Perspective
Purpose
I felt the heat,
And fanned the flame;
My burning mind
Coursed with pain.
I courted mischief,
And drank the fiery rain:
My heinous heart
Angered with Cain.
Overwhelmed, I fell:
Could not rise without aid.
He, then I made the choice,
And the Lord saved.
Now I feel the heat,
And fan the flame.
My renewed mind
Stays the pain.
I fight the thief.
And my flesh: tame.
Now, my heart burns
For His Holy Name.
Peace of Mind
Exhale the stress.
Stop the mental chess.
Drop your defenses.
Be your senses.
Feel the moment.
Open your mind.
Stay there.
God’s aware
You feel stressed.
Just do your best.
The kids can wait.
Your boss can hate,
But none can take
Your peace of mind.
Emily Dickinson
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition ,
So clear, of victory,
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.
(Emily Dickinson)
Prayer of Saint Francis
A great poem, to know and say, as a means of taking the focus off ourselves in search of a higher calling, one we receive when we ask to give.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
(Poem attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)
By Lamplight
Raising the lamp high, Truth shines on shapes in the dark.
Some of the things of the night lay hidden
In the shadows, like insecticidal sin,
Roaching away from God’s arresting arc
Of light.
Still, the lamp reaches higher and higher—
Sin scurrying away from the beams of light—
Shining brighter and brighter.
We pause at losing the cover of night,
Our rights.
Why?
Love You
You are worthless,
The liar tells.
You will fail today,
He almost yells.
You are weak,
He whispers when you are faint
You should not speak,
He says when you’ve been wronged.
You have no friends,
He says when you feel alone.
He attacks all the daylong
Till all your will is gone.
Give in to your favorite sin,
He says,
No one will know,
So hide away at home
And go it alone.
When you are in that place, stripped bare,
And no one is there,
And you think no one cares,
That life isn’t fair,
Know you are where
You were meant to be.
God works best in defeat
As you rest on His mercy seat.
Be strong and courageous.
Be bold in Him, bold in love.
Be joyfully contagious.
Be mindful of
God within and without,
And never doubt
He loves you.
Now tell yourself:
“I love you, ________.”
Schism
He cinches sinews of might
Around the night
And binds darkness from the light.
His unfathomable power
Exploded all matter
Into space. Still, as fighters
We deny His awesome position,
Exalting ourselves, our exposition.
We say, “He’s to blame for our fallen condition?
I will glory in who I am,
What I’ve achieved, in all I can.”
In turn he says, “You are but a man!”
I feel: my heart it beats,
I listen: my mouth it speaks,
I watch: my eyes they see.
“Do you function on your own?
As your own?
As if you own—
Anything?
No. No. Nothing.
The only thing
You possess
Is death
And mess.
I will knock and knock.
Can’t you hear the years tick off the clocks?
Yet you box and box,
And your Pugilism
Turns vandalism,
Stealing time, all for a schism.
Turtle Love
This is a poem written for my lovely wife Lisa. The poem is based on the story of the “Tortoise and the Hare,” an apt description for life’s journey. To view, click on Turtle Love.
Tiny Dancer
Bailey and I got back from running errands and went straight from the car to stroll through the neighborhood.
I tried to watch with her eyes.
Not a cloud in the sky, the blue expanse stretching overhead. We stopped and started, Bailey regarding our way, looking up at the evergreen fir trees shooting up 30 feet overhead, the trees’ deep forest green needles full on each branch.
We made our way past, and the view opened to a lake that reached off into the distance. The shadows from the trees fell across the edges of the shallows of the water. The shoreline was a glassy mirror of the budding trees. The middle of the lake was wind-whipped, static lines on the water.
Bailey turned from watching the lake and waddled ahead, her hand in mine. She began to whimper, straining her eyes in the too bright sun. She held her small hand in front of her face, but to no avail, the sun was too penetrating.
Still, she trudged on.
Finally, we made the bend in the road where the forest’s shadows fell across the road. With her left arm growing tired from reaching to adulthood, she switched hands in mine.
Then, she did something unexpected. She pulled free, wandered off the path, through the grass down an incline to the woods. She reached out her hand and shook the branch of a tree as if she were greeting an old friend. Satisfied with the handshake, she returned to me, and we walked again.
We crossed the road to the next lake, full of fowl, in our neighborhood. We sat on a bench and watched the Canadian goose arch its neck, in arabesque fashion, swim its head forward then down, dipping to taste some water, letting it spill from its beak.
In short order, Bailey climbed down from the bench. She’d had enough. Watching was for the birds.
She ambled ahead. I grabbed her hand again; we crossed the street; and made our way back onto the path. She wanted to turn back and cross the road again, but I knew that was the signal we needed to head back. She made a tiny dance of discontent in front of me, not a fit, just a tamping of feet like she was running in place.
I picked her up and walked with her some distance. A man on a riding lawn mower was shaving the grass along the sidewalk so I held her tight and kept walking. He passed then I let her down, and she waddled ahead. I grabbed her hand again and watched her shadow fall in front of us, her hand extended to mine, at my knees.
In her too long jeans, folded up, with her feet shuffling ahead, her body moving up and down, I think she is my tiny dancer, my blue jean baby, dancing in my hand.