“Love’s Customer”

They say LOVE cannot be bought
Neither wrapped or tied up with gold ribbons
In a box—
That it is free,
Deliberate and liberally
Begot,
Like a mountain tune whistling through
Dark wide caves
And rivers that run and
Meet the looming ocean waves.

Still, our love was paid for,
Bought with another soul’s blood.
It was wrapped in crimson’s regality
Then tied and nailed on a cross…
It was never free.
The price—
Beyond money’s worth
Or human validity…

Beginning with a virgin’s pure cry
Then, A Father’s gift--
Heaven swaddled within
A hay-filled manger;
And alas, under Bethlehem’s starlit view
Christmas’ Greatest little Customer.

“Burl Ives at Christmas”

I like Burl Ives—his gregarious lilt wiles me away to
Mountainous men with their creeds,
Boorishness and laughter.
The “Holly and the Ivy” couldn’t sound more fresh
To my senses than when he burst out, free
As a deer in acres of clover!
I play him every Christmas season like a ritual, a
Veracity of goodwill, ageless glee
And winsome chatter
That encompasses the memorandums of
Tomorrows possibilities.

“Thanksgiving Eve”

My evening has been whittled down to a soft,
Easy listening, a meditative sauntering.
The Ave Maria on my stereo of a thousand functions
Playing comfort to my last few November nights.

Emma lies at my feet stretching her importance
Like Greta Garbo and I,
Reclining on bliss.

Should I be taken at this moment I’d lift no regret
To the angels, no resentment on my shoulders and
No murmuring of “why me” for heaven to disdain.

Gratitude-- my only yoke
My sole hike.

“Afternoon Worship”

Days like these where the sky can’t make up
Its mind, should it sprinkle or shower, blow a few
Clouds or open its gateways with gold are
Little quagmires for my thoughts…
Mud seems to be intoxicating to a child.
Simplicity is the encomiums of its living.
But the sky’s aluminum and changing lines
Beckons me to complexities that clot.

I tip and sip, pulling at webs and threads
Before my thinking eye, wondering if the fog
Will dissipate or thicken should I forego or
Continue in my search for Godliness.
Shocking silence after a battle can leave
Behind a mist of strange sounds we can almost
Trace with our soul and carefully feel with our ear
For its rare form of holy heaviness.

Worshipping at times can rifle me to grounds
I have never softened beneath my knee, it can
Eliminate, illuminate and chafe at the misdemeanors
Of my mortality with one remembrance.
This day of sorts granges me to no mile or
Border but to ride, to plow up my heart and
Let the winds clear the debris of anxiousness
While I lift up my eyes and summon from a distance.

“Clinging to Air”

This is an infertile night; words aren’t comforting.
Music resonates like cymbals over my head.
The creaking screen door meddles cold inside and
Writing
Is
Like
A
Seizure
At
Bay.

Oh if I could just amble, do some aligning,
Be a little marginal with living like a consonant
You can’t hear but is still there in sight,
And
Pray
This
Misplaced
Creature
Away.

“Thinking Out Loud”

It is the slim gray slant between truth and gray truth
--Hitching my buggy before the horse
that I sometimes call “good.”

The ecology of righteousness is one,
An undivided pie…

But my flesh nods to sleep when the scenery
Wears a pretty hood
And the waves look bigger than the sea.

I try to squeeze myself between the lines
Like a misplaced comma
Wanting to “belong” yet standing out.

Yet it is Righteousness
Eliciting the “good” we cower from
That ratifies our name in a heavenly crowd.

“Waking”

The birds were so mournful this morning.

My windows were wide open and their life blew
Sweet yet dissonant—
I didn’t move,
My hearing sharpened just enough where every
Other outside clamor dropped
Like a heavy hammer, no leftover ringing consonant.
Their elegy was fluid; it flung from one branch
To the next like a spider web—impeccable!

I envisioned my demise as beautiful.

“One Night After”

The moon has no mercy on breaking hearts,
It can glimmer away and soften any wrinkle to
Impeccability without refrain or formal apologies
For its unmistakable effigy
Upon the soul.

“AT ALMOST 43”

I wonder at times when every summer begins
To deflate and I nomadically withdraw to
Quiet caverns: how long?
Will next spring still exhilarate me?

I have crossed many calendars and puppeted myself
Across many stages,
Caliberating my performances
Less than the “peoples choice awards.”

“how long?’ seems so unending
like an un-thwarted migraine.

Still, every spring,
I pull out my shears and
Fasten a daisy to my meditations of another winter.

“Temple Attendance”

In the Lord’s House I resemble one
More steward ready and willing,
No distinctions between my gifts from
The others offer…

Every hand…
Every foot…
Every bow and rising…
Every pronunciation in unison—
{Angels in a procession…}
All empowered from on high

Silently I whisper sacred promises
For another lamb entering the
Consecration of heart, mind and
Soul beyond the tenuous veil

To commune there with His Glory and
The promise of her light enlarging
Into His
Whom she now
Receives like an easy yoke
And invisible panoply
Eternal power…

I am rescued again by a “stranger no more.”

“Such A Tenuous Thing”

Ever felt your divinity seeping through
Your eyes?

I sought and struggled to withhold it but
Then it suddenly sighed,
Mingled with my lips
And breath,
And
Escaping stealthily with no words
I
Wiped.

“Shock”

I didn’t say much,
I was hunched over by your immersing my soul
In a bucket of ice cold water then
Hanging my confusion out to hang
In a thunderous roll
As though I were an old cloth with no
Use
But to wipe your feet on
After walking in the mud
For too long.

“Lilt and Lint”

there were only a few birds at light’s fair
this birch-white morning—
I did not peel at the covers to bear
Open my mind’s reasoning
But I ferris-wheeled my cares
Back under the blanketing
Of another’s day
Share
And kept on
Dreaming.

this
emptiness
can bloat me
sometimes
like
blue
gas
from a torch.

pain scours and salts the gourds of life
that we passively taste;
it bakes into our bland souls the yeast of
questionings only God can answer
as we take bites of Time’s
and end up ready for more
but always at His un-intrepid pace.

if tomorrow would burn out like a candle
I’d have learned God prophesied only my freedom.
That matter exists with or without Him
And that He was never my enemy but my Counsel.

“The Meeting”

I met him and everything hushed around my ears.
Elijah’s image rose in my head and I stood,
Watching, waiting for divine instruction…

My eyes watered at his meekness and I wanted
To give him my few crumbs of love, which he
Took,
Considered like costly pearls,
And then put them in his coat pocket.

His voice was soft, tempting no one to listen but
Listen you must—
His eyes round blue marbles piercing none yet
Crumbling my doubts with a twinkle.

Our mutual admiration sped around all those
That stood near and eaves dropped enough to discover
Two mortals speaking the same language
But one
tutored on bended knees
like an Elisha.