A Poet in puris naturalibus

"The meaning is in the writing."
R.S.Thomas

I am typewriting
my soul on paper mirrors,
opaque self-images
which Morse code a story
so old it creaks ennui.
I spume tales
about events
which mean something
only to me and my muse.
Myths unwind.
I voyeur my mind,
unshadowing the unspeakable,
flashing words which
expose my heart
to public view,
leaving me
a lonely nude,
a poet in puris naturalibus.



A Mantra Unknown
"I will whistle for them to come together."
Zechariah 10:8
Wind
cuts glass-like
with snow-eddies, slicing
fir trees with flaked white
sand amid a colorless
frozen wasteland.

Sound
shrills my eardrums,
whistling its piercing tune,
constant in tone,
an unknown mantra.

Ears
opened yet unraptured,
pale as the season, I am
unsunned by an orb which
shadows without reason.

Puckered
to echo, I sense
at-one-ment much greater,
no sound comes, instead
a solitary kiss.



An Abandoned Jelly Fish
I footprint the sandy shore,
a virgin once again,
Crusoe on an untouched shore,
I spot a jelly fish
abandoned on Puget Sound.
At first I think its
a transparent balloon
that is partically deflated,
or a used condom
discarded after the passion
has been released,
maybe a plastic bag
with no supermart advertising, but no -
a jelly fish abandoned
by an outgoing tide.
When I was in high school
my teacher asked me,
"Draw a soul!"
and it looked something
like this -
a transparent blob
oozed into a puddle
waiting for its
watery messiah.


Renoir's Last Painting

Nenette had gathered anemones
for beside your sickbed
while the sun slit the sky,
and as you lay in bed,
too weak to leave it,
you ask for your paintbox,
and for several hours
you become the flowers -
buttercup sunlights canvas,
lemon light across your face,
pain is forgotten.
Your petrified hand
rigidly curled inward
grips the brush,
afraid to let go, knowing when you do
it will be forever.
When you drop the brush, your head falls to the pillow,
and filled with awe you whisper
"I think I am beginning
to understand...."


My Guest

"A strange old man
stops me,
looking out of my deep mirror."

Hitomaro

A stranger
lives in my room,
I don't recall
when he moved in,
I don't remember
asking for a roommate,
but I have one.
I run into him
throughout the day,
but mostly at dawn,
or at dusk,
the vulnerable hours
when I'm least
able to handle him.
I see him
mirrored in a window,
or as I shave -
a shadow without shade,
a circle not quite
centered on another -
always my glance
lowers
so as not to disturb
his tranquility.



The Ache

This morning
as dawn cracked open my sky
I felt so alone on my monastic bed
that I wanted to yell out a cry
to angst away my fears.

Aloneness isn't
loneliness though often the
two do meet, but being alone can
fear a solitary heart, and
rapid its lonely beat.

We all have
God which is comforting to know,
but like the little boy who when
told of such an invisible Creator,
I too prefer someone with skin on.

Sometimes standing in
a crowd I feel the floor
slip out from under my feet,
but I don't say a word for
they would laught me off the street.

At other times,
I want to jump up and down
for my emotions seem dead, but I
know that shows immaturity so I
hold the ache inside my head.


Night Sight

Blackishness
fills the room with blindness
making visibility zero even
with drapes unpulled.

Stars
starred eons away shed
no starlight on eyes acclimated
to an ebony world.

Artifacts
fallen to the ground in light
are archaelogized for in
a touchy-feely darkness.

Panic
chokes the heart within,
with grasps afearing one -
what if day doesn't come.

Slowly
a stream of day or
maybe just a mooded lighter
gray grows into me.


God's Faceless Selves

Searching for God
may be my full time occupation:
looking down the alleyways of life,
and searching maps too soon obsolete,
yet finding only clues which soon peter out.

Inklings of this Creator
fill out the contours of my day:
from a moonstruck morning madness
to an afternoon misted in clouded reverie
until a nightime terror enshrouds my godless way.

