#47

true beauty haunts no mirrored paths
or sighs in desperation at unseen eyes
self-obsessed, obvious, and whirling at the center -
no,
true beauty is busy living, hands helping
raw reality and eyes focused forward
diligent and square-jawed
weary, but resolved, and sometimes
when the light is just right
and she turns her head
you catch the faint outline
of a starry crown
heavenly.
true beauty, here on earth,
is measured
in glimmers.

Just a 3 mile run...

1 a very small rabbit - ears back & fur the color of the perfectly toasted part of a marshmallow.

2. a pair of woodpeckers together on a fallen sycamore log - red-headed & one lattice-backed.

3. two black calves standing about in a creek, nose to nose with their ridiculously long-legged reflections.

4. a happy-to-be-awake border collie patrolling the Rushing's farm.

5. rolling hills speckled with sheep - brown faced, white, some with brown coats. They drifted over the landscape like earthy clouds.

6. fat groundhog waddles at surprising speed, going to ground into a nasty tangle of dead vines (look closer & they're tinged with green).

7. March elms pretending to be sinister & shadowy, not quite concealing their swelling tips.

8. look up at the implausible wingspan of a vulture - the March elms suddenly are sinister.

9. one mostly-tail squirrel skittering from the dog-side to the sheep-side.

10. black horse on new green grass, at the lower end of the field, right before sunrise, looking like the first thing of a first world.

11. boisterous yawn of a rooster echoes after me - you can't outrun the day's dawning.



40 minutes of wednesday on planet earth (& this is not to mention the thronging spikes of daffodils & imperceptible pollen tang in the air, or the american robins staking claim to every thread and dry grass around)--

it's spring.

A mid-March Prayer

It's 5 am & mud-puddles pockmark my path.
I walk
to work & ignore the squelch.
Time makes sunwarmed grass green and all glistens as I amble into class,
my mind chained
to the lonely crocuses outside.

Midterm madness, he borrows my pencil
while I stare at the ceiling, deafened by the spring music suppressed within, and
annoyed by the insistent rows of interoggatives.

Solomon dreamed and asked for wisdom - he petitioned with the
Phoenician word (the Phoenicians: a sea-faring people who sailed boldly with tarry hands)
and recieved the right kind, immediate--the king's cup was emptied of mere knowledge
and instead outflowed rich, directional, To-steer-a-boat wisdom.

That's all I ask for too,
no arrogant desire for glory or ease--i ask no more than a God's gifting.
(i catch an inward glimpse the lilies of the field; my shout disrupts the class)

Perhaps I seek more than ship-handling flair;
I sue for the splendor of spring days
and wet skies and
uncaged joy. I entreat you, O Lord,
for year-old calf joy;
let me kick and cavort on one of your thousand hills!