Gravity

Truly we speak of the Curse
  As the Fall;
Man has been bound and grasped
  By gravity ever since.

The body grows in shape and mass;
  Each passing year gravity gains force.
The accumulation of years
  Bends the shoulders to the earth.

The human heart finds sorrow
  And trouble in time perennial
Till it fills over-full and ever-heavy
  Weighing the soul ever lower.

Time and age are merely formality—
  We are forever pressed into the earth's embrace.

Snowstorm

Thick empty white sky hanging

   Blank like the face of a vacant stranger

Endless white ground stretching and soaring

  Mounting upward forward backward

     (Deceptively spotless seagull arcs)

Both dissolving, disintegrating

   Into a swirling middle

Shreds from above and below frantically

   Now triumphantly

       (like an eraser scrub the last

        bits of pencil or color scratch markings)

   Gaining inch by foot

Overcoming the space in between.

Words

Do we not know,
   you and I,
That we hold the power of the gods
   and not of men?
That in our words are the powers
   of all life and death—

That we speak these words
   and mostly
that rambling idle nonsense
   we think to be
     harmlessly
        in between.

And Death, too
  wears many faces.

Monday Morning Musings: Of Autumn & Death to Self

It is October now, and the trees have begun to transform into their autumn glory.  It is inevitable, observing the world and reading fall poetry, not to think of death as everything appears to lose color and life for the barren beauty of winter.  And as I watch the trees I cannot help but think to myself: If only we could accept our daily, weekly, yearly deaths with such exquisite grace!  If only we could bow and joyfully, humbly give up the adornments of self, our very selves, and whatever else the Lord may ask.

Can we trust that He bares our branches for His greater glory and the triumph of Spring? Can we trust You shall still consent to walk alongside us in our barren state?  O give me grace to die to myself every day, graceful and obedient as the autumn tree!

Fall Poetry: Frost + St. Vincent Millay

Autumn Chant

                       Edna St. Vincent Millay

Now the autumn shudders

  In the rose's root.

Far and wide the ladders

  Lean among the fruit.

Now the autumn clambers

  Up the trellised frame,

And the rose remembers

  The dust from which it came.

A White Fog

First day of Thanksgiving break, I woke up to a white fog.

Now such a fog is in my brain:

Creeping, encroaching, insidious

Combined effects of heaped-up work and exhaustion.

Chiaroscuro

     by Kelley Goewey

I was born in darkness and
Blind in spirit since my start.
Light has burned away the scales,
Illumed the shadows in my heart.

Light of Christ and shade of sin:
I am pulled between these two.
Everlasting, by the light,
And by the dark, a death my due.

Ephemeral, eternal, these
My natures war to rule my soul.
Until the light has won, I’m caught
Between the two, chiaroscuro.

Do you feel the ache?

What is there for us, darling,

In this world of brightest color

And widest dark;

Of all the deepest laughter

And  most piercing, aching sorrow?

Can we carry the song each day,

And hold the fragile dream in hand?

Can we keep the hope and joy

Of most beautiful world

When weighed by tired days and tragedy?

When the dark burden of the soul

Is invisible to all who see?

Where is our place

When we see and hear and feel

All the beauty and darkness,

Throbs of pain and dazzling light,

In a blind and deaf and muted world?

Where is our place

To contain and express

And to hold in heart

All there is—

And our vibrant, aching

Hope for more?

Treasure in Jars of Clay

Insurmountable treasure in a jar of clay—

That you would dwell in, work through me—

          Great God, have Your way!

You are glory beyond glory,

Splendor beyond splendor,

Truth upon truth.

I am clay: formed of earth, dark of soul;

Imperfect, weak, prone to crack and break;

All that is small, imperfect, unholy.

Concealing imperfections no longer:

Shine Thy brilliant light

Through crack, hole, and fissure—

Shine Your glory through my clay

That You may be made great—

          Great God, have Your way!

