Hide and Seek

Teacher, Master, King 

Open the window wider

That the breeze of your breathe

May cool this citified mind of mine

 

Spirit-Alive, Truth

Show me where you live within

Help me see, help me clean

 Together to uncover where You hide

 

Lover, help me sort

loud cars and trucks over there

Busy, earthy, muddy

memories of wrongs in this trash can let's place

 

Pride and ego strong

Let’s cut in little pieces

Rain for fires burning

Blankets of comfort keep for crying eyes

 

We are almost done!

I see a small pool of space

And feel much lighter here

Glorious resident let’s breathe

 

And tomorrow work on the rest.

The Sinner

There once was a man from Khartoom,

Who lifted his little broom

Which whisked him away

To the isle of Malay

While hearing his brother shout, he was leaving too soon.

 

When he landed on a bank of the Nile

A dwarf shot him a smile

Then stole his magical broom

And ran into a room

Singing to himself all the while.

 

The man followed him in

Chasing that sin

Without a thought that was vile

Or fear he would fail

Holy broom’s return, to win.

 

He followed the song

Through a dark hallway long

To the light of a flame

And the dwarf he would blame

For being so wrong.

 

The broom flew from the flame

To the man he came

The happiest reunion around

Its man it was glad it found

And together they flew to Maine.

 

Sinners lose in the happy end.

My aspiring immortal friend

I can do no better than this

If I could I’d be in bliss.

But for now I’ll just have to bend.

 

Pray for me.

Evangeline. 

The Itchy Inch

Cars careening

Hilltops higher than houses hosting skiers

Rushing rivers relocating rocks

Intelligent intruders investigating

Seventy seven cents sitting on a dresser

Testifiers telling truths

God on high watching amused

Spits an inch on planet frenzy.

O humble inch, not ambitious, not assuming, still

Not moving

Inglorious inch

Swells not with pride

Nor insults do shrink

Never greedy

Never sick

Cares not for first downs

Nor pants too short or tight

Never twinges at colliding car scratches

Nor delights in peekaboo stunning sun rises

Oh inch, oh standard of measure so humble

How you demonstrate Divine Economia.

Oh models, oh marks, Christ and inch alike

We violate you at our peril.

Oh humble Father’s Son

Perfect reflection of The Good One

Model healer, feeder, teacher

Gold, and hatred-power dissipater

Like the inch eschewing both good and evil

Uncovers the mystical void

Through which the earth was formed

And the teensy weensy gate to heaven is exposed.

Two teachers twirling crystals make rainbows bloom

Silly Willy swings his legs sitting on a star

Isaiah laughs at loony lions licking lambs

Resting Richard raises roses by the river

Hilarious hillbillies hop over hedgehogs

Circles and bubbles draw holy wholes

Itching inch calling for attention cries good night gone

My work is done.

Ode to My Spider

Dearest fellow aspirer,

 

I must confess,

I killed a big brown spider in my sink

while minding his own business.

He didn’t even know my name, or blink.

Then I took a shower

to wash my conscience clean

with sweet-smelling soapy power.

 

Dried off; dressed

It didn’t work.

Did he deserve to die of ugliness?

When I vowed not to even fork a pork.

How could I have been so vicious?

Guilty, I sat to write about immortality,

my qualifications suspicious.

 

Immortality is not for spiderstuff

Or for killers; that is true.

But is the arm of God long enough

To rescue a hypocrite or two?

Please don’t laugh or pity me.

Don’t all murderers like sinners do their deed

To avoid being hurt, you see?

 

Lord, will you leave spiders behind

When we fly up to meet Jesus in the sky

Or will it then be I who ends-up with a molten flooded mind?

Saint Francis would not have killed that little guy.

He was kinder and braver than me.

And could hover in trees

Beloved of lions and tigers was he.

 

That, my invisible friend,

Is a difference between the true immortal,

And aspiring ones who seek no end

Of life with God and light eternal

Solid purity, especially in the small

So when deep within us He sees

no air pockets for evil to infiltrate and deceive.

 

May your week be holier than me.

Braver, more merciful,

Hopeful with reason be,

Loving all species,

Hateful of sin

Your sister in Christ,

Evangeline.

Still Waters

This rock is lucky as it rests cuddled deep within rich soil.

No enemies to threaten its comfort.

No comfort to contemplate.

Rest and being, centuries of quiet rest and being.

To be a rock, stable at the core,

always a rock never anything more.

 

Should a hapless farmer unearth the resting rock,

Should new light first meet its cold hard face

Unfazed the lucky rock moves to higher ground

To rest some more.

 

To never change

For better or worse

To know no sorrow

Pain or pity

To never need.

 

Will immortal bones

Know rock-like rest

Rockish peace

When love is more than salt

Of the earth?

 

Sitting beside still waters

I envy this rock, my hearty chair

For I must walk away

Into a storm. 

Plastic Glory

On this Western Palm Sunday let this whole big multi-faceted Hope Diamond of a Church ask itself if we aren’t living in a 2,009-year long Palm Sunday together.

Hosanna chanting,

red rug runners unwrapping,

dressy faces beaming,

no one dying

to be going through that hair-narrow gate all alone.

The party with no pain

is only plastic glory

about to melt

when we reach the twirling flaming swords

that surround the cherubim-guarded tree of life.

May your wooden week be holier than

Now.