Lazarus Hope

This day he is risen, he is risen indeed,

Both liturgy and hymn confess it is so.

Yet morning light, through the window,

Only a dawning of another day of need,

Heralds.

John the revelator, beloved and exiled,

Witnessed the great dragon cast down,

By a son of man draped in crystal gown,

Crucified lamb, risen Lord of all reconciled,

Behold.

Chapels to cathedrals, in epochs of waiting,

So my own journey,  in a smattering of days

Luster's dimming radiance of languishing rays,

The eucharistic gospel with the fire abating,

Grows cold.

Still, Lazarus and Thomas cannot forget,

That cherished behold the fragility of death,

Cold bodies and spirits quiver with new breath,

Charity and hope overshadow sorrow and regret.

As foretold,

As retold.

Hope,

Still.

Glacial Rest

Wintry zephyrs dash and dart 'mid trees and walls,

Skating o'er grass, whispering through windows.

As clouds shiver in the twilight, sleeting misty,

O'er every dormant thing! Frosty imps proceed,

Collecting icy cumulous tears, with glassy reed--

To gloss each branch, each leaf -- clear and crispy.

As dormers and portholes crystal smeared shadows,

Which glaciate lovely as frost whirls and sprawls,

O'er glade or wood, or nook,

O'er every glacial rest.

Hush.

Marital Octennial

 

Strange the way love fills all the space,

As flowers shed their pollen on the wind,

As baked bread evokes dormant hunger,

The veil in the breeze flutters and thins,

And a sacred presence emerges in grace.

You!

Lovely how eyes can shine in any light,

As the deepest ocean dwellers luminesce,

As precious stones glint in the deep places,

From the deep you beckoned, I acquiesced, 

Days unto years walking in deepening delight.

She!

Bittersweet the counting of our amorous days,

This octet of years will not pass this way again.

As octopuses embrace but once, then fade away.

Yet as the sun beckons, each day I will ascend, 

Move my ebbing frame into your beatific gaze.

Thou!

Blessed that the common places are ever dusted,

In words, glances, tears, giggles -- the very threads, 

Of the fabric of our common life steadily inweaved.

This nuptial sacrament, renewed in wine and bread.

Love -- the home, the safe place that can be trusted.

Beloved Renita,

Beloved of Renita.

Covet

Young smooth woodland, culled of beast, dryad, shades,

Small groves given reprieve, with surface roots delving,

Sifting sod, sustained on the ancient primal essence,

Of the old ones, fallen forests festering putrescence, 

Forgotten nymphs, now compost the humus - feeding,

Saplings, orphaned roots cede to encroaching glades.

Further down, the blood of still more ancient spirits,

Great titans that ruled seas, plains, and woodlands,

Bones etching stones in a revelation of past destiny,

Dinosaurs, dragons, leviathan, a veritable bestiary, 

With forgotten flora -- bleed crude into miserly hands,

These covetous exiles, consuming creation -- dispirit,

The holy places.

Hand

 Milky moon rays trickle o'er fingers and palm, then

Silhouette this collage of keratin and pocked skin,

Wrapped sinewy and protruding in dissimilar quin,

Unfolding in the light, then crumpling in chagrin,

Each gnarly knuckled, entwining with it's twin,

Enrobed in wisps of prayer.

Visitation

Cold worlds, formed of the debris of stars,

Embers of heaven in endless spectacles,

Wordless art galleries attest the ineffable, 

Orbs hewn by powers in galactic wars,

Left barren and beautiful.

Endless are the artful surfaces, frozen or afire,

Which crater, crack, or crag o'er rolling horizons,

Pooling elements reflecting glorious denizens --

-- Suns trilling deep o'er the expanse, a vast choir.

A pining of loving and rueing.  

Each star born as love fires in nebula nurseries,

Cast out like fledglings to join stellar throngs,

One watery world of one fledgling star-songs,

A canticle uniting each breath in a sanctuary.

God's language and liturgy.

That earth should suckle the One,

Maker of suns, our brother-son.

This comely sphere radiates the divine breath,

Seen swaying in the wind or galloping o'er planes,

Look up, like a cub licking in a cool spring rain.

Soar, leave earth, stars, 'ere the edge of death,

Beloved of star maker.

Laud,

Laugh,

Love.

She, in Sacred Time

It is a wonder, that as years form landscapes,

Orchestrating winds and rains, sun and moon,

Eroding, shifting, sands, rock-face, or woodland.

Such the wonder, a frightful encompassing hand,

Whittles bones, cracking skin, every day, ever soon,

'Til our emerging ghosts, tempered, reveal their shape,

In fading glory.

It is a mystery, that the one whose eyes hold me dear,

Once a stranger, now the sun I circle in love's gravity, 

Captured I - dry and pocked,  like a waterless moon,

Surrendered. She- tending as a gardener at high noon,

O'er years her charity, in lament, in grace and sagacity, 

For better or for worse, never ceased to hold me near,

Limping t'ward glory.

It is an awe, that many waters cannot quench the love,

Though my back bends to wind, rain, sun and moon,

While my spirit kneels trembling in the fearful presence,

A burning coal purging mouth and mind in holy penance,

She, my sun, lifts my gaze that we both may swoon,

Greying, bending, young again old souls, partaking of,

Bread, wine, glory.

She,

Renita,

Awakens me.