So I am on the lookout
with an Elijahed earnestness for
a semblance of my God shadowed somewhere
on my cave- walled self, yet I hear
only what I want echoing in my waxed-shut ears.

My fearsome occupation
is to see that ultimate face peering
into mine with an awesomeness too much
that I am slayed on the spot, yet each day
I miss His countenance because I close my mind's eye:
yet He daily fills my life with thousands of faceless Selves.



Three Zen Poems Based on the Gospel of Mark

I. Walking Trees
"I can see people but
they look like walking trees."

Mark 8:24

I see
shadowy silhouettes:
marching oaks, towering cedars -
terrorizing now opened eyes.
I panic from the lies
told by eyes too long atrophied,
yet slowly focus gathers sight.
I feel presence not wood,
but flesh, touch replaces bark,
rustle now voice.

II. Flower Beds
"The people took their places
in hundreds and fifties, nearly
arranged like flower beds."

Mark 6:40

I hunger
bread thick crusted,
but ingredients are missing.
I plant my fingertips
deep within the soil,
rooting beneath the surface,
seeking hidden moisture;
I start to grow,
tuned to a voice
thousands of years old:
"This is my body."

III. Strong Enough

"No one had proved strong
enough to tame him."

Mark 5:4

My demons
bounce off mirror
reflecting self,
silent dragonflies
start, spurt, shoot,
driven not to be sucked
up by the dark
before sunset covers a pond.
Shadows touch and chill
the marrow of my bones,
yet I feel words -
mouthed deep, loving,
reach within me
and pull me inside out.



Sun Burned

The sun seared
my soul today,
singed my thoughts
beyond recognition.
I stared straight
into the accendible orb
until I thought
my eyes would blister,
cauterized closed
by a cadmium yellow
too fiery to imagine,
yet leaving
saffron circles
tilt-a-whirling before me,
pyrotechnical theatrics.

I peered
into Helios,
and lived to tell tales.
His xanthic gaze
penetrated me,
his topaz touch
made me feverish,
burned me with a desire
to explode into flame,
igniting the world around me.
I lift my fingers
and sparks shoot forth,
living proof
of spontaneous
combustion.


Unsunned Sorrow

A misted morning
meets my mood pulling
my spirits into depression
with a drizzle fine as flakes
transparent, not translucent.

My day is wetted
by this ablution sprinkled
upon my environs, yet beyond
comprehension by my mind,
only felt liquiding my soul.

Grayed sad,
yet unsunned relieved,
I find no interior ease,
no peace, just reigned silence,
rained deep in my dampened soul.

Nothing touches
my pained heart, no touch
or healing reaches into me,
only empiness and hurt
echoing soundlessness.

Baptized sad
by a hidden God,
shadowboxing self-images,
trying to be, yet yearning to not,
I move misted both within and without.


Encounters with God

"You see you are the poem you disregard."
Stephen Sandy

A snowflake
suicides on my cheek,
a never to be repeated
crystalized teardrop touches
my face and then disappears,
my eyes can't focus quick enough
and it vanishes from memory.

One instant
a year ago, I saw
a double rainbow's genesis
misting itself into spanning
an entire valley floor -
a prismatic bridge, twinning
its colors in a spaced spectrum.
Uncamera-ed I failed
to preserve this covenant
in mind.

Words
came to me a month ago
and I wrote them down
on a paper towel, blurred
and ripped; I managed to scribble
a line about life and its meaning,
but when reread I threw them away
since on second thought -
there is only unmeaning.

My fingers
are numb from holding
too tight, circulation
has stopped, and sharp little
jabs pincushion my life,
yet I can't let go,
even though I try, of the me
holding God arm's length,
afraid He could ravish me.



Enflamed Epiphany

"Msabu, I think that you had better get up,
I think that God is coming."

Kamante to Isak Dinesen
in Out of Africa

African earth glows
with fire rushing toward ashes,
reddening without a sailor's delight,
odoring the air with the scent
of death while a native
wakens his mistress saying:
"I think that God is coming."

