Beginning

The hot Durango dust
has settled, on the place where she lay.
The sky is still blue,
And the earth is still brown,
Like her eyes, and her hair and her skin.

But she is gone.
And while we search for answers,
And mourn for this ending

She soars.
Leaving the thin, transparent earth
That we call real
And finding Reality and Peace

While we wait, in the dust,
And water the future with our tears
And misunderstandings.


In memory of Daisy M. The niece of my very dear friend, who died while visiting her grandparents in Mexico.

Prairie Phoenix

A fierce dawn rises in the east,
Though the sun itself is setting.
Billowing clouds, black above
But brilliant beneath
Pour across the fields and lift
Into the limitless prairie sky.

The roaring sound of death, a furnace wind
Sweeps across the plain,
Leaving behind it nothing
But birth in the dark, scorched earth.
New life rising from the ashes,
Forced into existence by the flames.

Oubliette

Here I sit in my cozy hole.
The world above
The earth around
And around
And around
And beneath
And I sit with my thoughts
And the past.

If fear was a color, than
It would be red.
The walls of my hole are
Not red. They are blue.
And Blue is the color
Of freedom.


For I have a secret.
Here in this hole.
In the ground.
I have found
My own soul
And it has no walls
No bars, No dark.
It's cloud free
And I see
The glory of Heaven
And the one thing
That they cannot have.
They cannot have me.

Taking Flight

We try so hard to bind the universe
To hold it in our hands, and squeeze it dry.
We have to be the one, the best, the first.
We need the world to know that we can fly.

To hunger after knowledge is a gift.
The search for truth is part of who we are.
But when we think we find a bit, we lift
Our foolish, human pride, too high, too far.

For all the vastness built in time and space
Must overwhelm these creatures here below,
Who fight and plan and theorize and place
Their own importance in the search to know.

And just like Icarus, we start to fall,
And find we are mere mortals, after all.

You Are

God's hands, when you hold mine.
His fingers when you wipe away
The tears of our children.

God's feet, when you walk the road
Of a peacemaker, and when you stand
In the gap for the weak and the hurting.

God's voice, when you speak with patience
In the midst of a storm
Of frustration and fear.

God's heart, when you love me
And tell me again that you
Will never leave me while you have breath.

Through you, God reveals his love for me,
And for all those who know you.
I am blessed to be your wife,
And my prayer is to be half of what you are
Someday.

Hushed

The haze of heat rises from the baking fields.
It pushes and rushes up, up -
Lifting the clouds into towers.
A massive, white anvil fills the western sky,
And in the silent, portentous hush,
Before the Smith lowers his hammer,
A hawk hangs,
Perched between heat waves
And rushing storm,
Floating.

Pro Patria

A scrap of dead pride
In patriotic colors
Trembles in the dust.

Love's Dominion

She is a princess
So he is her king. They reign
One o'er the other.



Sorry. I pulled one off the sappy rack.

The Time Between Times

The thick, black bowl of heaven presses down,

To hold, preserve, suspend the earth below

The shuttered, secret faces; field and town

Hide mystery, expectancy and hope.

The arms of lovers, captured, intertwined,

The sundered, barren heart strains, aches to hear

The soul who sits and seeks to never find

Find, in the black, eternity draw near.

And unaware each soundless voice they raise

In answer to the enigmatic night,

In curses, desperate penitence or praise,

In consecrated fear of just and right.

Then all the world, dissatisfied, sin-shod,

Holds its breath, eyes wide, and waits for God.

Dawn

Screaming crowds call out his name
With shouts of joy and songs of praise
They honor and they marvel,
For they've waited all these years.

A quiet night of heavy dread
He kneels there, burdened, bows His head
They sit, they sleep, unknowing
As the angels wipe His tears.

Once again the crowds cry out
But now they jeer, they hate, they shout.
He bleeds, he prays, cries out, then dies.
Earth waits, dark, cold..and then it hears

One rumbling stone, one bright descending star
The cry of death, destroyed by Life,
Love's Avatar.

Delving

Knock knock

Who's there?

Aura

Aura who?

Auran't you going to let me in? It's freezing out here!


That's right folks, no deep thinking tonight. Just a laugh. If I'm lucky.

Grasping

Beauty only murmurs in my mind, it doesn't shout.
I wait here for a clear, strong signal,
Flash of vision, Bar of brilliance,
But it whispers, and it mumbles,
And I can't quite make it out.

It breaks up, starts to crackle, then it fades.
A glimpse of green and fizzy gold it shines
And melts away, it drips away,
The melody is just one note,
One rest, one line of shades.

And here I sit, with dreams of what might be,
As my mind, that idle Judas, laughs at me.