Miracle

We say miracles are holy
Rare and unlikely,
Stop hoping as we live
Stars lose their power to elevate
Mysteries that beckoned are explained
Joy in great and small things
Gradually erode as body contours change
We must mature and anticipate
The exchange of magic for technology
Wonder becomes control
At first we notice
We can’t hear it anymore
And then forget we ever did
Forget that we are children always
Bearing the Imago Dei
Truth and beauty seeking
Longing spirits on this human journey
But hoping is too hard
The matrix holds us as machines asleep
Deadened to wonder and pain
In cages staring at a sky obscured
Breathing poisoned air of cynic’s doubt
What have we forgotten?
A miracle is holy
Not because it’s out of reach
But for how it comes to us
Transforms
Teaches us to hear and feel again
Relentless as the light
It finds us

Letting go

Everything that comes to us will mar

Perfection an ideal

Resigned, we live without

When precious careful things

Get scarred and chipped with time

Life tests and breaks and shatters

But secret dreams remain enshrined

Hallowed cherishings of youth

Transcendent sparks, calling divine

Images of who we might become

First pure, distort under a grasp too tight

The thing we can control, protect

Yet in perfection they remain unreal

Translucent shadows that obey too well

We each may craft our gods and fantasies at will

Sequester in our matrix games and private worlds

They shimmer in the fog we have become

And sparkle in soul’s lamplight, but we cringe

To bring them forth, in case their tarnish shows

And even we are found unglorious when all have seen

But here’s the cobbled space on which our destinies are spread

Where we may risk, and grow

Hold flickering spark to wind and watch it flame or die

It’s here that God meets man

Holds out a hand, receives our flimsy glory now

Then lets it fall, while horrified we watch

Perfection splinter, shards drop to the earth

We wait in loss…accept

The risk we take to make it real

 

 

 

The Halls of Wisdom

(On my experience working in a nursing home)

 

Every youth should walk these dank halls for a day

Hearing Help and staring into dead eyes

Slurred stories swirl and blend

Reimagining the past

Fermented beauty like aged wine

Translucent skin and liquid eyes

Skeleton once hidden now emerges proud

Body that has weathered ninety years

Can boast it’s strength, while youth can just presume

Pictures on walls speak

You see us here, just like you

Our minds intact, vocations strong

Our futures full of hope

A strange regression happens at the end of life

Hobbling in their second infancy

Obsessed with bowels

Clutching a toy cat or doll

The need for warmth

Sensation becomes primary

Scream for no reason, toddler’s rant

Anxiety and agitation, we write, and call for pills

But maybe they’re just trying to go back

Back to the coiled repose of a neonate

Because the end comes too fast

For others not fast enough

There is a reason will to live is lost

Body,mind, potential gone

Gone are dreams of what might be

Past is best, and savors safe

For being here is not enough

In doing we find meaning

Yet all is not futile

And meaning can be sought and found here

Some have found the joy in dying

Exist by being loved when memory fades

Some are content with life lived well

Avoid regrets, and can accept

They find a faith for what comes next

I cringe and seek retreat

By contrast being busy, being needed is a gift

Reminded now to cherish, but not fear

Yet know the day will come when I become them

 

 

Universe (for Sakal)

God broods
over the vast moors
and the silent hills
the desert places where no grass speaks
the orb of moon in crimson sky
the winged flight of ocean flocks
Death has come, but we will face it
silent as the bloom of spring
we will hope
while we know
this is an end, real and bitter
slicing and changing this mortal life

you came into this space so alive
and grew and found your destiny
set alight and burning with His glory
filling others with your joy and life
then suddenly, like fire
you were consumed
struck down by greedy flames
your vibrancy and confidence were singed
yet hope stood firm
and faith held to the end
today we honor you and see your form
cleaved from its essence, strange it looks
we ponder as we see
our future too

but then we are consoled
we feel the pulse
of life within, without
outside the breeze is fresh
the sun another fire
of life, not death
and now we know
that spring will come
and Love has found you
that you will live again