Outside my window
stands a pine tortured by wind,
crazied by the moon, helter-skeltered
beyond all treed recognition,
yet the sun radiates its being,
a morning rises on its limbs,
wordlessly reflecting:
"I think that God is coming."

A butterfly burns
into my being, torching my soul
with the scorch of its presence;
I feel enflamed with a passion
overwhelming, life has gone cold,
pain is enfleshed, I stand alone
on a crowded street and whisper:
"I think that God is coming."



A Mystic Midday

I see with Renoir's eyes
hot, humid haze halo
the valley with tufts of smoke
ghosting an aura
around a Midwest midday.
Silver streams flicker
off a Russian Olive tree
musically accompanied
by hovering buzzing bees
draining sweetness
from lemony buds,
as a blue heron glides
the low flying clouds
chased skyward by hostile crows,
a lumbering groundhog
playing king of the woodchip pile
challenges all comers
in slow motion as the noon sun
hearts the height of day.

Each object becomes translucent
softened by the light fog.
A burnt-out tree,
its lower half still leaved,
its upper branches bared,
reaches its boney fingers
in a garled cry for help
while gnats vulture me,
congregating around my head
in search of vulnerability,
until I see a lone swan
silently swimming past the river bank,
spooky white in a cloudy mist,
my ears listening for his song.



Soul Selling on Sunset Boulevard

I turn on my TV
to catch a 1950 classic -
Wilder's Sunset Boulevard .
I float face down
in my pool -like screen
drowning in black and white images
unreeling on my late night eyes.
I walk in a garden
running over with weeds,
standing with William Holden
as he memories pages
from Great Expectations -
seeing Miss Havisham's manor
mirrored in Nora Desmond's house
while original sin silently
eats at our hearts.
For weeks, I had been trying
to make Dickens real
and failed to touch souls.
Now screened into a story,
an actor without scripts,
I watch as Dickens' decay
infects our big screen lives.
Finally Gloria Swanson speaks
those long awaited lines:
"I am big.
It is pictures that got small."
I shudder as if bombarded
by four-letter words, but none
are uttered, no nudity
occurs, yet my heart feels impure.
I know I could sell my soul,
for I too lust.



To Stop the Sun

"Never before or since was there a day like this,
when the Lord obeyed the voice of man:
for the Lord fought for Israel."

Joshua 11:15

Saffron sphere
sunflowered noon,
held at bay
by arms outstretched,
Moses crucified
while Joshua massacres
for heavenly gain -
Yahweh crushing Shamash,
polytheism crushed
by solo power -
amber orb stationary
for hours
when time stopped
as God obeyed a man.

Yelling commands,
I silence Adonai:
"Do this," "Do that."
Imaging Helios
again into a god,
I pretend the goldenrod geoid
follows my every instruction. I play god to God,
but fail to stop the day -
as minute slips into minute,
the sun sinks slowly
out of my grasp
into western oblivion.






I Believe, Yet

"You are the Messiah."
Mark 8:27-35

I believe, yet
I have so much doubt wedged
between my mind and soul, fallen
between my cracks like fine dust
collected behind my bedroom wall.

I believe, yet
I have so many questions about
babies badly battered, and why
good people dying young, an old
person suffering, others having fun.

I believe, yet
in my private hours I'd like
to meet an enfleshed Jesus walking
down my street, and touch his hand
or allow his eyes to pierce into me.


Breathing in God

I smell
the breath of God -
new cut grass
and haloed air
hanging enticingly
over a swampy run-off
filled with blunted trees.
His breath
gags me -
odoring mildew
on undried sheets
and fruits decaying
on a blackberry bush.

I ride
the bike trail
daily listening
for some sound -
not tuned to a Walkman,
but eavesdropping on the scene.
Elijah found him
in a wind's whisper -
I hear no such sound,
but sometimes I imagine
a sigh, weak from trying,
incarnated, exhaled
against my cheek
as I suck in a gasp
of hot, humid air.



