A God Desperate To Be Loved
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and motionless shadows,
emptied
into the damp presence
of swept corners
and muddy forest roads?
Be still, little one!
Sip the still waters,
you fearless wanderer!
Look! There in the creek
under the bridge:
a worn, forgotten reed
sailing alone
on a never-ending stream
under a timeless vault of
cheering pines
and moss-laden oaks--
marked, forgotten, tired,
ready to die!
“I will raise the cup of salvation[...]”
Psalm 116:13
PRIEST
Sun daily comes to light
the silent woodland paths
with gleams that stir
their placid cover;
then, sounding slopes
descends in sparkling flares
that send
mystic dreams on river.
Stars each evening wake
to shine with magic gleams
to rustle restless hearts of lovers,
as houses come alight
and dogs bark at their quiet
revery from leafy covers.
The timeworn map that plots
these well-trod paths,
now daily charts my steps for me,
and inside I feel the touch
of a fairer sun of such
luster, I reel deliriously.
Then as deeper night descends
where stars like children sing,
“We crown you high priest
of heaven’s charms,”
I walk the breathless night,
lifting high their light,
transformed to source from
musty effigy.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son[...]”
John 3:16
THE HEART OF A GOD-GILDED UNIVERSE
Outside, children gaily play and shake
coffee-craving sleepers from their stupor,
as awestruck angels in my chapel gaze
with me as, at the altar of your mercy,
I raise and reveal to another waking day
the heart of a God-gilded universe.
Everything today may see--
every act and plan and happening--
shall receive from here its meaning,
to become, to you, my Risen Lord,
an endless psalm of love.
But I, I who denied you,
who wandered about oblivious,
now gaze into your rapacious blood
and see your face!
So many times you have shown me
your crimson, passionate gaze!
And--you choose me?
To raise your risen flesh,
to feed your flock
your precious blood
to make them clean?
O Shepherd, really?
Me?
“Yes--oh, surely yes,”
you seem to say. “For
only the hands of one
who knows his nothingness
can bring me to my people
as befits my Majesty.
For, in you now, my son,
heaven’s minions see
a masterpiece of my mercy
painted clearly.”
Cities shall grow as I stand amazed,
streets and coffee shops will bustle
as crowds hasten to work or play,
to continue their regular oiling
of their city’s restless machine,
and--all for a vapid purpose.
If only they would stop to see:
their frantic furies cannot seize
the prize their hearts desperately need
shining crimson at the table
of their neglected God.
“I am just a thought away.”
you, my captive Majesty, say.
“One thought can return me to my world,
one silent pause prepare it for my goal,
(How many know where they are going?)
to live and find in Me
alone what gives life meaning.”
“Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one.”
Song of Songs 5: 2b
“I was steeping but my heart kept vigil; I heard my lover knocking.”
Song of Songs 5: 2b.
THE CALL
As I sort the disheveled pages
of my years, a certainty
as clear as waking love appears
that you have ever been leading me,
Mystic Lover, into
the desert of gaunt prophets
where human voices dimly echo
the thunder of your silence,
where bodily clay grows taut,
and spirit whistles, amaze,
above its unreality.
Timeless Suitor!
So often have you ravaged me
in your bodiless presence,
whispered your purposes
into my flailing thoughts,
that I sit back, breathless
at the wonder gleaming
on these rustling pages--
dazzling as noon
on Tampa Bay--
that tell me that you, my maker,
have ever led me here
where I wildly, blithely sing,
seized by the fury
of your emblazoned wing.
“[...] for love all love of other sights controls and makes one little room an everywhere
John Donne, “The Good Morrow”
CRY OF THE GENTLE PROPHET
Shall I again know
the bare, still room,
wake
to an _ infinite vault
of bright morning,
a silent sea
of wonder transfixing
bed, book, and bare wood floor
and white encrusted window
into a psalm
quiet
yet tenebrous as sea?
Is the gentle prophet
still alive--
hum?--
under all
the wrinkled years
distracted
by distant thunder
that makes sunbright
slip, a faithless nymph,
from consciousness?
Is he,
the boy I was
and must be, still here
with all the surging
insistence of dream,
the ever-louder
echo
of call
ever present,
beating,
blaze-brazen,
at my lifegate?
“On my bed and night I sought whom my heart loves.”
Song of Songs 3: 1
EARTH SLEEPS
Earth sleeps in the silence
of the solar system,
silence that enlightens
hearts of solitary wood-
walkers, the ancient,
imperishable silence
that speaks destinies
to saints, sages, poets,
that weds (O bright siren!)
solitary souls to virgin springs,
to quiet starlit groves,
forgotten beasts of innocence.
Ah, the sleep of care
that feeds peace profound
where mind reclines
as in a cave at sunset,
unclouded starry skies
unveiling the nature of things--
of faith, of hope, and of love--
watching motionless,
as breathless heavens revolve
cooled by the ocean breeze
of a new dawn
whispering
frail eternity.
“All your works give you thanks, O Lord, and your faithful ones bless you!”
