heaving
with your dear Son’s
ineffable love!
Silent, abandoned God!
Can you find no new
Elijah to unleash
your livid fire,
vindicate your honor,
confirm your Presence,
your sovereignty?
Shall your people forever lick
pilgrim dust,
yet never recline
in the glistening glades
of Carmel?
Oh, Yahweh!
Why do you not march
today with our armies
like yesterday?
Is there not one person
unkempt enough
to topple self-sufficiency?
Stretch forth your staff!
Part seas!
Hallow your Name!
Shall what our ancestors
witnessed and inscribed
on old scrolls
we not see?
Is your Name
not still
Today?
O Today!
What is your intention?
Is this my dogged gloom--
yours or another’s invention?
But,oh, the darkening slopes
of Carmel sigh,
as ‘mid the gathering gloom
they spy, rising from the crimson
core of your deft,
your deathless purpose,
new vistas
dazzling in the sky!
“No! It is not over--
the plan I have in place!
For when all dreams dissolve
in dust and hearts wane
heavy and Samsons cower,
when new moons flee, birds start
as at the coming, fearsome towers
of a mounting storm-
the tomb yet stirs.
But did I not I tell you that
at the first?
How fragile
is your memory!”
But now, you dogs, bark,
and you birds, chirp!
All is peaceful along the street;
and you, my chosen,
have peace and know:
I am still in charge.
My plan grows brighter!
“One thing I ask of the Lord; / this I seek: [...] to gaze on the Lord’s beauty
Psalm 27: 4
YOUR OWN PSALM
Tonight,
each servant, write
your own psalm, sing
in your own space
out of your own
silence, weave
your own destiny.
You,
every servant of the
blazing Sun-King,
deftly weave the mystic silver
beams that dart
the pale, hallowed halls of your heart,
unique as each
the hermit of a
primal freshness.
Yes,
each of you--
whether deed sit or
seethe, whether you
pray, paint, or lead--
each
the hermit of your
own quest,
prophet
of your singular
star-fire of the one
All.
“... I sing to you, all alone, yet not alone--with you. I sing
so sweetly and so long my solitary sparrow song.”
“A Sparrow’s Song”
A SPARROW’S SONG
1
I, a sparrow, singing in the trees,
a song so dear
so haunting, so familiar
to Christian hearts--yet, I,
captive of your reckless jealousy, Lord,
sit, your spouse,
far
from common gatherings.
The streams of people,
deep in silence,
flow far, far below.
But I sing to you, I alone--
yet not alone--with you.
I sing so sweetly and so long
my solitary sparrow’s song
‘though none suspect my bright
secret: God Alone.
2
Oh, how the forests
in their haunting beauty
remember all their now-
faded pasts! How they love my song!
Poets sang here, painters, prophets,
psalmists--all the centuries’
heart-wrenched lovers.
And the forests smile today
as I sit beneath this sun-swept tree
refreshed by the soft breeze
of forever--
a solitary sparrow, child
of creation, so graced--
but, oh, so wildly ruffled
in winds of self-hatred!
Am I so out of the passing scene--
I, feverishly ripped from common
assurances, able to delight
only, only in you, my God,
always an enigma to myself?
The streams of people, deep in silence,
flow far, far below.
But I sing to you, I alone--
yet not alone--with you.
I sing so sweetly and so long
my solitary sparrow’s song
‘though none suspect my bright
secret: God Alone’
3
Oh, how I have longed to savor
common seasons of romance--
holding hands, tender enamored looks.
Yet, no! You taught me another song.
“None of this for you!” you said.
“My love alone is your prize.
I, the Master Painter, you my work.
Do not look back at me like that
and ask, ‘But why?
Why sigh for me?”’
“For all that you grieve, thank me,
little sparrow--for the guilt,
the reddened, adoring eyes
forever weeping for her,
for I have made you to be
wholly mine, my spouse. Let
your grief-bleeding tears
sing for joy,”God made it so.”
“Why? To bring you home to myself,
to rejoice fully in my love,
free of guilt, free of regret,
free of bitter tears--
free, a solitary sparrow in the trees.”
So, even through my scalding tears
I sing. I sing, my God, your sparrow.
O my sunbright, eternal king!
The streams of people, deep in silence, flow far, far below. But I sing to you, I alone-- yet not alone--with you. I sing so sweetly and so long my solitary sparrow’s song ‘though none suspect my bright secret: God Alone.
“Set me as a seal on your heart [...] for stern as death is love, devotion relentless as the netherworld
Song of Songs 8: 6
III BETROTHAL
“...I have betrothed you
to one husband
to present you as
a chaste virgin to Christ.”
2 Corinthians ll: 2
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! Your love is more delightful than wine!”
Song of Songs 1: 2
EMBRACE
Shimmering before the sun,
> we, two silhouettes,
embrace.
Spreading before us,
the sea,
unsheathing slips of
shivering quicksilver,
sounds the seductive bells
of first love.
Sirens sing in mystic harmony,
“This love is much more
than mere passing fancy!”
