Pentecost Week: Wednesday

If I were obtuse to signs and symbols,

You would make me a mystic yet,

Eager eyes fixed to the skies.

Pentecost week:

Yesterday there was a cloud in my path

For all appearances

Exactly like a dove

Just lifting off in flight--

Or perhaps alighting on some branch,

A deep, fluttering calm,

And I wondered.

Today, sprinkles of sweet rain from heaven.

And lest you say it is spring,

And rain no great thing for May,

I tell you the rain fell upon the desert,

Upon thirsty ground,

Upon weary, haggard land,

Washing it clean,
Quenching deep-rooted thirst.

Desert Morning

Sun is enthroned on airy castle of clouds,
Light cascading in brilliant columns to earth.

Drops of rain splash down;
The low, shrub-like trees
Raise up leafy arms.

I, whose existence is not contingent
On these brief scattered raindrops,
Raise my arms, too,
As though my life depended on it.

Phoenix by Moonlight: On the Last of August

Desert night--

   moon alights on still palms;

City lights

   cannot reach the depths

   of the expanse but yet

   pale stars.

The monsoons have come and gone;

   there is no poetry of rain

   and the air is still--

Still, but devoid of silence.

   Men sit on their porches

   sweating and smoking,

   complacent and cursing.

The road roars

    of constant traffic.

The smoke has fouled the air;

   the city has drowned the night.

No birds, no wildlife--

    only somewhere a cicada drones.

Phoenix, I have seen thee burn,

   flames into ash

in glory of red skies

   and streaming faces.

Can I hope for thee to rise,

   to take flight?

Dare I hope to see

   emerging

Life?

Haze

Summer light sharpens lines,
Intensifies colors to dazzle aching eyes,
Dispel illusions of nuance.

Mornings of sun, blinding afternoons
Blur into gentle monotony of days
While the park swings remain
Suspended motionless.

Invariably, you and I,
Hiding from afternoon,
Clothe poverty in rich existence--
From rice, beans, white pasta
We find refreshment
In ice cream and cheap beer;
Usurp the smells of sweat and chlorine
With fresh-brewed coffee.

Let us build days for ourselves
Out of old books, rich music,
And the world that is too hot to touch
Will infuse us with its life.

When July is gracious
We will delight
In the heavy-sweet rain smell;
When it is cruel
There will be a world for us still.

Eucharist

O for child-joy,
  solemnly taking the Mysteries of grace
in both hands
to eat and drink carefully of God's provision--
     abstracts she can't understand like
     holiness and redemption--
then to skip away, jubilant
  fluttering
like some small bird
  that knows its freedom and
     dependence.

In the Cleft of the Rock: Of Mystics and Mountains

My second hike since moving to Arizona:

My asthmatic Midwest lungs aren’t used to the mountain-desert air.  So I wheeze along in the elation of the climb and the frustration of breathing.  I find hiding places off the path to catch my breath, read a little; and my mind is full of phrases and lines from poetry and Scripture which contain imagery matching the scenery around me.

Humankind should ponder God…

recognize God’s wonders and signs.

Let these signs and wonders be

the firmament on which to build,

            so as not to be shaken by fear,

            or distracted from the love of God.

                                                            Hildegard of Bingen

Dillard couldn’t understand why mystics sought God on mountaintops, knowing He is fearsome and powerful.  She declared she would hide in a cave into which only slivers of God could shine in as light through the cracks.  I think I understand the mystics’ approach more than hers.

Fragility

I am the pond in the early morning sun

Slant of rays against ice.
Step on the borders
Where water meets grass
And the ice is thick.
This you know and trust
Because I am reliable
And I like to have you there.
But be careful of the center:
The water is deep beyond knowing,
And the ice grows thin.
The waters move,
The waters still.
You are welcome here:
Only please remember
The waters exist.
Calm, I am a pond
Glinting with ice in morning sun.

Handel's Harpsichord

Can music be specific to any one particular season? Perhaps and perhaps not.  Yet Vivaldi seemed to think so, and Handel's Harpsichord Suite No.2 in F major seemed to me to appropriately represent Winter's fragile finery.


In a rush of harpsichord joy
Are scales of flowing snowflakes,
Trills of brave morning birdsong.

Brief rests between movements
Are the pauses between puffs of white breath;
Chords the crunch of footfall.

Staccato notes are surely
Bare tree-tips reaching thin point
Perplexed in persistent effort
To pierce the low-hanging sky.