Psalm 145: 1
MORNING PRAISE
Every morning as I rise
to sunlight bright
or dim,
I cast the covers
from my bed and eyes
and stand, heart and hands
outstretched at the open
window of your radiance--
a fleeting flame
in a timeless presence--
and exclaim,
“Good morning, Father.”
“So familiar with divinity,”
a sun-struck sparrow chides,
“That sighs
from the spectral heart of air,
from whose presence
spirals
the searing power
giving sun and spirit flair!”
Oh, yes!
I tremble at your coming,
at the soft, breathless silence
streaming over me--
from which you formed me;
yes, formed me as I am,
so cunningly!
And though I quiver,
wondering,
I am sure you understand;
how often have you assured me,
“I am your closest Friend.”
‘And you,” a sparrow quickly adds,
as if ablaze with prophecy,
“are the dim yet pure effigy
of his veiled beauty,
a child of God, fathered
from the pliant, pulsing embrace
of silent shapelessness
by his insatiable passion to conceive,
by him whose nature
is creative giving,
to whom you daily wake
and, trusting, take
light to live
and power to be
a prophet of his mystery.
O Father! My Father!
I shall not brush my hair
nor descend the stair
nor move to greet a friend
unless you shall intend
and guide with your strong
yet tender presence.
Make of me today
all that you wish--
a trinket for your mantle,
or, better,
a passionate lick
of your own livid flame.
And, as I pass my way,
may your love light the day
‘till evening again comes
with caressing shades
soft and long
to enfold me
in starlit wonderment.
“I will lead her into the desert, and there will I speak to her heart.”
Hosea 2: 16
OBSCURE PLACES
I have lived in obscure places,
for God has led me there--
and this defines my life:
for God alone.
My whole nature feels
noble vocation, great deeds--
great artist, poet, musician--
yet, in silence far too frail
to sense even my own presence,
a love so fierce seized me
took me far
from created things.
You came to me, Lord,
gave my life it’s definition
and it’s scope
when you made all but you
mere dust,
my greatest goals
a pregnant nothing that
you only ignore.
(Oh, when you turn to leave,
be sure to shut the door!)
You kept me in silent rooms
and adorned my heart
with your cross, taught me
that you alone are good,
all else
your smoky reflection.
And yet...
how I’ve struggled to seek you.
I wanted to be great
so you took everything from me;
but, doing so, I now see clearly:
I want what you want,
for I reflect you
and you are my center.
“ My God,my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Psalm 22: 2; Matthew 27: 46
OUT OF THE DEPTHS
I
An uncommitted, dry October
whispers from the green
window of the old monastic chapel,
barely noticing the one
wheat crumb, overlooked,
on the worn wood altar.
Serene chants and holiness
once filled this room.
They linger now,
a slight, nostalgic vapor.
Only the morning sun,
(Thanks, old friend.)
ever blessing, extends the kiss of peace.
Thanks for that, at least.
All monks and mice have
scurried off
into a fading haze
of swishes. A steady
ticking measures my
moments ‘till dissolution.
Outside the quiet chapel,
new wheat rustles,
waving gaily in the field.
(There is always a new breeze.)
Deep in his private
cave of cowl and concern,
the last sacristan did not see
the crumb on the altar,
the hermit of a twilight world
no sun can touch, the
body of a deathless God
greedy to be consumed,
to be
fashioned into a fire
of extravagant temper.
Only these walls preach now,
these bare wood walls,
of acts devoid of
noise,
of utter
simplicity.
Oh,
may my presence preach
so--
eloquent
beyond words,
words
beyond speech,
word
that enters,
becomes
silence,
a teeming
time-fled
presence.
II
Is this the final shadow
flowing over my gloom
or is it you, True Noon,
searching the dirty sunlight
for a little opening?
How easily I mistake you.
Yes, yes, I do.
Oh, I am all aflutter,
as if waiting for a suitor.
And, is it really you
or just another
flashy impostor?
O Father!
It gets so bleak here in Missouri
/> on a morning bleak as death,
the heartbeat of October.
III
“I want to say that there
is no sin as heinous as apathy!”
the old gray scholar
boomed flamboyantly,
waving to an upturned sea
of-wondering eyes.
“Boredom is the
rape of spirit.
By the inexcusable
temerity of neglect!”
And, from the silence cried
a lady,
“Oh, what the heck?
Apathy or deceit--
it’s all a waste of time!
Let’s move on.”
This lady
much too used
to apprehend
as sacrament
was once the Garden of God,
Eternal Bride of a
romance unspeakable.
How can I, so unworthy,
grasp your hand,
frolic
in your onetime
forest of dream?
Wrinkled, squinting eye,
your veined, spotted hand--
knotty, outstretched, thigh
once so limpid,
pure replica of the sublime--
now spurned by the sun.
What nefarious bandit
pillaged here-- so recklessly?
IV
Oh, let me join the spectral choir
in the ultimate Magnificat.
Let me be a lamp to lead
others here, too,
‘though night be dark,
as distant dogs bark
and dancing dreams
light the lawn,
sirens
of perfectyear.
Mother of Jesus, draw me near!
Press me to your soft,
beating breast,
so fair--