Heart Burn

"Were not our hearts burning inside us?"
Luke 24:13-35

Last night
I breathed in stars,
but my mood
was earth rooted,
dank with moss
fingering my heart.
A flowering crab tree
moonburned by night,
swayed in a fertility dance,
its petals, overripe,
butterflying downward
until I was snowy white.
My midnight baptism
cleansed my mood,
my heart suddenly burned
within me, resurrecting
my spirits with blossoms.



Saturday Confessions 4-5 p.m.

Sins should drench my being
while rain patters out patterns
upon the confessional roof
as I sit waiting to shrive souls
lost on their search for God.

The church is Sabbath clean,
a hospital zone unpeopled,
no one appears, a ball game rained out,
so I sit lonely like Jesus in
a Garden of Gethsemane.

Still not a person shows;
the hour slips slowly through
the outskirts of my mind.
I doze, and read in silence,
a long distance runner alone.

A step is heard echoing --
I want to cry out: forgiveness
for free, but no one is buying
repentance today as the step dies
away into the hushed afternoon.





Four White on Blacks: Thoughts on Photos by Ansel Adams

"Get that, for God's sake!
We don't have much time!"

Ansel Adams on seeing a sunset



I. "Half Dome, Clouds, Winter,
Yosemite National Park, 1968"

Dwarfed a tree
stands snowed silent
a gnomed sentinel
under a vaulted sky,
mountained near, as incense
fills the cathedral
with fogged presence.

II. "Frozen Lake and Cliffs,
the Sierra Nevada, 1932"

Ice mirrors
jagged walls soaring
skyward, inverted
in a watered world which
captures crevices blackened
by droplets too small to see,
aging centuries set
in stone.

III. "Trees and Snow,
El Capitan Meadow, 1948"

Crystallized ice sculptures
molded by unhuman hands
create a translucent world,
fragile, chilled, white on white,
a world glass-blown Venetian
by an artisan too transparent
to see.

IV. "MonoLake,
California, c. 1940"

One denuded bush
drifted by seasons
with beached hands reaches
out to dip water from a lake
so placid that ice, not liquid
is seen, as clouds
roll perfectly
over the surface -
white on blackened black.



An Escaped Soul

"At this time I was sharing an office with a
colleague who often wished aloud that he
was a Jew."

Bernard Malamud


Hasidic tales
turn me on,
and play with
my mind for hours.
I love the way
they tell of man,
but speak of God.
Born in 1939,
I wonder if I'm
a soul escaped
from a persecuted Jew,
for as I read
Holocaust tales
it seems like a form
of deja vu.
My dreams each night
take me to a train ramp
where I see myself
stepping out of a boxcar,
and when I look up
the sign reads: Auschwitz .



The Sky Probe

Unplanned we meet,
accidently on the stairway,
and start to plan your future -
pure mathematics
or possibly engineering,
but end up talking of God.
You had read that
C.S. Lewis thought
that God wasn't
in the sky, rather
the sky was hidden
in God. You thought
about this many a night,
lying on your bed trying
to reason mathematically
the image ruminating
in your head.
We talk, sharing
as equals, until
the ultimate moment
goes beyond us.
We soar spaceward,
probing into God,
forming a perfect triangle
with Him who made the sky.



The Canary Tree
"The wind, a child's breath, a game."
Diana Kappel-Smith, Wintering
I walk
among the flowering
crabtrees, pink
snowflakes smashing
my being
with softness,
licking my arms
with fury,
pulling me inside out
into a world
alive with spring.

Two groundhogs,
fat and sassy,
espy my moves;
nonthreatening
I'm approved
to walk over
their kingdom,
to watch them burrow
beneath my feet,
earthshakers,
hollowing out a house
within the dark.
A fir tree,
pointing an index finger
at the cerulean sky,
sings from camouflage
an uncaged song.
I vision
yellow Monet movement,
a multitude of wild lemon canaries
in greeneness -
a canary tree
singing spring.



