We will come and dwell

When I came and saw your home in Nazareth,
Where your dear mother lived by Joseph’s grave
In tranquil prosperity since his death,

I wondered why you would not choose to save
And guard this unexpected paradise.
It seemed so foolish to ignore the certain waves

Of politics and war, poverty and ice
And drought and parching heat that always rise
Despite our rosy schemes. No plans suffice

To guarantee security. Despise-
ing all precaution you abandoned kith
and kin and village to evangelize

an ancient world, already tainted with
the proffered blood of human sacrifice.
Could your bold retelling ancient myths

Persuade your co-religionists to splice
New ideas to prehistoric ways?
Often did you tangle with teachers of precise

Traditions, laws, and customs, but unfazed
Every man “went unto his own abode”
and no one saw the ending of his day.

The way you looked at me, I felt my load
of worries lightened on my back. I had
to drop everything and follow on the road,

because -- if for no other reason -- you bade
me come and see. Where this would lead I dared
not guess. A sudden, baffling urge -- so glad

My heart felt reassured I could be spared --
Set me toward an Eden far away
You called your home. You said your Father cared

And whatsoever we want, we need but pray,
And God will answer you. But I want more
Than I would dare to ask. Should I just lay

My common concerns at your most holy door?
Remembering that you harrowed the pits of hell
And sprang from death to life to give us more

Than we could ever dream, I am prepared to sell
My soul with everything on earth, for well
I’ve heard you say “With you we’ll come and dwell.”

John 10:14

“The Father and I are one.” An oath; no further
debate; finality slams the table. And
I thank you for that. I’ve looked and found no end
of my uncertainties. They whine and mutter,
resisting every assurance, then build another
round of crumbling barricades and sandy
banks to defend my half-assed plans
against the ocean storms and a world of pothers.
Collapsed by your profession my druthers
quell in silence. You rise to take your stand;
Your crown of thorns declares you competent;
Your empty tomb reveals your only father --
The One who judges every land --
And no one snatches from His hand.

Acts 2:24

God raised Him up and freed Him from the throes
Of death. Above the sky’s angelic choirs
He governs earth and pacifies the foes
Of life. Distressing, dross-consuming fires
Of Hell surrender now and demons glow
With blest relief. They raise reluctant gyres
Of praise; their knees are bent; their endless woes
Complained with less conviction. On Earth the Mire
Despondence renders to the Easter wind
Its fetid reek and blossoms sweeter smells.
The Virgin Hope awakens. And predestined
Joy signals to the church’s bells
“Our God has raised him up!” And their determined
Voices smack the skies, “EVAN-JA-LELL”

I Corinthians 15:28

This is the work of God, believe the one
He sent. The work of science, believe the facts,
Those slippery things we learned in high school texts.
Weapon-hard they shatter old illusions,
But not content with victory’s easy wins,
Fight on like immune systems run amok.
Assuming airs of godliness they suck
The air of ecstasy from buoyant lungs.
They bludgeon opponents of common sense
And proponents too. They must retire the field
Before the regent Charity, and yield
At last to a gentle, more serene presence
When everything and all things under Him
Obey the One who chastens even them.

John 6:29

God’s work; believe the one he sent.
The work of science: believe researchers’ words.
Suppose that nothing is except which they
Explain, demonstrate, predict and prove.
Then grope in darkness, which
hangs over head, a deepening cloud

of certainty. Within, beyond that cloud
of knowing hangs the faint, suggestive scent
of mundane mysteries, for which
we have a million and one thousand words.
Confirmed beyond a doubt and useful, they
collapse and fail to prove

themselves against the yet unproven
God whom we remember wrapping clouds
of obfuscation around every theory
of intelligence. Of course we resent
the intrusion. Fair enough. But abusing words
and sad reminders of witches

burned cannot so readily force a switch
from verities to arguments that prove
only how little we know. Defining words
with better education might well becloud
further discussion, but a lingering sense
of awe in all abides till pseudo theories

undermine our best and proven theories.
Then suddenly we wish aloud for witches'
mystic powers and common sense
makes no sense at all, and none can prove
to anyone’s satisfaction that cumulus clouds
are not oracles of cryptic words.

