Happy Michaelmas

Maybe John got revelation wrong. No heavenly war with the dragon
plummeting to earth and devouring it in Frost's fire. Instead, what if satan's fall
happens more like Brueghel's Icarus: an unnoticed splash in a distant ocean.
What could be more befitting of the king of liars than to become the wolf who cried beast? After all,
instead of a vengeful supreme court we get a blubbering candidate painting a tale of woe
for crimes he does not want to remember if it means loss of power. So that he said/she said
becomes the blindfold on justice and darkness is the anesthesia for the loss of truth. So
many lives have been wasted on the need to be number one: both the living and the dead.
All Jesus can do is kneel and plead: "Let the first who is without sin … "
And like a laser piercing the blindfold, the word becomes searing flesh.
O to be the change Christ wants to see, amid the drip of satan's leaky has-been
Realm. And so I try to teach as he taught me: that mercy is the best gauzy mesh
we can apply to mistakes that persist to this very hour.
Pray that bandage stops our bleeding need for power.

#MeThree

Portland, Oregon August 11, 2018

June 2, 2018

You can add artist to trash ninja and tarp handler on your resumè now.
For, what is an artist but one who takes experience and wraps
it up and hands it to you as a gift; or takes a series of moments and sews
them with tesseract thread and so defies that serial killer: time. Burlap
and joy: the day i received my experience just before our goodbyes.
i prayed psalm 30 that morning and received your gift with these words
raining in my head: "Thou hast taken off my sackcloth and clothed me in joy."
So often we preschool teachers were the sackcloth to the children's sword
joys by seizing their weapons and razing their abandoned wood-block castles and
herding plastic animals back to their basket stables; or covering outdoor play
areas with tarps to protect them from weather. How many dragon tears can
one sandbox hold? Or children's tears for that matter. Who can say?
But all the buried treasure in that sandbox i hold in my hands
With this wonder prism block of color like the universe in a grain of sand.

Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Engaged 

Imagine: Moments
stream and you, at the lake's edge
on the placid side,
reflection transformed
in an instant by a question:
"Will you marry me?"
dropped like a pebble
making smiles ripple, hearing 
the answer rain down
pitter-pattering
on an ancient memory slate:
"Yes. Yes. Yes. I will!"

10-4-2017

At first, I wished you had been there to see
the children, arms spread, running in the grassy
expanse under the new fall sky with a leaf sea
forming (a drop at a time); while we listened to the Modern Lovers' sassy,
naive declaration of independence: "I'm a Little Airplane--Neeeyow"
you could have brought the image compression lens
you had concocted out of a huge cardboard tube. I see now
the futility of the wish, but like the idea it sends:
we always want somehow to pack eternity into the moment
as if it were not already saved by the experience. When
memory fades, faith (and the experience of others so bent
as we are) carries something like it. Call it a replica, then;
a snapshot taken with a different camera yet still seen
as the children run away, arms spread, from everything we've been.

4-7-2017

Superpowers and Achilles' Heel

Suckerpunched by a cartoon! Alas and alack!
O how your frown turned upside down when
I revealed my hero to be Linus van Pelt and then
Melded the card that read: "Wearing a jetpack."
And you a giant too, but with the flaw of laughter
Dooming you. Did you fret like my hero
Earlier had done in a pumpkin patch? Enemy dear, Oh
You must have felt like Goliath after
One tiny shepherd appeared to do battle
Until you felt your laughter stop you
Like a stone in the forehead and addled
At the absurdity, as the judges made you rue
Ultimately how your own sense of humor
Grew like a malignant tumor.
Here, let's toast your downfall, friend: laughing is really the best way to end.

3-24-2017

In like a lamb
That German monk that lived so long ago: Eckhart
He said, more or less: if the only prayer you say in  
Answer is "Thank You," it would be enough. Apart
Now from those who would hear me, still when 
Kindness comes out of nowhere, i know
Years of misunderstanding are not enough to 
Overturn what the act of that dying blow 
Unleashed to sin, once and for all. We grew 
So much in that moment of his election 
One life for God alone to show us how to live. 
Many are confused by our daily, slo-mo crucifixion
Uniting us with him. Each thank you, we give--
Chosen not forced-- each step pounds like hammers:
Hear the roar subside as the journey begins: soft as lamb's ears.