A September Morning

"You duped me, O Lord,
and I let myself be duped."

Jeremiah 20:7

I drive
through soft splays
of fog which
dodge my headlights
swimming sideways
into translucent escape,
spooking my life
with Hitchockian images:
geese honks masquerading
as foghorns on unseen seas;
black angus behemoths
shrouded gray by early dew;
a bicyclist pedaling
into a smoky mirror
which vaporizes him.

I am sucked
into this morning
by a cloud-filled mind
which mists me inward
until I'm thrown
into reverse forward -
a soul exhaled
into the chilled,
visible breath
which hides
the face of God.



The Photofinish: On Attending a Lecture at Fermi Lab

Last night
I attended a physics lecture
on quarks and other atomic things -
made so simple a science moron
who flunked General Science might
understand.

The lecturer
was cute-worded and intriguingly glib,
explaining the SSC and how it would break
science barriers never even fathomed
possible until the construction
of this new accelerator.

But my mind,
never much to begin with, dreamed off
to that unknown date when the last
quark or whatever would be reached
and the final barrier removed
by their scientific priests.

And I saw
this minyan of scientists surrounding
their altared SSC while snapping photos
to prove their point - and there in
this little broken quark would be -
a photofinished God with a smile upon his face.


Skygazing in August

One abandoned balloon,
orange in color,
glides absent-mindedly
across the August sky,
pumpkin against peacock,
the brazen colors
rupture the eye,
an orphan released
from the hand
of a child
signs a carnival
beyond the hill.
I sprawl
on a summered mound
skygazing
with a solitary tear
riding down
my face.



Myopic Vision

Geese honk loudly,
but invisibly, somewhere
in the sky, fogbound
horns on this March morning,
translucent heralds
of a spring to be born.
I hear their Siren call
across the Midwest plains,
smoky ocean-like,
and find myself landbound,
unable to swim
to the sky.

The mist clouds vision
to a myopic pace:
the garage is smokescreened,
the balsam outside
my window takes
an unworldly shape,
ghosted grotesque,
while the park across the road
resembles a movie set
for a Twilight Zone episode,
a script in which
I become opaque.



A Glassblower in Murano
He sits
touching to his lips
a tube clutched
in his hand.
The tube's end
is engulfed
in blue flame.
His mouth rhythmically,
without sound,
starts to play
notes from
an oratorio deep
within his mind.
A glob of red
starts to glow,
dancing larger
as it grows -
at first dark red
as an embryo,
then a shade of flame
as it miracles a child,
finally a full blown
ballerina - all within
a few pregnant minutes.
At last he stops
his visual tune,
his breath once
again his own,
as I, in this small shop
on the island of Murano,
have witnessed
Genesis, Act One.



The Confession

She comes
face to face
to confess her sins
with a face ridged
with long ruts
dug by worry.
I see her fear:
a nervous twitch
in her right eye,
shortness of breath -
anxiety multiplied
by living with
a clipboard God
who judges people
like a disciplinarian
counting up demerits.
She sits
shriveled by life,
asking forgiveness
for pettiness,
having long ago
curtailed her heart.
She loves her sins,
real and fictional,
for she has become
comfortable with a deity
who collects minutiae.






Three Zen Poems in the Spirit of Meister Eckhart

Knowledge
Learned books skyscrape the ceiling
creating a cell crammed with the world;
a monk sits engrossed in his knowledge
touching his fingers to printed words.
People come from multi-places to hear him speak
from volumes about God,
but he sadly hollows about intimacy
for his knowledge is gleaned from words, not soul.

Idolatry
Lost in lotus position, a monk communions
with his God, a self-imaged creator,
a god decapitalized to fit a small mind.
His prayer is self-seeking for God is cow-like
giving milk and cheese in a hungering world.
Yet sometimes at night he prays from the heart:
"God rid me of God." But then fear grabs his soul,
and he backslides into mirrored self-idolatry.

