music is poetry too

creation fall redemption

I dream of rivers - cold and wild
cutting through the capacious countryside.
They are light and dark, full of shadows
yet translucent.

And of the sun
pouring forth its opulent warmth, heat,
from the fire of its heart, onto the world,
bathing it in its light.
She runs her fingers through the delicate
branches and leaves of each tree.
Her nymphs dance and sparkle
leaping from silvery edge to silvery edge
of the waves.
It is beautiful, it is good, once was said.

We walk, our bodies held by the earth's
bright abundant existence. Gentle.
Our rhythm falls in line with a better, older time.

It is to be alive, it is joy. Shouting
our praise higher than the stars
we hold onto one another,
tightly, and smile.

But sometimes, in want, in need,
we break apart -
and wander alone to the dark.

We shall come back
to this place.
To peace.

Featuring: Kahlil Gibran

Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

winter places

there are still many things
buried in desolate cold winter
places. looked upon gently
by the dawn sun, barely touched
by arctic winds.

here ice dances upon the air,
glittering like a thousand tiny jewels.
terrifying in their act of preservation.

we cut through it with our warm bodies
and chirping voices. we watch
as the snow melts in our hands.

featuring: e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

this picture made me smile...

source

There is much to learn
here by the blue water.
Her soul is ever drinking
in the sky
and she moves
to touch every little thing
with life.

the dream that was the dream

as the winter wind closed
upon the year,
the clouds wept bitterly above.
i stopped dead, wondering if
it was all a dream,
the fog gathered
round me like a sheath.
still, i went further
to hunt the soft light
hiding behind hesitant corners.
small lambent wings
rummaged for harbor
through the shifting
crepuscular streets.

Featuring...an old favorite

Gerard Manley Hopkins.

I took a class on Hopkins a few years ago with about 12 other students and one Loren Wilkinson of Regent College. It has proved to be one of the most influential classes I've taken in my life. Hopkins' poetry is no mere feel-good art, nor has it perfect poetic meter. What it does have is the kind of theological depth that when tasted, nourishes for long periods of time. Here is a beauty:

Binsley Poplars

felled 1879

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew -
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

its been awhile since i've posted anything on here... maybe it is due to a lag in inspiration, or maybe its been awhile since i had a chance to breathe.


blue lights burn dimly
through the grey shadow of night.
there are children in this city
orphans seeking bread
hunting down the dancing ribbons
that have strung life along
so far.
the darkness would spread
its hand over them, if it could.
but they hold within them the quiet seed
of the morning -
the everlasting morning -
a song that echoes without end
to which darkness has no threat.