Dark (a Good Friday post)

Dark

     by Dom Julian Stead

Has there been a break in it
The soundless cry?
Has there been any relenting to the cry, cry,
Cry from the hollow dark?
Cry to the height of invisible light.
Light which cannot penetrate
Unless on the waves of the comprehending cry.
Do not ask what to cry,
The hollow resounds best with silence
And the horror-struck eye
Sees best in the stillness of dark.
Only one Voice can fill
And thrill
This hollow void.

Disquiet

When all that she saw was less than she knew

and she was forced to pass by what she yearned to go through;

when all of the stars in the purple-black sky

wished to grant her wish that she might fly;

as the hollow bark of the old canoe

so her soul felt dull and empty too;

Her lips speak words she knows but can't feel;

beauty exists, though somehow less real;

she holds tight to the window—can't and won't fall—

the lament and joy of her voice grow small;

the world is spinning and color going flat

and her music is shrinking—

    and she sits,

            she goes,

                   she is,

                     she loves,

    confined in a tattered canoe.

"Living with Contradiction"

"I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the greatest heights.  It is when things go wrong, when the good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present....


We need to say 'Thank you' whenever possible, even if we are not able to reconcile the human creature's free will with the Master's working out of the pattern.  Thanks and praise are, I believe, some of the threads with which the pattern is woven.


...Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being."

                                                                        -Madeleine L'Engle, Two-Part Invention




"Mysticism keeps men sane.  As long as you have mystery you have health; when you create mystery you create morbidity.  The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic.  He has permitted the twilight.  He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them.  He has always cared more for truth than for consistency.  If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them.  His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.... The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.


...The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.  Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility."

                                                                      -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

To the November Moon and Kelley Goewey

The lonely full moon floats

  In an indifferent, all-black sky

  above the busy, purposeless

  to-and-fro of red and yellow

  lights on the expressway.

What are you seeing,

  O wide, wide-eyed Moon?

What are you trying to say, Moon,

  with your round open mouth?

Would you impart whispered secrets,

  lumined slivers of wisdom

  could we but hear your voice?

Are you singing to us, O Moon,

  the lullabies of the cosmos,

  were the deafness of our ears to fall away?

Somewhere, at a lonely desk

  in an indifferent room

  with the moon's full face serenely shining above

A girl catches glimmers of something more

   and silently scribbles poetry.

Monday Morning Musings: Becoming Colorblind

But when will it all be new??

When will it be made right?

Forget to keep asking these questions…

Stop because the question hurts;

The longing for more aches within you and is not satisfied.

Forget the questions because the monotony of unchanging days grows tiresome,

And the days are heavy,

And sometimes the questions multiply faster than the answers

And often there are no answers;

You are met with silence.

So forget the questions and trudge on.

Get lost in the meaningless chaos,

In the details of every hour,

And the stale, gray blandness of routine, everyday life.

You must pretend you are not disappointed

When each day is exactly like the last

Because you expected no difference.

You must not, shall not feel the ache, the weight of wanting more,

Though you lose the chance for glimpses of joy and color--

With the expectation that something could happen,

You shall relinquish the slivers of beauty that do happen.

Though perhaps when you give up expecting God to work,

When you cease to look for him everywhere you go,

You give up the ability to see Him where He is working.

But this way there will be no risk.

Maybe in your ache to see the Kingdom,

In your fierce desire for redemption,

You will miss the Kingdom altogether

For fear it might not look just as you thought;

But now you are not disillusioned,

Though you be neither surprised nor overjoyed.

The world of gray envelops you, enfolds you in its dreary hues,

And in your fearful faithfulness

You become colorblind.

Scribblings in a Notebook During Class

September rain plays percussion

On the window, tree-leaves, rooftop, sidewalk;

Within the glass, all just ignore

To doze, daydream, multitask, talk.

Would that I could be outside,

Feel the drumbeats on my head, my skin;

Let the wind blow me around

Like a lonesome leaf driven by whim.

But noisesome typing on keyboards

Drowns out tumultuous rain;

Warm and secure we stay within

That by white-walled learning we might gain.

O cold, capricious gale

Eagerly swirling autumn's hues

Beneath darkened tow'rs of clouds,

Joy and shadow to singularly fuse—

Sweep me away, wild September wind,

To sail through sombre skies,

Laughing irresponsibly

As you bite tears into my eyes.

