Friday, April 8, 2022

God our Shelter

 

God our Shelter 
left his home 
to dwell with every beast
no roof his own

no pillow, either 
yet see how they're kept 
safe beneath pinions 
safe, on his breast

Haiku for Matt, final version


The crack in your voice

When I asked if you were well

Says I'm not alone

The Garden, in Part, draft no. 9*

 

In the evening
I walked by the garden
the old couple had tilled
on the corner of Jordan
and Highview

and wept.
Would that the garden 
we had made 
had been like that one.
It feels too late to start

growing. The soil
is clay and tears
the only water.
There's been much talk

about how parents ought
to bless their children;
I never dreamed
how much I'd need
my children

to bless me.
The children are old enough
to get married themselves now
and, post-covid,
banished to---not from
--the gardens

Here, when I look out at them
through my kitchen window
supple-skinned,
splayed out on the lawn
moving their day
from church to tent
and back again,
I'm in turns hopeful
and ashamed

and proud
their garden will be much richer
and more fragrant than mine.
They are tending it
so well, down to the very

ordering of their seeds.
Plans have been changing 
these days--
But the weddings still go on
More people or less.
More space or less.
More risk or less.
The love,
it goes on, too,
more or ...

more.


* * *

When night falls, the fireflies
with their defiant blinking
the improbable fireflies 
find their glow mates
in the garden's reeds.


The Lord's blessings be upon you, 
My precious, rare fireflies.
Love, 
Mom

*Poem title taken from an abstract painting I own by artist Kelly Kruse. 

Passion Haiku

 Blood red cardinal

Singing atop my thorn tree

Portends Christ’s Passion

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Renovations

Hear, in quiet McCosh

A straightened stair sighing for

Students' carving weight


Published in the class of '92 notes, March 2021 edition of the PAW.   

Robin's Nest

 A good empty

Free

Finding their wings

Just like me. 



(Insert photo of empty robin's nest here). 

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Jen with Three Ns

My J's crook wound like a lollipop

Like a fine-toothed comb was my E

True, each of my Ns had one hump only

Yet there was not one of these, but three

(I have never known when to stop,

can’t you see?)

Wordless Song, draft no. 1

Little girl by the shore

waiting for God to send

A message in a bottle

Cross the ocean blue

I am empty

I am empty

I am right where I belong

There is someone who can carry

The weight of unwrit songs

I am small but I am listening

all day long

 

Spread open the Bible

Right there on my bed

Taught that His breath fills

The book from end to end

The crucible for silver

The furnace for gold

I am empty

I am empty

I am right where I belong

There is someone who can teach me 

a wordless song,

Where there is Spirit

there is an indwelling

when he comes we will

start the truest

storytelling.

Summer Loss, draft no. 1

Love, you held on through

the last peony’s bloom, but 

missed the fireflies

Safe

He covers me with his pinions; 

He cradles me in his love; 

My Lord, he has dominion,

In this world and above.