Even ordinary words
like love and marriage disintegrate until they’re
redefined by quacks and clowns.
But not to worry. The Holy Spirit, which
abides in low and high, will finally prove
by pure simplicity His word makes sense.

There was a man sent from God whose words,
as plain as day, describe a way which,
proven true, abides within a cloud.

Pentecost

Like a bell it rings,
The hour has come.
We heard it first in Cana,
It might have been a distant knolling
But it sounded only once.
We hardly noticed its toll
Over the merriment of his prank.
“You numbskull!” the maitre d’ whispered,
“You served the rot gut first,
and saved the best for last!”
We might have laughed
But no one titters when the Gospels are read.
And was that a bell knelling in the distance,
As he said, “My hour has not yet come?”

No one laid a hand on him when
the soldiers came.
His hour had not yet come,
But the hour would come to pass
from this world to the Father
For he loved his own in the world
And he loved them to the end.

The hour sounds closer now,
Ominous, inexorable,
Ordained from olden time.
We know that sound
As if we’ve always known
The hour must come.
The hour has come
Give glory to your son.
Who would ask a friend
To greet such an hour?
Who would trust
A Deity who leads by tolling bells?

How sad its sounding in their ears –
To the Witness and the Mother --
As he takes her to his home.

But now the bells ring
As the hours sing
And we’re scandalously drunk.
He has made our bitter sweet,
Our joy complete;
And our tears are lovely drink.

Sestina for Low Sunday

Well, I’m sorry; it’s true. We took to our heels
and ran like scared rabbits. Rumors
said they were looking for us so we hid.
What would you do? We were scared stiff, frightened
half out of our wits. And he hadn’t a ghost
after his arrest. Enemies appeared

everywhere, it seemed to us. They appeared
as curious children or idle men. Heels
in the streets chased us like tormented ghosts,
like wind-blown scraps of paper to this room.
Remember the room; the Supper? Still frightened,
we trusted women to feed us. They could hide

in their veils but we could show neither hide
nor hair of ourselves. We heard of appearances
of dead people. The city was frightened.
What did it mean? There is no healing
From death. We sat and stared, ruminating
Until Sunday afternoon when a ghost --

what else could it be but a ghost?
-- jumped up before us; everyone shied
like caged birds to one corner of the room;
and he glowed with every appearance
of good health and happiness, his wounds healed
though they gaped like open mouths. “Frightening!”

that’s all I can say. And we were frightened.
And then he smiled and spoke to us, the ghost,
I mean, spoke to us and something like healing
came over us, and there was no need to hide
anymore. Just like that. And the room
with his breath smelled wholesome. Holy! He appeared --

It was Jesus, you see. He appeared,
and he wasn’t at all dead. “Don’t be frightened.”
(Easy for him to say.) Then the rumors
came back to us. The stories of ghosts
walking in daylight, the soldiers hiding
as the sun rose, and all the people healed

Trust me, the Man heals; the rumors are true;
No more hiding for me, nor being frightened;
Not since the ghost, the holy one, appeared.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

Aloft in the blue sky morning a solitary crow
circled idly overhead on that March
day like a bewildered palmer.
The soft, spring weather lent
the Sabbath dawn expectancy. A gusty wind
beneath his soaring wings twisted

the arcs of his errant path. Beneath the bird’s twisted
meandering a raucous, belligerent cockcrow
sounded through the streets that wind
the city, itself a dreadful, long disputed march
of earth and sky, saints and sinners. The walls’ benevolent
mass greeted chanting palmers

who finished their pilgrimage and palmed
the ancient stones. Their twisted
braids blessed the holy ground. The raven, hanging indolent,
ignored below but eyed by circling crows
from Beersheba to Dan, heard a sudden marching
sound of drums and screeling winds

