking her.

Grandma turned ninety-six last month.

The winter’s snows are lovely to her. But

in her eyes and in the words she doesn’t say

I sense the puzzlement

of too long a season

in one place.

She sits as though crippled,

staring at the mystery

beyond the jigsaw.

Once she put two pieces together

but she could not believe

they fit. I hear her saying

nothing fits anymore.

This body is too small.

The shadows are long and dark

and she wants only to

sleep in the bed

Jesus has made for her.

My heart is full of questions.

I wish she could tell me answers.

But I hold my tongue and

wish I could hold her hand.

Then I slip another piece in place

for Grandma.

tuesday morning

sound sleeping
greeted by sunrising
awakened by chilly
dew. black bird
cawing
from high dead tree.
hot shower.
hot coffee.
and just a little
poetry.

a beggar

Yes, I am a beggar, too,

though I don’t stand as they do

at the corner in the morning, looking

for an open purse

from which a dime or quarter falls.

I stand in shadows of my own,

awaiting your response to

the silent cries

my heart hears echoes of.

There is no bottle hidden in

the bag I carry close,

no empty cans or apple cores

or things from sidewalks gatherd.

But I walk the same path every day,

and all that really matters is

will the sun shine light into my darkness?

He and I? We are the same.

Yes, I’m a beggar too,

with a different name.

Cain and Abel

Brothers formed from perfectly created parents. Adam and Eve lay together and made these boys. God surely smiled when the babies were born. At what point did His smile fade? Was it the first time Abel pulled on Cain's hair in the his attempt to stand upright? Was it the first time Cain bared his teeth and with them scarred his brother's back? Was it the first night when Eve cried herself to sleep because these two boys she loved with all her heart found it hard to love each other?

How many times did God stay the hand of brother against brother, preserving their lives against the wrath, the jealousy, the fury?

When Cain finally killed Abel for real, it was the realization of all his violent dreams, all his darkest longings. Was it because God finally wearied of protecting brother from brother?

Believing

There are things I believe.
There are things I want to believe.
There are things I used to believe and
things I simply cannot believe.
There are things I'm pretty sure I believe
but things happen which make me wonder.
There are things I believe with my head
but not with my heart,
and visa versa.
There are things I talk myself into believing.
Or out of.
And there's a world of things that other people believe.
What does God believe?

Falling

Life is the sun coming up,
the birds flashing wings at the feeders
and crumbs on the placemats.
Life is a smile, an embrace,
the chords of a guitar up the stairwell
and bugs in the shower.
Life is eating and drinking, drinking
and being merry and weeping,
remembering and trying to forget
and forgetting and holding on.
Its the snowfall, and the leaves falling
and my heart falling when
I tell you goodbye.

Joshua Farm, an urban farm

Unlikely borders,
chain link fences
surround the garden.

Eggplant, tomato, potato,
herbs and onions thrive,
are alive in the dirt
in the city. Gritty workgloves
shared by novice farmers
stroke the soil, massage stalks
as the harvest nearly falls
into our hands.

God grows stuff everywhere.