Silence
The path is overgrown with strangling vines
choking life out of all other flora
with pinnated hands creating a desert in lushness,
while silence eats the remaining space.
In the midst of this jungle a throat is cleared,
deep and distinct, yet unheard in the hearing,
a monk turns on his way, sees nothing,
but knows with certitude what he has heard.


Words
"Talking: seven steps, eight falls.
Silent: tripping once, twice."

Shishin-Goshin (c. 1339)

I walk carefully
with words,
my verbal crutch,
which helps me abuse
those whom I love.
Syllables carom off
the back of my mind,
I talk not to clarify,
or even inform,
but rather because
I have to -
it proves I am.
Each word
chain reacts
into new words,
spontaneous combustion
in a world gone mad.
Nervously I continue
to speak in riddles
the meaning of life.


Seasons Shift

"People are delicate, aren't they?"

Yusunari Kawabata, Snow Country


The pitted trunk
of a persimmon tree
reflects off a lotus pool,
as the wavy lines
of a sagging roof
glisten with icicles
moonburned silver.
My feet slush
in warm shapeless snow.
The sky still
the color of night,
but mountains
already morning.



July Magic
The stars
drop down
from the sky tonight,
and permit me
to walk among them
as they play
in the uncut grass
pretending to be
Italian lights
on a Venetian canal
or precious stones
reflecting
a full moon's glow.

A Vermont mountain
surrounds itself
with steamy vapor
as I wander
a fogged alpine fantasy -
clouds touch my feet
and play with my toes.

I am skywalking.
A scientist might explain:
"When humidly reaches
a certain level of saturation
in higher altitudes, fireflies
hover closer to the ground."
But I believe that in July
magic comes to Vermont -
sky replaces earth
for one summer month.



An Annunciation: On Giving Birth to God

"We are all meant to be mothers of God."
Meister Eckhart

No angel comes
this winter morning
as I stand looking out my bedroom window,
hoping for a herald,
some earthbound guest.
Only snowflakes
batter into oblivion,
tearstaining my view,
each crystal self-
destructing, a suicide
before my groping gaze
as I listen for a voice
spirited to speak centuries,
strong enough to sound
trumpets before my wall.

Slowly my mind
absorbs uniqueness.
My ears tune in each flake,
allowing a silent seed
to grow in my soul.
Minutes quickly pass,
each swelling me;
my mind becomes a womb, I sense something alive
in me, a being part
yet apart. At that moment
my concentration breaks,
and I give birth as I
walk into day not alone,
but two - having mothered
my God with a yes.



The Feast of St. Lawrence

"St. Lawrence was deacon of St. Sixtus II, and was
ordered to give up church property to the Emperor. He
refused and was put to death by being roasted over a
slow fire. His feast is August 10."
The Roman Missal

Meteors flash flaming tears
down an August sky -
firs soak in starlight,
ivy glistens from moonburn,
as the Milky way sinks
below my window horizon.
I collect Perseids
to give the Emperor
when he asks me,
"Show me the treasure!"
I roast on my sweaty bed,
twisting from a burning brain,
asking anyone to turn me
for I am done on one side.
The inquisitor questions
my belief, and I reply
"Who should I adore,
the Creator or the creature?"
My answer is unconvincing
even to myself,
sleep steals self-control,
and I choose creature
over Creator
as I fall into fiction,
dreaming of nights
that will never be.


Midnight Dancing

"...streetlamps are dancing...."
Halina Poswiatowska (1935-67)
Unearthly prisms
radiate off streetlamps -
sickly yellow
etherizes air,
olive greens
polluted space,
grays shadow
until black.
A wind whistles
cautiously
through the night,
trying not
to be afraid
of its own darkness,
yet softly swaying
streetlamps
in a macabre dance
keeping time to
a swaggering drunk
unknowingly headed
homebound.
The dance
continues late
into the night -
partners change,
many solo,
the streetlights alone
remain pulsating
erotically tuned
with the invisible
midnight breath.