Kochav

Bethlehem’s star

illuminated every alley

of injustice, death and fear

crisply slicing into our night sky

the angels came

finding a portal on one holy night

a human face reflected in the double mirror

of time and eternity

an icon that shatters it

aching, longing, groaning

the world weary as it turns

our God image splintered again and again

by loss

our time feels endless as the sky

as another face fades from present to eternity

glass breaks and our spinning globe stops

only stars hold true

for the mystery beyond is glorious

but here we are

awaiting another shattering

longing for incarnation’s Light

The End of Summer

the smell of curly hair frosted by the sprinkler

upturned faces, iridescent wonder

a child can hold a rainbow and make it rain

their toes find muddy yard delicious while i sigh

watermelon snow cone beards and ice cream mustaches

strawberries, swimming and swords

flowers made for plucking

sandy footprints by the door

these best rival-friends brothers

sons of ancestors so far away

did africa and china ever meet in history?

but now they share their golden tans

these strong wild boys

who do not shrink from sun like i

two monkeys shaking the photina branches

teasing each other higher

chasing and screaming down the hall

while baby sister naps

“the dragon’s coming!”

we hide in closet caves and munch provisions

i cut watermelon and break up fights

apply band aids

exhausted and sometimes cross

but always i am wanted

the one who make them safe

who makes it fun to run from dragons

i remember when we brought our eldest home

fifteen pounds and bald, i marveled

that such a small person could fulfill a lifetime’s dream

and redeem a graveyard of losses

but he did, this little person

bringing summer back

and filling each day with spinning exuberant joy

five years later he is changing

writing his letters and making his own friends

we held his fingers when he first learned to stand

and now he spins cartwheels

we clapped when he stacked his first blocks

and now he builds castles

coaxed him through asthma, eczema

the fears that spawn a thousand sleep starved nights

kindergarten means

that for the first time since he became ours

he will spend as much waking time with them as us

it is a cosmic not just sentimental shift

our planet has grown strong

will start to orbit other stars

and suddenly the half decade’s toil is forgotten

and i only wonder

is he ready? did i love him enough?

school starts in a week

and i’m the one who doesn’t want summer to end

yet it will

and the bleeding shows it’s real, and the heart beats on

bedtime while the sun teases through the blinds

“no mommy, it’s morning time”

my second son at three is still my planetoid

the affectionate one

large brown eyes, thick lashes i can’t take credit for

i only take grace

and settle my little bird in his nest

“mommy, is the dragon coming?”

“no baby, the dragon is far away. you’re safe”

eyes close and exhausted boys sleep

while i chase the dragons of a summer night

Nautilus

Held tightly in our little dreams

Untested, warm and sure

Each year’s trial marks deeper groove

Shell breaks salt water rushes in

A larger place feels distant, cold

Old feelings slough away and aren’t replaced

Instead we find chaotic turbulence

Our choices and the dark unknown

Flounder, hesitate, forgetful

Of our birth and how it’s meant to be

The choice still bare as ever

Resent, despise, escape alone

Or striving find a new way to embrace

To make this inundated space secure

Enlarge our citadel coiled tight

Beauty’s freely given but keeping we must fight

Noel

You didn’t ripen inside me
But I was there to watch them pull you from another womb
Reluctantly
Like snowfall in March
The last goodbye to winter
And like spring’s first blossom
You curled up against my chest
and joined your rhythmic cooing to my breath
Accepting the graft
I bleerily gaze down at my hungry floret
Jeweled eyes wide open at three a.m.
Blue and grey
A snowstorm meets a bright spring day
Pink infusion, curtains, lace
Birthmark V- vivacious, and our victory is stamped
Like the tiara that entwines your pretty head
Your rosy efflorescence makes me smile- at last!
To have a daughter
Imagination vines with future plans
Princess, peapod, baby sister
Brothers plant wet kisses on your downy head
Now your bloom unfolds with bright eyes and giddy smiles
In two months we’ve become as real as your native home
Noel born in spring
The ice still settles
A last tempest shakes the branch
Our roots tremble
We steady the graft
And pray it to hold strong