Monday poem 2017.8

1. For the paradox of wandering

in a mapped landscape,

for my half-blind eyes

and Your tiny blinding light,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

2. For the altered state of

ice over lake water, the kindness

of snow on snow on snow covering

a multitude of sins,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

3. For the cravings of knowledge

and the fear of the unknown,

for all that is or will be

and all that never will be so,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

4. For endings of childhoods

and each best loved dog,

the incremental demise of body and mind

that You say one day will rise,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

5. For closed doors

and open roads,

for edges of the wild world

and the nothing that is everything,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

6. For this moment, this chair,

fingers synapsed and sure,

breath, room, silence,

Your imagined and almost certain presence,

I give you thanks, Oh Lord.

LAE2017

New poems

2017.3

She will do what she will do

no matter what words

your lips form into love knots,

no matter how long you stand

with your arms wrapping her sorrow.

There is nothing she will not do,

nothing held back. She is quicksand

seeded with landmines.

You must not walk here. Run.

Don’t look back. You could never save her.

Merciful Jesus, won’t you

gather her up like broken bread?

There is more than enough

to feed a multitude.

LAE2017

 

 

2017.4

The miracle would be…

the miracle would be going back,

to before we did what we’ve done

to each other,

back to kindness, and loving

exactly how you came to me

raw and imperfect,

magic and raucous,

before I dreamed up all the ways

I might mold you

into something less mighty.

The miracle would be

waking up and discovering

heaviness dropped in the dark

and a wheel within a wheel, turning,

like a movie’s opening

repeating, repeating, repeating

the part where she

notices him, just briefly,

then carries on. The moment where

what happens next

is anyone’s guess.

LAE2017