Auras

Huddled beneath the stars,
Pockets of evolution,
A million photon fires,
Light circles of communion,
Where dreams or specters tide,
In a darkly dank reunion,
Resists.

And light to light will pool,
Against the pitch - auroral,
Within this fog of flickers,
Life-stories bind like coral,
Love babbles and love bonds,
In both revelry and quarrel,
Grapples.

Then in the deep midnight,
Wicks and lights expire,
And loves to bodies cleave,
In need and in desire,
'Til consciousness recedes,
As the embers that expire,
In whispers.

Gratitude

For every breath as every prayer,
The presence stubbornly is there,
For every light that cracks the dark,
And every time the hope does spark,
And for kin, and for friends,
The longing that never ends,
Bow in gratitude.

For every morsel that sustains,
For living through the daily pains,
Beginning with a burning breath,
Until we lose the race with death,
For every sound, and every word,
Confess the joy in the absurd,
Pray in gratitude.

For the mystery of divine love,
Sacrament Spirit, the burning dove,
Alights amid the killing fields,
Eucharist hope and faith that yields
A fruit of kindness and of charity,
In places dark, there comes a clarity,
Received in gratitude.

Ghost

Strange when eyes are stranger,
Reflected in the reflection,
Vacuous, bloodless, soulless,
Beyond the warm selection,
Of trust, of troth, of truth;
Consumed by the infection,
That pulses through every life,
Every pleasure, every affection,
Numbing the living from life,
Heart locked in hibernation.
Spectral connection.

Cold when the eyes of a beloved,
Glassily glare, abandon amore,
Numbness, nothing, no one,
Walking through that empty door.
Familiar chill to everyone,
Longing for that touch. Encore!
Loss is life, as life is loss,
This life on the mortal shore.
Until passing through the shadow,
To see what we were first made for.
Formed perfection.

Sons

Every day, these boyish grins,
And words bustling in banter,
Waiting in joys and chagrins,
Only for the right to enter,
And to play.

This young man will sit with me,
And share a place in his world,
Of starfields and places free,
A country where his flag unfurls,
In proud display.

This boy talks a joyful prattle,
His presence, both tough and tender,
And fear and pride will do battle,
Yet beloved, they do surrender,
'Tis love's sway.

One solitary on the shore,
One loquacious stories on,
Both wilt at what's in store,
In the onset of the dawn,
And the day.

Yet fraternal bonds grow deep,
Blood, a link that will not fail,
When they laugh, when they weep,
In jubilee or in dark travail,
It will pay.

Every moment the child recedes,
And features of the man appear,
Dreams and dreads, fertile seeds,
That grow in time, year unto year.
Where they stray.

Jonathan,
Benjamin,
Days like sand,
Slipping.

Contrite

What is it to breathe the earth?
Curved spine, and hands in dirt,
Palms — muddy stigmata mess,
Sighs unveil a world of hurt.
The rift cuts within, without,
Thus all is broke and pervert.

Crumpled corpus in folded limbs,
Prayer bones seep in the earth,
In fetal frame, in broken breath,
Confession cries for the rebirth,
Of sacrament — that sacred spark,
Of solemn fear, of tender mirth.

And in the cleansing of the dew,
The earth exudes musty and sweet,
Smells of death and life from death,
Lift the head, the light to meet,
As the flower, as the chrysalis,
In newborn tremble from the peat,
Lifted.