Ode to a Son in Law

 

When a girl child is no longer a child,

And begins to look under new leaves,

Questioning, discovering, and loving,

New loves, new places, new thoughts,

A parent -- or step, both joys and grieves,

That inevitable call that beguiles.

One day, came he whose eyes adored,

Formed in faith, and a rich imaginary,

Wise and wisening, behold him inweave,

His heart, his life, with hers, and then ours,

Joyful, trusting , tearful  -- did he marry,

Thus bound sweetly in these tender cords.

As days to months to years, our fellowship,

Enriching our circle in punnery and poise,

As seasons season with mirth and melancholy,

Incipient creases reveal a depth in his soul,

As in all-- testing reveals his metal, the alloys,

Of Matt, husband -- even in son-in-lawship,

A good man,

We are proud,

To love.

Place

Butterflies flutter fly, mid twists of trees,

Pale-winged, like jittery petals in the breeze,

Regents in a world of pollen -- budding blooms.

Intricate pixies -- fragile as breath, ever looms,

Their finitude,

The shadow of death.

Paired wood-doves alight lightly on some twig,

Chestnut plumes weaved smooth, heads preen a jig. 

Ever content cooing a haunting melodic longing,

Beckon bird choirs to the grace of every dawning,

Of their given days,

Of their given breath.

Swarming cicadas  -- trilling crescendo gives them away,

Still unseen as a smoky sky charcoals in the dusk of day.

From depths emerging, for this time, to call and respond,

Their season to mate, to spawn, and be predated upon,

'Til their ranks dwindle,

And only silence is left.

One wanderer wandering in his waning summers,

His steps fall heavier, his frame yields, he lumbers,

Contrary to fellow creatures -- a sojourner out of place,

Averting the beatific vision, like the parents of our race,

Beloved and yet breathless,

Before the very life breath,

Of God.

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.