The Buttefly Dreams

"The Spring finished, the butterfly dreams."
Daichi (1290-1366), Zen poet

A corn-colored moth
kisses a decorative lantern
made of delicate wool
the color of cedar bark,
its wings a pale green
diaphanous against
a backdrop of autumn reds.
Countless dragonflies swarm
the surface of a pond,
dandelion floss in the wind,
as a river seems to flow
from the tips of cedar branches.
Kaya grass coats the mountains
with unmooned silver shimmering,
Persimmons glow bright red.
as stars start to float
across the night sky.



One-way Conversation
"Lord, teach us to pray...."
Luke 11:1-13

I speak
to God all the time,
but I never get
a direct reply.
I send smoke signals
skyward each morning
in hopes of contacting
someone beyond
the camouflaging clouds,
not sure, not unsure,
probing firmament
with wisps of my breath,
intimate longings,
incense within
a sky blue temple.

I mumble
words uttered
centuries past,
yet these words hollow,
muttered without heart,
minded, unfelt,
their meaning:
not Father, but Abba,
Aramaic, not Greek,
da-da, an infant cry,
unadult, trusting
in a world brimming
with fear.



Keep'em Laughing
"Man thinks and God laughs."
A Yiddish Proverb
God must be
in stitches
over my life
since I think
entirely too much.
I guess I prefer
to keep Him rolling
in the aisles
as a stand-up comedian
of neverending thought
than to bore Him
to death as Harvey Cox
tried to do in the 60's.
I'm not a clown
by nature, I feel
uncomfortable with
the call, but I allow God to use me -
a joke in human form.
I'm sure I'm entertaining
as I juggle my life
from hand to mouth,
or try to Emmett Kelly
amid guffaws
the pathos around me
as I swim away
in my own tears.


Painting Christ
"Paint Christ not dead but risen...."
Tommaso Campanella
I etch Christ
into the palms of my hands,
not bleeding wounds,
but holes into which
I can put my doubting fingers,
stilling my unbelief
in bloodless pits
dug by sins to countless
to compute
on an electronic abacus.
I paint my life
in hues of Christ:
earth tones,
humus colors,
doe skin, bark,
spring violets,
raindrops,
puddle reflections,
robin's eggs
broken open
from life that
has escaped.
I fresco my mind with flashes
from the tomb,
now empty,
yet once filled,
bodiless,
except for traces:
a linen negative,
a caul reminder
that we will share
both before and after,
a commonness with Christ,
the dried blood
upon the rock,
relics of what was,
and now is no more.



Moses and Easter Eggs
Michelangelo's horns
on his Moses head
have always befuddled me
more than a little bit;
I wondered what the two antlers meant
amid a profusion of hair.
Recently I read
of a little girl
who was so happy
at seeing hand-painted
Russian Easter eggs
that she asked to be
glued to the spot,
announcing she was growing
those proverbial horns.
And I thought of you,
how happy you've made me,
the joys we've shared,
how our friendship grew
horns beyond compare,
then it all made sense -
Moses, Easter eggs, and you.




Good Friday
"...et per sanctam Crucem liberati sumus...."
Antiphon for Good Friday
I went to watch your crucifixion,
see them drive the nails in,
watch them raise your body
so all could watch your pain.
Dying before my eyes I was powerless
to remove even one iota of your hurt.

It had been a year and a half
since you'd found your mother dead,
a thirteen year-old who discovered
death was not something only on TV.
And now you're fatherless,
your Dad taken to treatment
for alcholic abuse, and when
asked if it had happend before,
you say, "Too many times to count."

So I sit in your living room
trying to say the right words -
but I talk at you, then to you,
never even coming close to you.
The pain is so near the surface,
yet too deep to cut out.
I fail and leave as empty as I came.
I've witnessed you upon your cross -
and as I leave, you whisper, "Thanks."


The Self-Righteous

"Let the man among you who has no sin be the first
to cast a stone at her."

John 8:1-11

Slingstones,
metamorphic rock,
piles of rubblestone,
lying ready,
jagged, rough edged,
damaging cindery scoria,
unmemoried, useful,
instruments of death,
all is set.