“Oh, yes, much more,”
chimes a sunlit gull,
as a heaven of stars,
dizzy with amazement,
springs alive
and, all calming,
like the stilling whisper
of ancient ages past,
a flair from the frail
heart of air
appears,
revealing
unsullied eternity.
Myriads of silken sirens
cheer and chant
with joy as we, my love,
beneath solemn pine steeples,
kiss and become the prize
of a far fairer shore.
“[...] we escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare.Our help is from the Lord, the maker of heaven
and earth.”
Psalm 123: 7, 8
WING
Cloyed of heart and unsheathed
as the first wan wing
of morning, I slip
dream-sly
into the slick
silkway of limitless azure--
winging so wistful-
ly, all enchanting
over billowing salt breasts
sailing,
blissbright and full of dream.
Oh, rue not my right to wing so,
you who gaze so wistfully on, so
wide-eyed and full of wonder
at my freedom, so full of desire
also to be
so.
It’s o.k., though.
You also may be
so
when sunbright sings for you,
fearless in her grasp
at last, and free.
So,
look not wistfully on my flight,
no, not so,
like a barren strumpet.
“The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit
John 3: 8
THE IRREPRESSIBLE WING
Signs of decomposition
and of life, life’s
never tiring translation--
a pile of black, dead branches
pocked with defecation--
yet also, the persistence
of movement, the recurrent sun,
the enamored dog-wood bud
by the weed-run granite fountain.
Here I sit this April morning
alone in the garden,
resting under this cool,
mellow guardian of past presents
which yesterday was here
as today I am;.
and, yes, even here
again is shining,
over the fresh sunlit green,
the unfettered, irrepressible wing.
ABDUCTION
Deep is the twilight,
yet somehow brilliant!
I keep vigil alone
at a desperate heaven;
a dim shadow
in the sea of eternity,
a solitary lover
before infinity.
Wrapped in your stillness,
invisible Lover,
I am filled with your fullness,
an empty laver.
I cannot speak:
there is no wisdom.
I cannot hear:
there is no voice.
I can only sit
still as forever,
for you are silence
and in your presence
my heart is cloyed.
Peace!
Creation folds,
packs his scenes
and walks away.
Purpose has fled
into it’s essence,
far from fanfare’s
flippant ray.
Here I have all.
I am all.
I and you, my Beloved,
are one,
resting in your orchard,
ripe for dawn--
as time claps
its thunders,
it’s tenure done.
Peace.
Oh, the twilight’s
scented air
by this pale,
lapping stream
ruffles so gently
to a deaf piper’s dream--
as you draw me into
your strong arms,
O my ever-primping,
my ever abiding King.
Oh, I begin to faint
as magic crickets sing.
Alone let us stay,
alone until day
peal forever
its ultimate arrival:
a crackling fire
rising into infinity,
a peerless tune,
the definitive answer
to a dying June.
“Mortals are a mere breath
Psalm 62: 10
IV EXILE
“I opened to my lover--
but my lover had gone.
I sought him
but I did not find him.
I called to him
but he did not answer me.”
Song of Songs 5: 6
“Because you ... ate from the tree of which I forbade you to eat... in toil shall you eat its yield [...]. So, the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden....“
Genesis 3: 17, 23
WHY?
Tonight a full moon lights
the broad grassy field
by the round lake
in Overton Park.
I stand alone gazing
at the Art Academy,
bright and bustling with guests,
and--I seem a world away.
I think about her--so
achingly lovely, smiling, laughing,
and my restless heart
here--so
captive
of a lonely God.
I can not see why!
Why?
Why, God, do you
hold me jealously?
Why?
That question underlies
all questions,
and all my thoughts
flail, fallacies
at the realization,
the stark intimation
of all my dogmatisms,
the ideas my mind formulates
and agrees to believe.
I feel so
alone.
I am
adrift
in existence.
Existence--
that word is so cold.
Too cold.
My fur-lined jacket
is warmer.
I must rest.
I’ve got it!
I’ll go to sleep--
and wake up happy.
But that, I know,
is impossible.
I can’t stop thinking--
for I see you, love,
<
br /> my elusive passion,
your soft lips, your graceful
beguiling form
gazing, ‘mid silver rivulets,
at me in the moonlit water;
but, seized by God,
my trenchant Lover,
I obey myself
and humbly kiss his
sacred earth.
Oh, my rapacious God!
I can not be warm enough!
I can not be comforted enough
in my heart’s restless center.
Why is my heart so torn
between my maker,
a jealous, omnipotent Lover,
and--her?
Why?
Why not?
Oh, I shall wander here and there,
see the scenes of many years,
but, someday
maybe, the question,
the intrepid question,
Why?
will disappear.
Maybe, my love,
you and the Academy will
disappear
and I,
I shall finally understand
this God who holds
me jealously in his hand.
But now I hear
the crickets wake
and, though you
are forever there,
and I, I am here--
God wills it,
so I cannot fight it.
That, at least, is good,
a partial answer to my heart-
wrenching cry,
Why?’
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
Revelation 3:20
WHAT IS A DOOR BUT A WAY
What is a door but a way
to another here
A God Desperate To Be Loved Page 4