Stark brittle beauty
The cold stream singing notes
Of fumbling round ice and rough white-patched rocks.

Thin of ice and harpsichord sounds,
Gracing sweep of covered land:
Enamor
            open eyes and ears.

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.

Winter Psalm

Winter has unfolded
   in crisp, clean lines
Sharp like the telephone wires
   and bare branches against the sky,
Sharp like the cold stars
   before dawn.

And the world moves and lives on
   in all the bustling human ways,
And in flocks of birds and burning wind.

O sing, you people, and dance;
   hearken, and be still.

For the Lord our God
   who waits for us in stillness
Is a God of stillness but not static;
   He who created our bones to run and dance
Is in the movement as well as the quiet.

His wind burns our hearts like fire,
   with joy, like flocks of birds,
Enduring like the trees
   silent against the sky,
Like stars in the deep before dawn.

Broken Chains

[A testament to the work of God as visible and breaking through walls in me throughout the past week]

I said, "My Lord, why won't you break through my chains and free me from them?"

And He said to me, "Fix your eyes on me, not your sins and shortcomings and failures."

And I saw God was so much greater than my chains and I was ashamed to call His power insufficient.

I said, "You said You have broken my chains, and I see that parts are in pieces, but I can't seem to let go of them—they weigh down my feet as I shuffle along, and my back is bent under the load."

He said, "My child, you are free."

I replied, "I know, but I can't seem to feel this freedom!" And suddenly I saw that the chains were not bound to me but I was grabbing them from the ground and laying them over myself till I groaned from the weight.

Toward this Tremulous Obedience

To a daughter he said,

                                Sing.

She said,

I have no time.

He said—             Sing.

She said,              I have no notes.

He said—             Sing.

She said,              My voice is weak.

He said—             Sing.

She whispered,

                Father, they will not hear.

And he answered—

                Sing.

— And, Lord, they will not like the song.

— My child, sing.

                                                And she sang,

                                                And few heard,

                                                And the world was in need of her song.

To a son he said,

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.

I am of Humanity: a Sketch

From the library I walk to one of the Quiet Places on campus; take off my backpack, and I am free.  I make the short climb upward and watch the world around me, the stars above.  I swing from the poles over my head, and sit atop one for a while.

It is cold.  My ears, cheeks, neck, hurt from it.  The cold air and colder metal cause my hands to ache, and I am glad.  I am glad to feel the sharp throb of my ears and ache of my hands; to feel the pain in my body, to remember it's there.  I have hands.  They hurt, and they are part of my body, and they are mine.

They are not just a tool for serving, not only an extension of my academic mind.  They are part of my physical body, which I feed and sleep and, of late, otherwise ignore.  But it is me, and I am alive.

And with the sensation, the reminder of my physical body, the imagination slowly starts to leak out from beneath the intellect.

I can swing on the metal rods and pretend I am a gymnast, or look up at the stars and imagine myself an astronomer of old, seeking the wisdom of God in the artwork of the stars.

The moon is the tiniest sliver: I try to write but it's too dark, and I cannot see the strokes of my pen.  So I clamber down, reclaim my backpack, rejoin inhabited civilization.

Inside, I feel my cheeks and ears burn.  In the bathroom mirror they are a blotchy red and white.  My hands also burn; they are bright red and ugly, with the veins and fingers starting to swell, un-shriveling in the warmth.  Once I can properly feel it again, my left hand aches from the day's writing.

People talk to me.  The strangeness of my thoughts fades away and I notice that I am hungry, tired.  I recall that I have much yet to do.

My hands have returned to their normal coloring, calluses slightly enlarged from recent use.  I am no longer too warm or cold.

And as the acute consciousness of my humanity fades, I must go back to "real life" and the ordinary thoughts and tasks before me.

Family & Road Trip: a Sketch

Rain drops alternately peck and hammer at the windows and roof, drawing their squiggly patterns and pock-marks only to be swept away by the windshield-wipers.

Kelsey in front of me: fashionable pink sunglasses on her blonde head, pretty little face pressed up against the window, stuffed cow tight in her arms, somehow sixteen tomorrow.

Daddy at the wheel: I can see his alert, albeit headache-worn eyes in the rearview mirror, focused on the road stretching and winding before and beneath us.

Mom at his side: navigating, company-keeping, singing to her 90s music on the stereo and looking most put-together of any of us.

