[His hands are open]

strength to pray

hope to live

the window's hand

stretched out to give 

eyes to see

ears to hear

a hungry soul

drawing near

Lord my God

i am not strong

i need your Son

to carry on

slothful ways

stubborn sins

without your grace

doubting wins 

obey, my soul

your Savior's voice

love, not hate,

must be your choice 

a heart of change

an open hand

the sound of rain

upon the land 

Christ, my all,

you bore my shame

forgave the debt -

I praise your Name!

-jcs- 

A sinner-saint? A gutter-heir to grace?

Adoption? O Christ, what bloody love is this,
When I betray you daily with a kiss?
Yet you are not changed; your love
Like to yourself cannot be moved,
Again by grace, healed, I turn to you.
By grace I serve you & by grace I grow –
deliver me from weeds & worms,
And let me stretch & yearn for thy sweetshine,
nor forget thy shelter
In storm or dark October days.

Un-earned grace bewilders all the world—
A stumbling miracle, divergent from our debt.
As if the Sun did shine at night, His light burns strange
Unto our eyes & hearts.
Proud merits cast but short shadows in His Sun.
We are undone.
Richly stores of treasure I do keep
Seem poor & gray.
I weep.
My Lord,
Bewildered and amazed you find me here,
a wretch deserving death, judgement, fear.

Increase within me, Love –
expand the corners of my narrow heart to make a spacious plot
For thee to plant with all things good & green.
Seek the Son, o everything of mine,
loyalty, affections, & estate be granted to the king.
To him I pledge each acre of my soul,
& in his hands the harvest shall be whole.

A sinner-saint? A gutter-heir to grace? Indeed, i say,
thus is my state, and though strange it is the only way.
for grace forgotten bewilders even more,
and is unlikely as a rainbow without hue.
Protect my soul, Lord Christ, when in my mind I stray from you!

for Kasey B.

there is sorrow in the night sky tonight
& i feel you are lost to me.
it should not be so, first
because you are human & in pain,
and next because I am only 238855 miles
from the moon
& so are you.
there is sorrow in the night sky tonight,
& i wish you very close to me
for there is peace in my bed -
also books & sand & a purring cat,
but mostly peace.

oh my hippie-flower child, bewildered & beleaguered by the immense sorrows & immense beauties of life, do not be lost to me. We're 23 million miles from Venus, yet she will guide the morning to earth's doorstep. Do not be afraid, even if the circle breaks & the bird dies & the house burns cold. Do not be afraid.

It will not mean the end of love.

Dame Drought

She’s weaving lies on the loom of the skies –
The farmers know.
They know her dyes from old Julys –
The same winds blow.
She cleverly tries to dazzle their eyes
“your crops will grow.”
With hope of rain that will save their grain.
But they’re too wise.
Her shuttles clack but the earth grows black
And cattle die in the fields.
Warp says ‘clouds’ while weft makes shrouds
As she sings always of sun.
The fabric’s blue, no rain in view
Their farming days are done.

sherpa

nondogmatic mouth

juniper sprigs of incense

praying heavenward

Decision

The bumper sticker said Cross the Sea or Stay and he chose and so did she, so now she's swimming across an ocean of tears

Most of Life

most of life she takes
with mouth wide open and eyes half-shut -
look through the poleroids and note her eyes
squinched up with joy,creases spreading out - a network of love-lines, loveliness,
binding motherhood & Dad & us all up tight.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light...

her mouth is open now as she sleeps
like some stone goddess all her features now in harmony - the light is buried
even so she adorns this hospital room. The muted white walls
had forgotten the beauty of the human battle -
my mother's war-cry still echoes down the startled corridor
and
I long for her to reawaken and re-engage. Molars exposed, eyelids compressed,
and life inside coming through her parted lips:
Pain and my mother,
locked in struggle for the glorious, mundane, tedious thing we've named
"old age." LIVING IS LIVING,
whether sunrise or sunset, and she wants to live hers to the
full and proper end...

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay. . .

I have not written it yet, but perhaps I will.
When she wakes up.
How my mother loves to laugh,
laugh with mouth wide open.....

Confessions of a Wolf

wade the night
through snow or owl calls or whatever else comes to mind. Night
is dark.
Dark is
not dark to me
and when the pack falls behind
and i drink from the icy
stream
i live. i have teeth. I live.

TRADE: (Part of my POETRY-FOR-PIE campaign)

The ton of the crou,
the wheat of the buck,
the ride in the cab of your dad's pick-up truck.

The leave of the French,
the tic of the tac,
I'm gonna leave you just so I can come back.

The cake of the fruit
and the chit of the chat
You're the welcoming part of my welcome-home mat.