announce a coming day whose blasting winds
would shatter stony walls, yet leave the bruiséd palm
unharmed, fresh and green. An eager mob marched
from the city through the open gates, their twisted 
faces grinning. Despite the humble ass and foal they crowed
at Herod’s pikes and Roman spears, and lent

their coats and tunics to the dirty streets, for even laws relent
when a populace hears a divine renewing wind
driving under gates like a crowbar.
Maddened authorities emptied money bags in open palms.
Suddenly reborn as criminals they twisted
schemes, and called for protest marches

to halt the invader’s coming. But the ruthless march
persisted as hosannas sounded, crowds clamored and the silent  
mare and foal advanced. Dust devils danced and twisted
on dung-grimy streets, and tongues of stone sang as the wind
stirred the feathered ferns and spiny palms,
and overhead appeared a murder of crows. 

On this Palm Sunday the twisted crown
And black crows hail our solemn Lent,
as at our backs a mighty wind propels us into march.

Holy Week, 1993

I holy weeked in a hospital bed
And saw the services
From below the surface of my suffering
On a TV screen.
I wondered at those men
Who walked on the dry land of comfort,
Who sang songs
And read readings
And kissed crosses,
But could not speak to me
Beneath the surface of my suffering.
They seemed like men
On an island
-- or a continent –
in the middle of a continent --
far from the vast waters of pain
that gird our world – that washed over me.

Our Earth, they say, should be called Water
And our lives should be called Pain.
But we spend most of our lives
On the dry land of comfort
Hardly aware of those who
Lie beneath the surface of their suffering
And gaze on us with glassy eyes.

John 8: 58-59

You spoke a Name which no one dares to speak
And as we reached for stones, you vanished
Into the temple precincts; and I am banished
Now. What word, what sign ever so oblique
Enthuses men with blazing eyes and cheeks
To rise stupidly amazed before a feverish
Mob enthralled? They listen with intensely anguished
Pleasure, as if the arid sky should leak
And overflow with holy rain. In pain
I wonder what your disappearance means.
Have you, by God’s own kindness, broke the chain
Our father Cain imposed on us? The scenes
Of empty tombs and walking dead remain.
They say you've cancelled all the ancient liens.

A Moment Passes by with Every Breath

A moment passes by with every breath
And the future, channeled through this gap of now
Gives way to a backlog of opportunities
Lost, never reclaimed or rediscovered
Even as an infinity of futurities unimaginable
Eagerly pile up behind this narrow strait.

Dear Aging Heart, we have walked an older street
With anguished time forgot and labored breath
Navigating cycles of years with imagined
Pleasures that seemed so real then, but now
They reel like errant importunities.
Can memories unlimited discover

In rude stories unrued, undiscovered
Airs or gusts of goodness? The straight
Path on which I set out despite the portents
Was fair enough, I think; and yet I breathe
Worrisome belabored stories and I know
That no one – or few – can imagine

The troubles I have caused. But doesn’t Imagination
Work with Grace and Bliss to cover
The past in future glory? And the now
Has a mystic, magic madness that straightens
Twisted, tortured traumas until their breath
Comes easily and their importance

Resounds like blessed opportunities.
No one on this side of the grave imagines
The endless openings that curl and wreath
Even yet around each unrecovered
Moment of the past. An amazing now,
Bending under futures’ pressures straightens

And heals even that most regretted traitor’s
Kiss. It harrows hell and finds unfortunates
Who could not imagine or dream a knowing
Happiness. Their lives lost and unmanaged,
Unremembered shall be recovered
And they will rise up breathing.