Jessica, front-left: currently undistracted by rain, scenery, music; pale yellow wisps of hair curling around her face from the humidity in spite of ponytail and headband, lovely face buried unsurprisingly in a book.

Green-covered mountains rise and fall behind and before us, reaching and dipping on right and left, and mist rises to follow the cars on the curving road, or to obscure patches of mountain trees.

A quiet settles comfortably among us, relaxed to the rhythmic humming of the wheels below.  Many miles past and many yet to go, and there is peace in and among and between us, and there is joy.

And it is beautiful to me.

Eternal Reverie

Lydia Daugaard

Morning stopped,

To listen to the mighty whisper

Of the heron's unfolding wings.

It stopped for the oaks,

Their arms outstretched 

Against a rosy and roused canvas. 

The sanguine sky with his timid demeanor sat,

Rubbing his slumber-glazed eyes. 

And the morning stopped to admire him, 

Rendering his cheeks an emblazoned red. 

Morning stopped for the barefoot hills,

Scampering with pleasure towards the horizon.

It stopped for the callow ground, 

Set like a dream amidst a lazy tier of fog,

And embellished with altogether flawless beads of dew. 

Morning stopped to compose itself,

Beaming with the youthfulness of daylight.

It is a mystery.

Morning stopped,

But aroused an eternal reverie. 

An Overture Untitled

The world is alive today in swelling fullness,
life upon life upon death.


The clouds were played and arranged
by a string quartet,
and the veiled winter sun
the woodwinds proudly array.


(In my Love, the King,
      is all magnificence--)


He opened the heavens,
opened his hands,
and what is invisible poured forth.


If our hearts were but right
      we might see!
If our hearts were but right
      we might hear!
Or perhaps it is not our lot,
and perhaps it is not our lot.


The symphony surges,
swirls above and throughout
      (we keep to our quiet lives).
The triumphal march soars,
sweeping loudly to proclaim
      (we keep to our busy lives).


The resonating cello
left its song within my soul.
It sings sweetly and strongly
of sorrow and lament
and a throbbing ache
of strange, unspeakable joy.


The world, my dear,
is alive today,
and the silent love of a King
(life upon life upon death).

Library Window

(I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and have been too busy to edit and post it. But I think I'm going to just post it anyway.)

Outside, the first fearsome winds of winter

   berate and bully barren trees,

   howl round stolid buildings of brick,

   whip the faces of lonely passers-by.

I am driven in, into the hushed realm of tables and chairs,

   surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books

   emanating scents of old yellowing paper, ink and binding,

   kept company in quiet isolation by coffee, books, and unwritten words.

Finals and ominous, gleaming, tell-tale letters loom ahead,

   mostly ignored, or kept on pretense of such

   (as I wish they did not have such power over me).

And the existential crisis of the culminating three weeks wells within me,

   asking, “why am I here?” and “why do I care?”

   and “what does it matter?”

A bright and glorious sunset is strewn across the sky,

   the skeletons of trees silhouetted against,

   ribbed with the reflections of narrow fluorescent lights,

   transparent towers of commentaries superimposed over brick dorms and purple sky.

The window-scenes dim, fade into thorough darkness;

   the books crowd closer, impel my fingers to type faster,

   hot coffee inspires, enlivens my veins,

   and estrangement from the world enforces productivity.

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.

Ayiti

This poem was written by my sister, Jessica during and after her trip to Haiti this summer.  "Ayiti" is Creole for "Haiti" and "Jezi" is Creole for Jesus.  She'll guest-write a longer prose post later about her experiences, but this was so beautiful I wanted to share it with you.

Ayiti

“When will it end?” the old woman says,

with the weight of water                  

on her back.               

“Jezi, let it end!” begs the mother ahead

with a child on her hip and a

child by the hand.

“When will it start?” says the girl to

the boy as they sit in the

wind in the tents.

And the deep lines of the old woman’s

face, the weary lines and the weary

eyes in the dark face

tell a tale of hunger and thirst

of dust and dirt,        

of pain and poverty in a world without grace.

The mother’s burdens and stoop

of her shoulders and the droop

in her eyes tells of a ceaseless task

and a hopeless future.

But the girl, with head on knees,

dirty hands and bare feet,

waits and wonders when the world for her             

will begin, when it will reveal its treasures.

And the land with bitterness

laughs at her thought

and sighs—and remembers when it

cracked, shook, tumbled their homes

like blocks,                             

crushed their bodies like twigs.