One Day

[A long-awaited guest post: a poem written by my talented writer-friend Kelley Goewey.]

One Day

Reflected stars fade on the water.

How can you call me your daughter?

Shadows shift in endless art.

My hands are clean, but not my heart.

“This is love…” your blood for me.

I wait beside the sunrise sea.

“It’s not enough!” my desperate scream.
A shiver breaks my half-formed dream.

My shadow swallowed up in light.

Heavy soul, consumed with blight.
My head bent low against the sun.

I’m drowning dry; I am undone.

My unworthiness, a theme.

The sea sends back the sunset’s gleam.

Why would you have chosen me?

Darkness damps the sparkling sea.

The moon before me and above.

I cringe beneath relentless love.

Motionless beneath the sky,

I know my sin and yearn to die.

I question this, your holy will.

The tide flows out, my soul grows still.

I cannot see, yet stumble on,

And broken, hope for some pale dawn. 

Obscurity

Some shadowy obscurity
Has darkened all I thought I knew;
Where am I,
And where are you?

I know the me of an earlier day—
Recognizing me now?—
It's harder to say.

I am unfaithful,
You are true;
I am broken,
You make things new.

You've seen the tears, the cries, the need,
The empty hands imploring you—
But where am I,
And where are you?

I think I know you pretty well
But the familiar form seems rather vague
And honestly it's hard to tell—
Who am I?
And who are you?

I miss the joy, life, and delight,
And while I know you're near
It's so hard to trust
While full of dark and wretched fears.

I need to know your love
In the very depths of my soul;
To come tenderly in
And make me wonderfully whole.

I am your bride, your love, your child,
You are the Father, the bridegroom, a mystery—
You call me your own,
You vow to be with me.

Still I feel lost and alone,
Imperfect, undone
(nothing is new,
says the cynical sun),

Unimportantly mumbling
To myself and the sky—
Who are you again?—
And who am I?

And if you see fit to answer,
Tell me, too—
Where am I?
And where are you?

blurred and weary

The bland gray of monotonous days
trudging along with the heaviness of tired self,
accelerated by challenge of work upon work,
the heavy murmur of failure in disquiet ears.

Singing birds give a pretense of life.
But Spring has regressed,
sunk back into grey, chill Winter,
and any green is lost
beneath dirty snow.



Friday's darkness descends
and heavy clouds obscure all light.
What suffering, O what torment!
We hold our breath in somber expectation.

Glorious dawn of Sunday--
O what joy, O what hope!
People across all the nations
join in celebrating, rejoicing;
we recall life is so much greater than us.



Torrents of April rain
whisper hope of an eventual Spring
while dismal must-piles
demand focus of a weary brain.

O Great God, let there be hope in me
as in the larking, light-hearted air-minstrels;
let there be joy and trust in me
as in the flow'ring boughs.
And let me bring you glory with each trudging day that comes.


[amen]

Yearning

There is a yearning,
elusive,
set deep within my soul:
residing
in the frayed ends;
in the healed
and the untouched places;
aching
for unfulfilled wholeness
and something else.
Unspoken words of the
monsoon
roaring, aching, sweeping
wrecked
and desperate
in the noise of need;
All the unanswered
shouts
and whispers;
even Silence's dreams
spin out to some
empty
equation—though sometimes
You bring a cascading
peace
a potent heartbeat of
joy
...But I still need
more
of You.
You fulfill,
but in this season or lifetime
(I couldn't say which)
every pulse asks
more.

Noise

Noise.

It amplifies to cover everything else.
The  "required"s           musts              ASAP!s
  due dates            schedules
            bustle and hurry
 get me lost in the loud maze of busyness
    where the bright flower petals
                     crumble into colorless dust
    where poetry             remains hidden       in prose
    with no one to   see it   and ravel it out

You say                    Be still     .

I need to breathe but I think the walls are closing in
      and I must find my way out.

Oh, Lord                       Keep me.

    Keep me yearning for you.