A Little Infinitude

Dear Frank,

Today I climbed up the tree of my being
and sat in the high wind of an existential crisis. It was pretty tremendous,
and I almost came to the limits of neither earth nor abyss, before I climbed down again
to make dinner for Hannah and the boys.

I miss you.
I miss your irritating de Bevoirian sense of timeliness and the maddening way you counterpoint my assertions about the world with "As a matter of fact..." just so i'll take the bait and we can tussle for a bloody half-hour in bloody half-earnest.

When you are gone some part of, how shall I say it,
life's unencumberedness
is lost.
It's been pickpocketed. Tatterdemalion beauties stay in the shy corners,
and everything's just a bit stark.

Mother always told me
men tangle up the skein of reason,
but she never said the other part,
that you re-wind the tangles into reasonability.

Did i mention that I miss you,
or that
it is autumn
and the leaves on the tree of my being are flushed to crimson
and ochre and
(my favorite) babylonian gold? It doesn't much matter. I realize this is absurd, but


Come home.

They're predicting high winds for the next week.

A brief poem: For Jules Mazarin

Sagacious. Cardinal to the last,
a man who vexed the comfort of kings
and never avoided contention, with red galero
broad in the midst of duty or doctrine.

Don the dalmatic, o cardinal bishop, that shows us your soul;
above the simple white mitre your canny mind and eyes
are masked in pious downcast silence; we know your kind
and hope you know your place.
"His Eminence Cardinal First-Name Last-Name" are you aware
the man you walk behind
did surely see the face of God,
and made us feel the power of His austerity?

DOOM:

A rather insensitive eulogy to threatened worms everywhere



Overcast Friday, wake up worms!

It might rain & kill your squirms –

this day might end with puddle-seas

soggy grass and harried trees;

for you little guys down in the dirt

all that water could really hurt

as for me, I'm feeling fine

the week has crossed the finish line;

papers done, classes out

IT'S FRIDAY NOW, just hear me shout!

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.

That Sort of THing

The space between your look
And the words written in your notebook
(the green spiralbound the color of spring and newlove)
Made my heart pause, and then go bounding away
Over the hills,
Fears breaking like ice melting like birds nesting like fresh butter and windy runs, like your hands.
Large hands, capable of blacking both my eyes and my heart. Be careful where you place those hands, because
I might just leap over and take one with me
down to the daffodils and riverwater,
and
I don’t
think you’re wearing quite
the right
shoes
for that sort of thing.

Ship's Log

5:00 Wake up & remember how to climb out of bed.

8:00 Drive through Adrinxley, Foglesworth, Horington - stop in Brunswick for coffee.

11:21 Fight jealousy as you read his name in the Wall Street Journal

4:30 Walk away from the computer and rest the optic nerves.

5:30 Drive through Brunswick, Horington, Floglesworth - stop in Adrinxley for groceries.

6:oo Cross the threshold into your arms. Undone by gratitude for life. We make dinner. Gratitude. My life.

Golden Rule

Build the porch wide,
ignore ethnic abstractions-
that is what it means to be a good neighbor.

Talk in the streets,
wave the news of tomorrow
in yesterday's face. Be adamant & friendly.

Add to whatever
list of virtues they discover,
that time-worn blueblood, love.

Yet in the hubub of obeisance,
welcome that outsider:
forbearance.

Disregard this guest; it may chance no
falling sword will break your feast.
But, neighbor, answer me
this: can love draw a circle that leaves him out?

(Judith did and look what happened to Holofernes)

A Cord of 3

my sister, younger:
how can i describe you? you are like:
a five year old's first rainbow-sprinkle ice cream - a matchless marvel;
a morning glory stumbled over while fetching the early morning news;
a May afternoon that tastes of June and sounds like the splash of bare feet in Six Mile Creek.
a penny, heads-up;
a rainy day pancake;
a new pair of white shoes;
a porch swing in summer;
applecake with raisins
and a whole album of Grandma's wedding pictures.


my mother, wiser:
with your hands you weild both sword
& spatula;
you know what feeds the soul
& artfully prepare what delights the tongue.
your love is flavorful & spontaneous,
like goat cheese and mango chutney;
you are delicate and perfect,
like the halo of rice crackers encircling the plate.
may your day be filled with Glory,
fresh baked Bread of Life;
and also with glory,
fresh pineapple &
the smile of a friend.

my true-love, hiding:
the water of life flows through you,
out your eyes (color of the spring-new earth);
from your hands, free and open
like the fragrance of hyacinth--vital effusion.
rising & outflowing from between the petals of your lips;
your voice has the power of awakening
all the tender, increscent joys
that thirst within me.
Be strong as the sun rises,
and stronger yet when it sets.