Poetry claims us for its own. Poetics: metaphor, imagery, analogy, figures, meter, song and rhyme speak for, and point us to truth. That truth is a reality with a flesh of meaning all its own. Likewise that truth may be a profound reality only capable of being known through the transcendence, the hidden, subtle, and revealing meanings that are at once personal and communal, and opened to us in poetry. Some poems are a whisper, a line of demarcation, a predicament, a study, a searching of the soul, a praise song or a bereavement; and some speak of the divine wisdom that occupies and bathes the sacredness of the soul.
Bones, Art and God
It begins with God.
My body circulating by bones
the breath I rest on
the flesh-weight holding me
to an animal arrangement
of wings and minerals.
And what again now?
The civil living and the labor
the true earth-work of things
that are corrupting or a deliverance . . .
The "we" searching our liberty.
In the palm of the hand I hold it
the welcoming and final gestures
so to in the theater of storms and trees;
in the wild, and wind-tamed fields,
there is this sound of signaling.
In my mind there is the light
in my heart a country of colors
in my mouth a bell and volumes . . .
in my head pieces of soft love,
a hand's stroke, a child, and home .
The Body of Thought
We are the body of Thought.
We are the flesh of meaning
brought by Love.
We are the thin air of Divinity.
We are the wing-beat of the Dove.
We are the purple majesty of God
the walking sum of Wisdom.
We are the character of Truth
the strength of the line and
circle.
We are the clustered leaves turned
faces on the ground.
We are the ghosts of God, the
tenderlings of Man.
Pilgrim, Traveler
(In a Snow Garden)
Spied you from the bridge
walking as if on air
the balls of your feet barely touching down
Racing the span from outskirts to center
to Old Town over water frothing in cold winter.
Saw you hesitate before the iron gate
its spikes upward and bent down
from the days of Reformation when change
threatened the tower.
Saw you shivering beneath the carvings
of the goats and sheep, the saved and damned
being weighed in the balance of the scales.
Saw you hesitate, gather your courage,
enter nearly falling, peep into the shadowy
hold of cold stone, trace the high arches,
finger solid wood benches, lower your head
kneel down . . .
(Stars over your head where there were none
ribbons of color where soft gray light
slipped into, between visible and other--
saw your body sway in undulations
though the massive organ only whispered
of the crown . . .)
Spied you Pilgrim, this day: "Gift of the Magi," The Three Kings
to worship the born king-child--
your own lone journey short, quick and cold
spanning the bridge of the town to centuries.
From desert manger to the Snow Garden
of Bern . . . the Holy Ghost Towers*
the city of the Bear.
*Historic Church symbolic of the Reformation
Switzerland
2000
Venice
Not by your stars was I forsaken . . .
the devotions, prayers, rosaries, savory incense,
veil all else in this ancient election--
even the glimmer of your waters shimmering.
Venice I struggle with your ancient word
laid out before me in images of four great horses
delicate glass ornaments and magnificent stone
raiments . . . struggle in the presence of the saints
and martyrs and the Father, Lord of all patience.
St. Mark's sings its aria on sunny and sullen days.
Its theme holy and majestic, takes hold beyond the walls
and I can't stand to walk before it, crippled in this
gripping trance, being his anointed child, his foundling
daughter . . .
Swirled up inside I choke on the fevered blood of Christ,
exclaim, "Not for judgement, not for crowd lust,
not for spectacle, this visitation!"
Run from it the chord tightening at my waist--
run without feet, barely escape the rapture;
wait, wait and wait for vespers--return to hymns
and whispers, return to wither in the
sacred place . . .
Listen! Venice! Listen, beneath the murmur
of your shallow waves, beneath your incandescence--Wait! Wait!
Wait! Wait! Listen to the body sing--the chapel of my skin,
the body's cells ring in the world of blessings from
our Master, Lord and King! Awake Venice! Hear
and listen!
Song of Praise
I shall dance like a twig in the wind
For thou art my God, my all beginning
I shall wing the air with the joy that
is in my
I shall laugh with the children
I shall not be cast down
I shall not be driven
I shall be tempered well within
I shall be eagerly hearing your prase
I shall be eagerly raising myself to You
I shall be eagerly radiant and eagerly saved
I shall not retreat from You, my God
as every stream comes to Your path
I shall not retreat from You, my God
thou art my protector from injury
thou art my shield from wrath
I shall be running with delight
I shall be joyfully singing to You
I shall be plucked by the spirit
and taken to You
I shall be like a melody
I shall be like a prayer
I shall be joyful in your service
I shall be a carillon in the air
One Rooted One In Flight
You operate in a world of things
I live in a world of ideas.
I create justice, you feel for the image
I extract meaning, you feel for the pain.
Our two worlds clash head on
like a song without rhythm.
You of the ordinary see other as profane.
Your ordered chaos lies outside my reach
my real world flies past you, a light
that must last!
I am delivered in the covenant land
while you consider this race has no form.
I live in now and beyond.
Why can't you reach me?
Here is the only place I breathe.
The Sweetness and the Light
In time it grows too late. The night itself must sleep.
The veil between the darkness and the light fashions
itself into life's visions:
the evening meal is complete, the morning worries set
aright, the young ones are at their lessons.
The hour of hope is ripe.
And in its solitary flight the sun emerges.
Its golden eye of light casts helping fingers on our
doubt. Youth's flame lingering again steps out. And
old age, remembering you, brings out the sweetness in the
light.
The stranger like an angel reappears. Our other namesake
calling heavy-hearted at our doors; pleased to be suffered
from the world, to be delivered from its danger into peace.
Tried in the dark, yet still the Great Love endures...
There is no sweetness in an honor without scars.
November 8
Midday
