Feet of Clay

Feet of Clay

Dear ones,
prayers of promise to the future,
I want you to know
I have feet of clay
And though I love you
I will forget -
names and birthdays and
how many lizards you have.
I will forget
and you will change.

You will grow tall
and lose your cherub’s fat.
Your face will harden,
maybe, too, your heart.
Your muscles will grow taut and lean.
Your hips may swell.
Your eyes may shift their sheen
While other dear ones fill my busy mind.

One day you will stand in my doorway
expectant
An eight-year-old only inside
inside
inside your eyes.
“Remember me?” you ask.

My heart remembers.
I promise it does.
But my brain is worn
and crowded as an antique train station
that welcomes hundreds
and sends them on their way.

Forgive me, dear ones.
I have feet of clay.

On the Brink

On the brink, on the edge
The precipice, the abyss, the ledge
You reach out to me,
Your cry for help
 echoed by a host
 of survivors
 and of ghosts
silently insisting I step up.
My heart trips on the weight of it.
Can I weave my words into a lifeline?

Stay.
Live.
Learn as long as you can
And I will too.
Let's meet on the mountaintop at the end
and share stories of our adventures.

The Jagged Edges

Contemplate the jagged edges:
of raspberry leaves

and soaring pines
of shredded clouds
and war-torn souls
of letters etched in granite
and the pores of aging skin.

Can you feel the edge of God's shadow
when you wander inside it?
Can you know the shape of God's footprint
when you stand within its walls?

Jagged edges give
to floating molecules their form.
They are the borders
that define the name-filled world.

Borders come in many shades.
Let us not get drunk on them.

Does shadow imprison light
for crossing the border at noon?

Awake! (inspired by the words of Paolo Coelho)

Awake!
Awake!
     though the world is still in darkness
Awake!
     though you want to sleep
         just a little longer.
Awake!
     and look up -

Look up from the dust and dung.
Look up from the muck and mire.
Look up and you will see the stars.

The stars.

They shine still
     through the half-destroyed roof of the world.

I am a Stone

I am a stone
Stone of the deep world
World cut from sharp rocks
Rocks hard as eons
Eons of pounding surf
Surf and sand and soil that stirs
Stirs the depths of ancient strands
Strands that weave into sounding life
Life of mounding and moveable earth
Earth that cradles my stony self
Self told in bone
Bone that is unknown
I am a stone.

I am a stone
Stone of the heart-force -
Force that rolls and pelts and stills
Stills me to solid polished gray
Gray as the shade-cool river bed
Bed of the earth
Earth that is ancient and new
New as the now, lost as time
Time locked in geodes and crystals
Crystals that cut bone
Bone that is unknown
I am a stone.

Give Me a Weary God

Give me a weary god
One who knows what it means to bend,
To take a knee or bow a head,
Emptied, cast down, enslaved.

Sustain his rebellious spirit.
Pull a guilty glory from his likeness.
Turn his grace upon those heavy hearts
Who are struck together by the tempest.

Behold that spitting form,
The backward shame of heaven,
Spewing disgraced insults.
Help obedient hearts defy that high name

That name that sets himself above the cross
And puts every death to shame
For the sake of inglorious human vanity.
Confront his hateful ways and curse his tongue
For reviling humane earth.

Slaves stand with wounded hands
Confronting bold-faced adversaries - flint-skinned, taut-lipped.
Regard their stricken, burning backs.
Exalt their wounded tongues and ears.

On this bare morning we stand together.


- inspired, reconfigured and crafted from Isaiah 50:4-9 and Philippians 2:5-11, Palm Sunday, March 2018

The Basket

I am an astronaut awash in stars.

I am a shipwreck survivor,
  collapsing at last on the shore.

I am a burrowing hermit crab,
   slipping in and out of safe darkness.

I am a weary traveler resting under a tree.

I am carrying a basket of souls,
   and being carried in the basket.