Here in this foggy clearing of words,
may your Word emerge
like a deer from the forest
to grace with a glimpse
of breathtaking beauty that gazes
with soft eyes of wondering kindness
before leaping once more into cover.
I understand I cannot look upon you
too long for fear my soul
will be burned into blindness
like eyes that gaze upon the sun.
Every now and then, though,
peek through fog with white flick of tail
so I remember this weary chase is not in vain.
I keep watch at poetic edge of language,
a child mesmerized by lava lamps
where molten fluidity rises
in ever-unique amoeboid shapes
on a journey destined
only to fall back down again
into fiery primordial ooze.
My fellow creatures know our place in time:
death has numbered our days,
but it cannot change
your ways of Be-ing itself
and your first law of thermodynamics--
matter is neither created nor destroyed;
it’s all only energy changing forms.
We’re but earthly lava lamp lumps
rising to fall back into
your glowing meonic potential
at the end of foggy language
where hidden Word awaits revelation
in glory’s full fire,
uncontained by any form,
yet resurrecting all fallen shapes
with animating creativity,
transforming even death
into fiery minuet of glory
that discloses oozing forms
of Beauty’s brief emergence.
So while I have breath to praise,
let me look for graced glance of promise
on the days’ hot haze of horizon
where time falls into eternity’s rising
and, seeing form approaching,
give chase through burning fog
with glowing globs of leaping words.
Sometimes angels chew tobacco.
They arrive after storms
in stained coveralls,
dirt under ragged fingernails
dangling from knuckled prison tattoos.
They wouldn't be caught dead
in some glittery Christmas card froth.
Instead, armed with cranes and shovels
and Bobcats, they do
the grunt work of repair
to celestial songs of chainsaws
clearing roads, scooping up debris,
and scrambling up poles to
string new light for the world.
Sawdust in hair, God-knows-what in beard,
their haloes of incense are workers' sweat
that hasn't seen a bath
since they left home a week ago
because they're camping out in a tent
like God-with-us down in the mud
by the receding raging river.
There are no annunciations, no gold anything.
They just clear someone's driveway
and move on without a word,
anonymous, as if never there,
except they've made a way
outta no way for life to continue
out of the midst of death's darkness.
We entertain them with shared storied food,
aware of their divinity
even as they remain angels unaware,
seeing themselves only as stinky
fellow poor wayfaring strangers
called to care however they can
with whatever gifts they have.
In them, though, through grateful tears,
we see the shekinah robe of God
trailing through the brokenness
of this world, leaving blessings
in their wake of new possibilities
born out of the clearing of tangled grief
bleached sparkly clean with heaven scent.
________________________________________________________________________This poem is published in Bards of the Storm, an anthology of poetry dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Helene, Local Gems Poetry, 2024.
The photo is from Wikimedia Commons of anonymous angels who helped clear western Carolina roads after Hurricane Helene.
God is convivial communion
of Three in One,
One in Three,
in perichoretic dance,
inviting us to join,
not in some frenzied-mad
red shoes jig,
but more like the stroll
where, with our best gifts,
such as they are,
we dance with others
toward the day
when all will be dance
together in joy
counteracting the dance of death
with the dance of life.
When one of us is too weak
to dance anymore,
the stronger carry,
like the mother who sways
with her baby
or the child
who spins Grandma
in her wheelchair.
All is dance,
a rhythmic movement of life
moving toward the Day
when God rises at feast
to sing over us
and dance, dance, dance
the New Creation
where no one falls
to recover
(a definition of dance)
but simply
loves radiating Spirit Glory
at dynamic Stillpoint—
a cross before empty tomb.
Here is deep medicine—
Teacher, Healer, Exorcist
Very Light of Very Light
showing us the way
by becoming The Way,
entering the gaping jaws
of evil to transform the darkness
into potentiality
of womb from tomb.
In jumping into the abyss,
the flame of his light
fans into wildfire
to harrow the depths of hell
by burning out its slow burn
so that bloodthirstiness
can be quenched with tricky Living Water.
His resurrection
continues to reign down upon us
with blessing,
with blessed renewal
and creative Spirit Word hovering
to make something of nothing.
Christ draws us unto Him
in Holy Spirit love
that pulses through the universe,
then sends us out
in power
to embody shalom
however imperfectly
we do that.
And we surely are impure
in our intentions,
created good,
not perfect,
with free will
to screw up royally
or to care.
So we do both
on a regular basis.
Though we’ve tried,
we cannot salvage
ourselves or our world
on our own.
So thank God for grace
in Christ available,
coursing through the universe
in Holy Spirit's dimension
present here and now
in varying degrees,
if only we are open
to perceive and receive
and enter
Her divine dance
gift exchange.
So we join
with other pilgrims
on The Way
dancing,
caring,
forgiving,
giving,
receiving,
thanking,
praying,
serving,
advocating,
loving,
loving,
loving,
and singing as we go:
Glory be to God the Lover,
Christ the Beloved,
and their Spirit of Love
between them,
beckoning us into the dance,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
Amen? Amen!
How can you say
you didn’t know
how quickly life can fall apart?
It happens all the time.
A two-year-old just right there one moment
slips beneath sparkling water,
breathes in, breathes out, turns blue.
Someone texting “I’m almost there”
looks up to see the car ahead
stopped for the golden retriever
chasing the ball into the street.
Too late brakes screech.
Real-life bumper cars crash.
The dog yelps and the eyes of the boy,
wide with horror, dim.
He was just playing with his dog.
Life comes unmoored all the time
with stock phrases:
“I want a divorce.”
“I’m afraid it’s cancer.”
“We have to let you go.”
“I regret to inform you”
that life is always slipping away.
Ask the soldier who just got a light
from his buddy next to him
before he stepped on a mine
and was blown into sudden fire,
while he survived asking, “Why?”
never suspecting, though knowing,
it happens all the time.
Somewhere right now someone
is watching a steady monitor decline
into oblivion, wondering
what could have been done
that wasn’t.
Or they’re watching paramedics try in vain
to start the heart of one who
was just having her morning coffee
before sudden collapse.
A virus slips into a cell
and begins giddy proliferation,
commandeering, hot-wiring
nuclear material to go on
its killing spree before anyone
can think to call 911.
All around lives crumple.
Ask any cop, ICU or ER nurse;
they’ll tell you.
It happens all the time—
the hand reaching to pick
the novel fruit,
thinking nothing of it
as all around creation groans.
The prophets see and warn
but too few listen
to the depressive coots
until the sudden something
surprises them, too,
eyes widening before slipping
beneath the drowning knowledge.