Laboratory Rats

These little guys are born to search about
In affluent mansions and filthy shacks
As bitter thoughts rehearsed shut blessings out.
They breed and thrive in crevices and cracks

From affluent mansions to filthy shacks
Their feverish claws and black snouts fierce
They breed and thrive in crevices and cracks,
Through cement walls and wooden floors they pierce

Their feverish claws and black snouts fierce
As angry notions set afire the past
Through cement walls and wooden floors they pierce,
These sordid thoughts that leave my soul aghast

As angry notions set afire the past
The rats they run these mazes in their dreams
Like sordid thoughts that leave my soul aghast
They ruminate on narrow, tortured seams

The rats they run these mazes in their dreams
Commit to memory the twisted scene
And ruminate on narrow, tortured seams
Of lessons hard, resentful, bitter, mean

Commit to memory the twisted scene
Resuming days with angers freshly armed
Of lessons hard, resentful, bitter, mean
And slights, insults, and tender feelings harmed

Resuming days with angers freshly armed
Like rats who memorize in sleep the torrid
Slights, insults, and tender feelings harmed
And Satan from his tortured Sheol is horrid

Like rats I memorize in sleep the torrid
Bitter cup spills through my blood and speech
And Satan from his tortured Sheol is horrid
While human pleasures fading out of reach

The bitter cup flows through my blood and speech
Its stench like putrid odors endless reek
And human pleasures fading out of reach
Until the madness reaches such a peak

Its stench like putrid odors endless reek
And something breaks, a snap within unheard
The gnawing madness reaches such a peak
Their midnight scuffling speaks a two-edged word

And something breaks, a snap within now heard
That even rats can find a better path
Their midnight scuffling speaks a two-edged word
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath”

And even rats have found a better path
As ancient lessons echo from the deep
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath”
For dreaming animals relearn in sleep

As ancient lessons echo from the deep
Synapses firing softly through the night
For dreaming animals relearn in sleep
And morning finds them racing with delight

Synapses firing softly through the night
Beloved dark and labyrinthine lanes
And morning finds them racing with delight
Where sunless dark and brilliance never wane

They love the dark and labyrinthine lanes
And lead me from the world of my disgrace –
Where sunless dark and brilliance never wane
In knowledge of their simple earth-bound place.

They lead me from the world of my disgrace –
My unforgotten misbegotten feuds --
By knowledge of their simpler, earth bound grace
I’ve settled down where gentle kindness broods

Dismissing all my misbegotten feuds
For bitter thoughts rehearsed shut blessings out
And loveliness with gentle kindness broods.
These little guys were born to search this out.

Pantoum

I’ll always take delight
In staying one place not saying goodbye
The cords of my heart are tight
You see, when I go I leave with a sigh

In leaving a place and saying goodbye
A harvest of anger insults
You see, when I go I leave with a sigh
With a scathing list of faults

A harvest of anger insults
The green reminiscence of long ago
With a scathing list of faults
Like bluebottle flies in garbage grow

The green reminiscence of long ago
Somewhere fresh with life
Like bluebottle flies in garbage grow
On the sickly edge of strife

Somewhere fresh with life
Simmers a world of homely dreams
On the prickly edge of strife
A promised land of honeyed streams

Simmers a world of homely dreams
The chords of my heart are light
A promised land of honeyed streams
I’ll always take delight

A Wreath Poem

The leafless black bole oak trees standing mute
Their stand before the winter blast defiant done,
Await the blast of new spring life from chthonic roots
That spring from carboned, billion-layered life.
Their layered leaves have fed the hungry earth
As earthworms plowed the humus underground
And now the ground is rising up in wonder
To wonder-strike the eye and air with leaf.

When she looked at me

When she looked at me I thought she turned her head.
It was the slightest twist, a look of vague surprise.
She caught my eye, perhaps I caught her glance
At me. Another hour the moment would pass
As all moments pass into that River Lethe
As if they never happened.

Really nothing in that silent gym had happened.
I saw her slender form, her blue eyes, and flaxen head
Of hair. I noticed my pleasure in surprise
As if I might yet be worth a second glance.
It might be fun to talk with her, to pass
Some time by the River Lethe.