The mob grows,
playing at God;
witchhunters lusting
after fresh flesh.
Jesus is mute,
no accusations,
only doodles
in desert sand -
pointing out
to faded memories
secret sins.
The crowd thins,
finally evaporates -
leaving Jesus,
the adulteress,
and unfingered stones.



No Greater Love

"I am the good shepherd;
the good shepherd lays down his life
for his sheep."

John 10:11

The day before
yesterday
I met Jesus,
not in a vision,
but in you.
As I informed you
that you'd passed
the Proficiency Test
in English,
but that
your best friend
hadn't,
you looked at me
and said,
"I wish I'd flunked too."


A Whiff of Cinnamon
"The fresh breeze rustles the leaves
of the Cinnamon tree."

Lu Chi
I feel the rain
hours before it comes.
The house smells wet,
chairs dampen -
invisibly the storm
lays claim to my life.
My fingers swell,
tempest prophets
unscientific, accurate.
Lightning. Thunder.
My eyes blink -
I see selves
fractured by storm.
The heavy air stuffs
my lungs; the wetness
fills my nose.
I smell a whiff of cinnamon
as if a tree grew outside
my window, and I remember
a monsoon flick
with Rita Hayworth,
only I'm too young
to remember the plot.



Hauling in the Net
"The snow was laughing:
it spoke from all sides at once...."

Conrad Aiken, Silent Snow, Secret Snow

My sleepless mind
tugs at moonlight
as I smell
apricot blossoms
on a snowy night.
Unduplicated flakes
splatter the wall
with suicidal leaps,
yet slowly accumulate
into whirling dunes.
Faces flash
across waking dreams,
I count acquaintances
jumping over barriers
to enter my life,
my mind fastforwards,
yet I rewind myself,
floating in slow motion
to tunes played
only by a wounded heart.
I pull in my life,
counting the catch,
but notice the holes
in my net, allowing
the truth to pass through,
and I recall a zen poet's words:
"Try catching the Tempest in a net."



A Spring Blizzard

"...today the petals seem like snow."
Fan Yun (451-505)

The crab apple trees
are beyond full blossom,
pink and white petals
opened to capacity
in anticipation
of a gentle breath
to toy with upraised arms.
And soon a whisper
stirs through their hands,
a thousand flakes begin to fall,
hushing the earth,
a silent padding
to cover winter's sins,
a snowy reminder that
someday winter will return.


Merlin's Moon

The moon burns
a path across ice
and snow, cold fire,
white on paler white,

animals are erased
by Artemis' orb,
soft prints
disappearing
into cold night,

cloven feet walk
to the tree line,
and are no more,

rabbit feet
hop into snowy
endless circles,

and I stand
silently cupping
in my hands
a single snowflake
as it melts
from moonburn.



Carpe Diem
"...before the golden bowl is broken."
Ecclesiastes 12
I stand awed
before a mirror,
an untouched photograph,
aren't those cracks
in my face, ridges
running down formerly
smooth skin.
I reach for an air-brush
to wipe away sins,
but realize it's too late -
years have passed
leaving marks behind,
while I played at being
a few years younger
than I am.

Today a letter
arrived announcing
in a too cute fashion
twenty-five years ago
I had a college graduation.
It was accompanied
by a list of fellow classmates
and their accomplishments;
a few like me had nothing,
and some were already dead.
I threw the letter away,
but I'll sleep less easy
as I picture in my head -
character lines flowing
from my eyes, widening
as they erode
the contents of my life.

The Puzzler

I wonder what
would have happened
if I hadn't been there -
a puzzler who jigsawed
you back together
after you'd fallen apart.
My hands tremble
slightly as I brush
against your face;
I feel not flesh,
but soul, as my heart
cries thanks to God.
I often muse on why
I was put on this earth,
and recently I reasoned
it's maybe just for you.
But I get scared,
for if that is the reason,
what purpose will I have
when you find it's time to go.