Luke 15

Knuckling hosannahs
from the sockets of my eyes.
The back of my hand is wet
with illness, dry with winter.
Kicked off my blankets, uncovered,
the shivering rise and fall
of my chest confesses the chill,
the hardness of the blood beneath.
Take me under my trembling
arms, lift me onto your bent
shoulders. Let me join the rest,
where all is recovered.

March 5, 2009

Job 19

i purposefully trashed
my basement today,
bagged up my needless things
to take to those in need.
In the midst of my ascetic
task of worship, alone
with the sapless taste of
half-used cans of brick-toned paint;
in the simplicity of making less,
i uncovered a blank canvas.
Stored recklessly on basement floors because
times of organization induce belief,
i can envision shape and color
and reproduce without practice or technique.
In one of these harmonized manic states,
my grandmother gifted me a 1 by 3 foot
quadrilateral of opportunity. i covered it
with suitcases, boxes of clothes, baby
accessories, dictionaries, and all
the candles we'll sometimes need.
i have found it is difficult to decide
what to create in permanency.

February 26, 2009

Psalm 22 & Judges 16

Wasting strength on the critical,
the reckless and arrogant, has dried it up.
Wasting prayers on guilt and shame.
Save time; poke out my eyes and walk away.

Be peaceful and decisive, quit wasting away
and start cutting off. Don't let the browned
roses behind the garage wither until winter
before the die in the snow. Prune in the spring,
that new blooms may grow.

Wasting words on self-gratifying confession,
details of indiscretion lavishly inlaid with
more temptation. Sacrifice, short and swift.
Help me overcome wasteful, indulgent humanness.

February 20, 2009

Isaiah 41

i know i need a frosted cornfield,
wide and quiet, empty and undefined,
with thousands of collasped ears to help me listen.
i must remain still, but there is a
devastating silence in dead woods, cracked branches;
overwhelming and stagnant, needing action.

So i know i must clean and clear,
stride through snowy wheat to fallen trees;
renewed order entering the scattered reaction.
i must move, but some movement trips, slaps,
and distracts. The limbs and leaves are beautiful,
but i lose purpose in this wind and confusion.

Then i know i need a frosted cornfield.

February 18, 2009

i am the dimness before Your great storm;
the inconsistent, uneasy flicker that is blown
with my back to Your power, hair tossed by the wind.
i am the rusty light that rushes away from
Sinai's base, the rocks that break beneath lightning
rumble over cliffs in frantic escape.
Fearful, i am a flower in first morning; turning
to first nightfall under the sheets of rain,
unaware sun comes again, unaware that roots
grow deep while petals hide their face.

Advent: Day Eleven

Psalm 31

"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord..."

A snowflake pushed by the lake's winds
winks at me as it continues down,
"Do you think you can count on me?"
I am, I think, I am.,
Pavement may be pleasant there beneath
my surest steps, and yet
you will never find your rest.
Dissolving, here only to arrive again,
blow back in each winter's wind.

Advent: Day One

Isaiah 1

"When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean."

i scratch through december grass,
gathers in small patches,
gathers to stretch toward sky
with green hands groaning for snowfall.

Unraked ground cannot receive
the purest of precipitation,
the crystals will cling to the edge of the leaf
and leave muck in wicked mounds.

To cry to the God of heaven
and clear what remains beneath,
that is the waiting,
the joining of remorseful removal
and bowing for the expectant approval,

i churn out the wet and decaying
while praying for purest renewal.

Day 66: Morning

Psalm 131

At the end of this day,
i will lean back on Your breast;
and i will rest. Father, i will not

ponder politic or purpose,
but my fingertips will rise and fall
like gentle breaths, softly

across Your bearded countenance.
i will bury bloodshot eyes,
rubbed red, raw, and stressed,

into the crook of Your neck.
i will run grasping hands,
opening and closing in pursuit

of affection, through the lightest
locks that fall from Your hushed head.
i will lay down in that bed

and neither toss nor turn,
as You lay a blanket over me,
renewing me with sleep.

Day 50: Evening

i have faith
the world works as such:
the Word spoken into
swiftly shifting situations,
absolutes starkly lacking
any absolute condition.

A sleepless resolution:
treat the world as such.
Every ageless rock and stone,
set in rigid position;
yet altars must reshape
and restack, the renewal
of generations.

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 4: Mid-Day

Isaiah 4

Refreshed by water flung from
a branch, a twisted sprig of lavender.
Not false twigs that had been crafted
by hand, a forged instrument for

the blessing, but an offshoot snipped
from creation. Full of dew's scent,
fresh with violet lines, fresh with life;
a renewal of my promise to die to come alive,

a reminder that Creator is best conveyed
in the very earthly existance He has made;
His permanance like stone, His sustenace in fields,
refreshing in the lavender sprinkle that we feel.