I wish I could drink from that River Lethe
And forget some things that happened
Long ago. I would turn my life and head
Another direction. I might surprise
Myself with contentment. There’d be no fiery glance
To throw me into confusion. I could pass

My life on quiet gentle trails, explore a safer pass
Through lower mountain gaps and sip from Lethe
Streams both up and down. Whatever happened
Would not be so important. I’d let a wiser head
Than mine deal with the occasional surprise.
I might pause only in the forest clearings to glance

With satisfaction on my life. Once a casual glance
Through a restaurant window – I often eat alone to pass
The time -- sent me plunging for the River Lethe.
A one-time lover, absently staring through the pane, happened
To walk by as I raised my head.
We shared a painful start, a shocked surprise.

In that brief moment of mutual, unwanted surprise
I saw her lovely, familiar face transformed from empty glance
To angry fear. In that same instant my quiet passing
of an evening meal, left me thirsty for the waters of the Lethe,
Suddenly deeply shaken and scared, as if it happened
Over and over again, a curse upon my head.

I’ll turn my head, I’ll be surprised;

I’ll steal a glance as you pass by,

And drown us both in Lethe’s stream, as if we never happened. 

No Man's Land

He’s lost to us he’ll not come home
The church your friends we’re here for you
His family prays in the waiting room.

We hear your cries they’re killing us
Death’s placid stare across the line
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home

Our trenches dug, our lines of prayer
We’ll not back off, our God is good
His family prays in the waiting room.

You’ve got the best care in the world
They won’t surrender you to death
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home

It’s all we do to stay this close
We sanitize each thing we touch
His family prays in the waiting room.

There is no life in the DMZ
And ICU survives on hope
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home
His family prays in the waiting room.

Paperweight Sonnets

1)
I walked along a northern shore and found
A pebble in my hands. This solid rock
Must weather waves and crushing ice that shock
Its razored unrelenting ridges round
Until uncalloused hands caress it. Worth
No more than sentiment, a paperweight,
It idles on my desk; it's likely fate,
To settle as my sediment to earth.
Once formed within a molten core, condensed,
And broken from nomadic mountain stone,
Its timeless, reckless tale it cannot own.
It knows no self. My sentience breaks against
Its surface, slaps and churns, but can’t displace
A bit of mica from its scabrous face.


2)
My desk without its usual piled debris
Reveals a wide expanse of wood, and one
Remaining paperweight. A falling ton
Of shattered granite, milled and ground-down
scree,
Has left this solitary boulder shard
Ensconced upon my desk, like Hector’s stalled
Attack upon Atrides’ naval wall.
Defying time or tempering; it’s hard
Resistance challenges the polished plane
Of lacquered wood. So easy to remove,
But grim, it glowers and would cut a groove
To anchor itself there. It threatens pain
Upon the flesh that one time felt its sting
In ancient battle from a rawhide sling.

3)
The diamond on her finger wakened hope
That slumbered in this paperweight of mine.
This mongrel rock has no distinction fine
But if there were a prospect, might elope
With solitaire of higher social caste.
It bears within its variegated line
Old veins of quartz and granite, flecks that shine
And gleam like stars. Although it has a past
Not lustrous, but of many shady years,
This paperweight forgets his former life,
And dreams of cultured days and pretty wife.
Alas, the lovely gem prefers her peers
Despite the stony heart so sorely smit.
By crystal purity he’s ground to grit.


4)
This ornamental basalt lightly weighs
The piled-up papers on my desk, as if
It never knew its gravity. Adrift
On seas of time, it floats through current days
Without a sigh. A thousand years are but
A moment to this rock; a day not worth
The mentioning. It’s font in fiery earth
And early years in earthen womb – deep shut
In stygian gloom a million years and more –
Are not a wretched memory; nor, carved
By raging storms, has this stone ever starved
For love. It only shudders at the roar
Of wind and rain and fire and quake and blast
That mean it must be shattered at the last.

Opening the Gospel of Mark

Astonished, see this man who comes so free.
No fetters bind, no chains can hold him back.
He roars across the land and Herod's pack,
Confounded in their own hypocrisy,
Are driven with hyena Pharisee
Into bewilderment. These shepherds lack
The courage and the spirit to attack
A Lion’s liberating ministry.
His coming dooms their wretched tyranny,
And now their rigid discipline is slack;
Resorting without hope to whip and rack
They cannot keep the Cat from walking free.
For Jesus will be judge of all the earth,
And by his joy he calculates our worth.

