A Cantata of Peace

A Cantata of Peace

(“A child will be born for us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. He will be named: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

After further review and looking everywhere,
high and low,
center and none,
in ballads and marches,
in wooden crosses and iron wills,
I honestly
find more question marks than before.

Today I sat without wind or dizzying propositions,
definitions of cause and effect,
and hoped (an explosive hope)
for better ears. A friend hides underground
while missiles whistle overhead.

And what is this song that moves the ground beneath our feet,
that pierces the stars until angels cannot restrain the chorale
that wraps the waiting world
face-to-face,
with an overture too resplendent to miss?

But we do miss it. We do continue staking our claim.
We do see the fault lines drawn between this
and
that,
and are blind where that and this
contain the first atoms of breath, contain the
alpha and omega. We do miss the
restoration of things.

With a mighty hand extended through
infant arms,
I cannot ignore the cantata of peace.

Spotlight on the Dandelions

Spotlight on the Dandelions

(“No one takes a light and puts it under a bowl or hides it. Instead, he puts the light on a lampstand so that the people who come in can see.” Luke 11:33)

Spotlight on the dandelions,
the unusual manes that push toward the sun.
The petals, tiny and golden, are imperfect like
the best artwork. Embellishing cracks in the sidewalk,
ants crawl past them and dig tunnels below their stretching
roots.
They smell like lawns after spring’s first mowing. They rarely
catch our attention, but they have so much to show.
They draw the secrets of the soil through opalescent stems
and wait for the next late-night thunderstorm to shake them awake.
And wait for the next rising of the sun to bid them rise
and shine.
Who knew they also make a delicate wine?
Some neighbors pluck them like weeds.
Some children ignore them playing with puppies.
They are disorderly invaders to some and
inspiration for a toddler’s bouquet presented to Mom.

Sit with one for an hour,
count the petals, caress the jagged leaves.
Listen to the freshening breeze and watch it
sway atop its sturdy stem. Does it remind you of
a picnic with a lover,
a wildwood meadow,
time without measure,
length without answers?

How many wishes have been granted as they
end their life cycle as flying pods of seeds?
How old were you when you wised upon your first one,
and how old shall you be when you blow the dandelion seeds
toward a distant reverie?

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

 

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

(“God was pleased for all of himself to live in the Son.” Colossians 1:19)

I.

Don’t ask me how I am,
there is something crumbling from
within my heart today.
The foundations are cracking,
the mud walls are melting,
the roof is leaking,
and this has sent me into a panic.
full.
stop.

I used to feel chosen,
don’t ask me how I feel today.
I once felt cozy and ready to sing
for anything that came to mind.
Now my fingers cannot find the chords,
my feet stumble over the rhythm,
my heart only knows the lyrics from
love songs 50 years ago.

I used to love exploring,
don’t ask me where I’ve gone today.
I once followed the Tuolumne River,
I once climbed Sunset Crater,
twice I sat at the annual folk festival
in Manitoba, finally dancing in hippie earth
tone fashion.
Two decades behind me, the festival has
moved underground, or perhaps
disintegrated into.
thin.
air.

I’ve driven through blizzards to
deliver a teenage daughter to her father
70 miles away who was dying of cancer.
I once tried to dig to China with a
tablespoon in my backyard SoCal.

This is exactly how I’ve been,
the slow crumble of stumbling years
and the trusted signposts no longer useful.
So, hollow within, and losing my bearings,
the emptiness unleashes its harshest poetry
within a brain that already is quick to hear
the distressed and aged wood of blame, regret,
and failure.

II.

Even the trees seemed to ignore me.
The mourning doves only stared at me.
The breeze deceived me into thinking
the next day would be easier.

But, finding only a speck of golden silence,
I heard the footsteps of god in the
easy branches and blooms of the apple tree.
I heard the whisper of god in a cat
meowing from behind the brush pile.
I heard the song of god in uneven time
in the wind that changed key so often
it actually sounded like me.

Kenosis. Emptying.
Filling. Completing.
Incarnate. Proximate.
Are the earth, the moon, the sun,
the mud, the ducks, the rabbits, the planets,
the roses, the snakes, the thorns and
rivers all
the generous emptying of god into all creation?

And pain, will I find the divine there?
And suffering, from top to bottom,
god has not rationed suffering,
has not risen on a jeweled throne above it,
but entered into, nailed his very body to
the angriest pain and stayed until cruelty
was finished.

If this is the god of the universe,
then perhaps my crumbling heart is
the perfect sanctuary to meet the
enfleshed one.