Poems
beatific vision
for Carol
when I awake
I am holding your hand
calmly studying the features
of your face
the blazing eyes
now pools of blue-green water
since we are naked
I swim diving deep
returning for a breath
only after seeing
mysteries unfold
their petals
releasing seeds
like white moths
thousands rising by me
beating their wings
on my skin as they pass
singing praise
in variations
that melt the snow
in the andes
sending distant glaciers
crashing and streams
leaping over jutting
boulders falling
in foaming bubbles
sparkling in the lavish
orange-red of the setting suns
I take the sun closest
and press it into my chest
igniting first my trunk
then all my limbs
before glinting on the tips
of my hair and beard
this is the first
millennium
the second we spend
delighting in the words
it is finished
as expressed
in each of earth’s
ten thousand languages
by the third millennium
I have reached
your other hand
and holding it
opens me
to the welcoming joy
of the father
revealed in the lips
lines and eyes
on which I first gazed
while orchestra and chorus
of countless millions
each holding
the same hands sing
they are a chalice
full to the brim yet
accepting a steady stream
of blood red wine
8 Feb 2010
And I--in righteousness I will see
your face; when I awake,
I will be satisfied with seeing
your likeness. Ps 17
The Wind
All these years to become familiar
with the ways of the wind.
Now I know It goes where it wants.
That it can't be seen,
evidence of its presence everywhere
I bicycle westward in it
without clothes I expose
every inch. Limbs lapping up
atmosphere. Leaves of grass
shuttering beside me,
breeze blown. I seize the day
of gales and grin.
I open my mouth to the storm,
and suck it in, stretching my lungs
like sails puffed up to breaking,
embracing the blast. Give me air,
inflate me, blow me away.
let the blinking infant in me gasp again
learning the mechanics of intimacy.
Wild flowers
This morning the birds have risen up
In praise of dandelions and spiderwort.
They will not be quieted
All attempts of blossoms to remain demure
are lost in the extravagance of ruffle and color.
Wake up my eyes to their terrible incompleteness,
To my own appalling blindness
to the delicate shapes and textures
that yellow the land
and speak the language of the sun,
telling a story in hushed purple
something even the violence of the rain
and the rough pads
on the feet of wolves must respect
Theophany
God appears often
notwithstanding the eyes’
limitations. Appear is the term
one uses for God’s willingness
to make the sensual apparatuses
extraneous the awareness
of the sun’s proximity to a blind man
I am folded between the pages
of revelation your words pressing me
like a flower sunlight singed
and waiting for the transmission
the very immaculate descension
of your next theophany
to unfold like the eyes
on the light-dusted
wings of a moth
The Movements of Grace
The grace is yours by definition
I stand high on the teaching of the Fathers
Inscribed as steps to your presence
And stepping up I go down
Into a world of groaning for you
the child pulls back and turns again
to go upward lifting a heavy foot
and grasping at the hand extended
I sink into white smoke
the incense of prayer that surrounds you
seated yet standing you’ve risen
to greet me the least but my effort
blackens the clouds around you
who are there and here
and your most holy presence
too intimate to be seen
