2009 November

Wheat among the Weeds
Diaspora out in the world
From the tabernacle to synagogues
from the sanctuary to the end of time
the believers, the chosen
living side by side
the lost and the last
those who will be gathered up
and those for the flames
the unquenchable fire
at the end of the age
before the rise
the full flowering
of the kingdom

4/27/06 9:15pm
started June 2005
see Matthew 13:24-40; Psalm 73; Esther 3:8a; Zechariah 7:11-15

You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;
You are a pretty bird that pecks at me;
You are a little squirrel on a tree,
Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine;
A diamond, torn from a crystal mine,
Not like that milky treasure of the sea,
A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully
Carven to cut, and faceted to shine.

If you are flame, it dances and burns blue;
If you are light, it pierces like a star
Intenser than a needlepoint of ice.
The dextrous touch that shaped the soul of you,
Mingled, to mix, and make you what you are,
Magic between the sugar and the spice.

Always remember that when we say
that all men are created equal
we are only joking.

We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile,
And passed to Livia’s rich red mural show,
Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico,
We gained Caligula’s dissolving pile.

And each ranked ruin tended to beguile
The outer sense, and shape itself as though
It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow
Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle.

When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head,
Began to melodize a waltz by Strauss:
It stirred me as I stood, in Caesar’s house,
Raised the old routs Imperial lyres had led,

And blended pulsing life with lives long done,
Till Time seemed fiction, Past and Present one.

She steps into the dark swamp
where the long wait ends.

The secret slippery package
drops to the weeds.

She leans her long neck and tongues it
between breaths slack with exhaustion

and after a while it rises and becomes a creature
like her, but much smaller.

So now there are two. And they walk together
like a dream under the trees.

In early June, at the edge of a field
thick with pink and yellow flowers

I meet them.
I can only stare.

She is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen.

Her child leaps among the flowers,
the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.

May all my enemies go to hell,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel

He is the creator, the eternal father
the one there at the beginning, before the beginning
the one there who stilled the chaos,
who conjured the world and all that are in it
who saved the people, over and over again
who made the rainbow and the covenant
who is there, the Godhead,
the king of all kings,
lord of all, for all time
loving, supporting, saving
all of us,
waiting, with grace
for us to approach His throne

October 17, 2007 12:52pm
part of the Apostle’s Creed

Lord, how easy it is
to speak of love,
to say, to pledge,
undying, unending love
claiming to understand,
to appreciate the meaning
of real love; oh we see but
only a foggy image of
love in the mirror,
a weak shadow of
the full flowering of Your love.

Help us Lord,
to take steps, on the strength of Your foundation,
even tentative, faltering steps,
even in our infancy,
to make love come alive for another,
through unexpected, kind words,
a genuine smile, signs of real respect,
true appreciation, servanthood.

Help us put others before ourselves,
to wait for all, not just our turn.
Remind us Lord to
Take the time to find the good in each
and speak words of love,
whenever we speak, in whatever we do.
Amen.

August 6, 2007 22:21, edited on August 7, 2007 7:07am
to use as a prayer during devotion time
1 Corinthians 13 and
Our mission trip,
from Wesley United Methodist Church,
Concord, NH and from First Unit ed Methodist Church,
Hudson, MA to Jacksonville and Machias, ME
to the Down East Maine Mission,
Jacksonville United Methodist Campground,
East Machias, ME

Before the ice is in the pools –
Before the skaters go,
Or any check at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow –

Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day –
What is only walking
Just a bridge away –

That which sings so — speaks so –
When there’s no one here –
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?

If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, ‘He holds her dear,’
And shook with hate and fear.
But O! ’twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being grey,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
‘He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.’

For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As ’twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.