January 11, 2009

Matthew 3

Fireworks subsiding,
fluorescent basement bulbs
break the dawn.
My limbs and twigs arc
in brilliant white streaks
toward the violet Berber
that my own hands laid.
Thoughtful branches laden
with pomegranates and figs,
wheat and grain pastries and
a cold cup of leftover grapes.
In the winter season, in the newness,
promise and purpose warm the vines
and all that stirs my wakening
seems ripe to prune and type.
Strange that as spring clutters
with rain, mud, and end of the year
boxes of leftover grades
i will wither quicker.
i am no tamarix, green throughout
all seasons, but with no fruit.
My sticks produce in cycles,
fruit in keeping with confession, but so dry
when the world around explodes with life.

Day 35: Random

Stripped and elegant,
i have not been.
i am not ashamed;
i just speak
from the sides of my mouth.
This humble excuse
is not honed or rehearsed
as an excuse;
frank words, where do i
find time?
Frivolous sleep, unwantingly
it keeps me
from my days and nights.
From You.
Success under seeming curse,
oh perverse desire,
it's sirens sing inane and vain
into my ears.
The steady beat and the prose,
the higher notes
rose into my heart, yes,
the pursuit
is pushing You out.
i must ask:
what will i sing back?
Will meditation
lack the beauty to capture me?
i opened
the austere doors of these
"days and nights"
knowing that they would be
less inviting
than the trivial, the easy.
Commitment
waned in reality,
in the lack
of Your wind in my face.
Thus, it must
like Nicodemus be
born again.
Forget the places that i have been,
empty mind
and holding onto dryness,
search
for the waters giving life
once again.

Day 23: Random

A Short Meditation for the Hours

At sunrise, we praise You.
In morning, free us.
At noon, sustain us.
In afternoon, work with us.
At supper, we celebrate You.
In closing our eyes, we rest in You.

Day 1: Morning

Psalms 1 & 2

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night..."

Stripped and elegant,
i long to be.
Honest and unashamed;
but honesty
exposes nudity as it is,
less often romantic,
less utopian than utilitarian,
less poetic.
My mediation, days and nights,
the heights
of novelty and creation,
the original lights
through the darkness of forthright life,
i rarely find.
But when i walk, stand, then sit,
and often bind
myself to vain plots and inane
amusing crafts,
then my meditation, nights and days,
i must have.
For i cannot break chains, throw fetters
off as of yet.
But in trembling, rejoicing stillness
i am not beset
by a mocking slavery of what has
made me weak.
no, in meditation, i am loosed
because You speak.