Category: Prose

Exchanged

I stand on cliffs with rocky points and wind
To lean against the rain, the stinging lash.
Great waves, whose roaring tauntings never end,
Reach up and turn my thorny torch to ash.

With darkness wrapping ’round, I scan the storm
To beg a sign, just one, of coming day.
A whisper draws aside my rain-clad form.
It breaks above the gloom and rainy fray.

It points to unexpected lanterns, bright,
The sea and cliffs and cloud cannot reduce.
My quest reframes within against the night,
Moored down by weight of hope without excuse.

Across the hopeless sky the truth’s made known:
The Lighthouse pierces through: “You’re not alone.”

Autumn Light

Fleeting sun, departing friend,
Who calls to you, our joy to end?
Who beckons your redeeming rays
To other lands with longer days?

Did I despise your brightening hues,
Or seek another’s love to choose?
I cannot think what’s caused this rift
Between our ways. (The shadows shift.)

Your silken train of golden hair
Slips past my steps, my garden chair.
Departing glance. . . your back is all
Can see my face, return my call:

Forsake this way, time’s mystery.
Return to stay and shine on me.

23 and Me

The Lord is the one who takes care of me. I shall lack nothing.
In his care, I am fully satisfied and content.
He leads me into restful stillness.
He restores my soul.
He leads me on paths that are true and good, because he is true and good.
Even when I walk in a darkness like death, I will not be afraid of being hurt,
For you are ever with me.
Your presence guiding me there, comforts me.
You provide a feast before me out of nothing,
And full of joy, I invite my enemies to join me.
You salve my soul with honor,
And your well-supply in my life overwhelms me with abundance.
Surely goodness and mercy shall always be mine,
And we will live together in your care, now, always, and in your home,
forever.

(Psalm 23, a paraphrase)

 

Good Gifts

O, Child of Peace, across this night,
Within our hearts is all made right.
The pow’r of sin is crumbling fast,
As we are freed from prisons past.
In darkness, cold, our hearts knew pain,
Forever deep, the crimson stain.
But kingdoms fall, our fears release.
For You have come, O Child of Peace.

O, Newborn Gift, the Father’s Son,
Your presence here enfolds us, one.
Together, bound, we share the joy
You bring to earth as one, small boy.
For, since in love you’ll grow to be
Your Father’s Lamb because of me,
Your mercy rich will make me new:
A son of God because of You.

From star to star in heaven’s space
A song rings out: a song of grace.
Your music starts where sin begins.
It wakes the dead and never ends.
Our silent lives have never heard
Until tonight this healing Word.
O, may this music never cease!
Sing on, O Son, our Prince of Peace.

 

Promises kept

Solo songs celebrating the demise of the long, Dark Silence.

Fog-white greetings laughing through the fading threats of thinning ice.

Sunrises lingering now to revel and rejoice, 

Renew and restore,

Summoning the stories archived and buried carefully for future readings:

        Delivery on promises vowed at the slow closing of Autumn’s eyes.

        Spring: “It is time.”

Twilight wind

Winter speaks to the haunted side of man
And knows the things that draw him up to fire:

   The brown and gray of sunless days, 
   The snow that snows, and snows and stays,
   The thousand, different, lonely ways 
   Its twilight wind can whisper. 

And those around these places bright with light
Renew themselves in mind and spirit, deep:

   With limb and sap (the snapping blaze),
   To mock the snow that snows and stays, 
   And count a thousand, different, lonely ways 
   The twilight wind can whisper. 

Winter speaks to the haunted side of man 
And knows these things.