Bartimaeus

How much to you was that gorgeous cloak
That lay abandoned as you rushed to him?
Did sighted strangers wonder that so trim
Adornment could be found on poorer folk?
“Take courage, Pal. He’s calling you.” They said
As if you suffered from their lack of nerve.
Your desperate need had taught you how to serve
Yourself, and toss aside the senseless dread
Of merchants, pushing crowds, and soldiers’ threats.
So hearing Jesus pass you came right out
And taught me how to pray with every lout
Who can’t afford the leisure of regrets:
Jesus, Son of David, look at me.
Jesus, Son of God, I want to see.

A Christmas Letter to an Irish Friend

Dear Maisie,
Your postcard came in May.
I knew the site at once --
the entrance stone, the roof-box, and gypsum face --
the passage-grave at Newgrange.
Without masonry, wheels, or shovels
your ancestors piled stone on stone
to welcome the frozen dawn of a new day,
the shortest day of the year.
They welcomed the sun of God
from a holy place.

In December
at sunrise,
I think of that marvelous hill.
I wonder at its antiquity -- some five thousand years!
With straw baskets and wooden sleds
they moved rocks into place.
They poured such energy into earth at the solstice --
how much more did they surely give to
eating, singing, dancing, dressing,
love-making, gift-giving, and worship
during that early Yuletide?
The angular, swirling lines of the entrance stone
describe a storm of festivity.
Even yet, those strands of memory
swirl around your churches and bind you to your past.

This postcard is an icon for me,
an entrance into earth.
The ghost of Christmas past
beckons from this tomb.
We will not comprehend the feast
nor save the world
until we follow her through that corridor
to those ancient times
to visit those who pray so earnestly.
She sings from that enchanted stone
as the sun mounts Earth’s eastern edge on Solstice Day.
Prostrate before his feeble strength,
Charming, seductive, passionate, and pious,
She lifts herself with intense human effort.
She welcomes his embrace with festive, religious effort.
His moist wanton eyes must worship her.
She pulls him down to her and into her,
Lest he forget her and her children.
He falls on that tumescent hill,
Covers, penetrates, and warms it now
with swelling strength.
Her people revel in their fond embrace
And in their bondage to sun and earth and seasons.
In spring she is pregnant
Thank God! – as you Irish would say --
And the sun is hot and whole and healed.

Our Santa Claus makes a sorry spook
of Christmas present.
Fixed on pleasure, besotted by greed,
Afflicted with futility,
With neither fear nor faith,
fertility nor fervor,
He has lost his memory -- poor soul --
and will pass by Easter.

I found the Ghost of Christmas Future
within the womb of Newgrange --
and I leapt for joy.
She said, “This is the only world
that you will ever see!”
Could we Christmas out there
without earth, without Solstice?
The future showed us Earth from outer space
whirling round her sun.
We saw his frank, admiring eye
inspiring her virginity,
filling her fecundity.
A child can spin a classroom globe
a thousand times a minute.
A thousand years are but a moment in his sight.
The future showed us that.

Christmas is as old as earth
And will last as long.
Before the first farmer
cried in panic at the cold distance of the sun,
before Africa ventured into northern lands,
before the first green slime of life appeared
she was whirling, twirling, dancing, swirling
around her lover-star.

Only moments ago,
as the ardent Earth embraced the sun at Newgrange,
Christmas welcomed her Lord --
“Fulfillment of the Feast!” --
she called him.
We were born neither to escape the earth,
nor to destroy her,
But to sing her songs, celebrate her seasons,
declare her thanks, and welcome her Savior.
When you and I, Maisie,
are nothing more than moldy dust,
waiting silent in some unremembered tomb
for a stirring breath of wind,
and the sounding of our names
in a dear familiar voice
she will yet be whirling, twirling, dancing, swirling around her lover-star.