Category 3, Cameron, Louisiana

She came home in a stranger’s clothes
To find a home that is a home no more.
Only concrete slabs and crumpled fences
Remain to remind her
Of friends’ houses on these blank
And strangely silent streets.

Her daughter's school house
Stares vacantly from hollow eyes.
And her church, where the Gospel rang so sweetly every Sunday,
sings only with the voided voice of the breeze, but
The baptistry still stands—
and the cross above the door.

The century-old live oak tree—
Marked with memories of Emily
Swinging in a tire swing
(Now unused for years)—
Lies westward;
Points the way like a dying man to his guilty attacker.
She half-laughs at the impossibility,
“If such a sound be considered a laugh”—
The Spanish moss still clings
to branches blown leaf-bare.

Brick steps climb to an empty lot where
Door and home once stood.
She climbs the steps, and stands
And shakes her head in unbelief,
Surveying wreckage not told in limb and leaf.

She walks in where the door would have been,
By memory traces down the hall,
Reaches by instinct
for a door not there,
And in the bedroom space (at least, she thinks it so)
Finds a single picture
of her husband come home from war.

First Person Plural

I am the where
And the when;
I am the what—
YOU are the Why
And the How,
And We are the Who.

I am the here
And the now;
I am the old—
YOU are the There
And the Forever,
And We are the New.

I am the dusk
And the dark;
I am the night—
YOU are the Light
And the Spark,
And We are the Day.


I am the leaf
And the bough;
I am the tree.
YOU are the Wind
And the Root,
And We are the Fruit.

I am the body
And the soul;
I am the frame—
YOU are the Breath
And the Blood,
And We are the Spirit.

Koinonia

A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24

He holds a place within my heart;

In four warm years,

in laughter shining,
tight-fisted, we held our bond in revelry--

a gripping comradery of war or joy,
of sorrow or pain, or hope, or aspiring together.
"Tomorrow" was such a rich, full word.
It seemed we had nothing but tomorrow,
But glancing back, we had Today!

And what dreams we made; and what plans, laid,
as we learned our virtue, our being--
our faith.

One Flesh

You healed me yesterday.
In a moment,
Your antidote drew the poison from my blood.

Nuzzled against your neck,
Your arms around me--
Your voice sutured my bleeding anxiety.

Flesh of my flesh
Soul of my soul--
Heart of my heart.

Littered

Swept along by the unheeding,
knocked along the road
like an aluminum can
swirling in the wake of highway traffic,
rattling and tumbling in the breeze,
dented and frail,
scratched and scathed:
Rolling to a stop in the sandy grit,
she awaits the next twist of wind.

Blueshift

I know,
Love. Leave me --now--
I am lost (hearing your voice as
a misguiding echo, turning me away rather than nearer you).

Something of the Twilight Speaks to Me

Something of the twilight speaks to me,

Where the candlelight of day yet fills the sky,
And an encroaching night rises on silent, silken wings.

Where ribbons of light—in muted hues—stretch out,
Somehow truer than the exulting sunset

A mystery on the horizon—
A song of light fading into an echo—
A dance of heavenward light and earthbound darkness:

Something of the twilight speaks to me.

Kindred (Audio Poem)

Willowing away by the water’s edge,
Hanging our harps for the wind to play,
We are the reluctant travelers.

Pressed into the ship and taken away,
Latched in our watery coffin,
Tossed in our filth,
We writhe in disease and harken for home.

Night has fallen in these darkened souls,
Dead as the night that hallow calls
With its whispery breath
And teases with hopes of a watery death.

A Breath Held Too Long (Audio Poem)

There fell a long, uncomfortable silence on them,
Like a breath held too long.
Neither spoke, neither looked at the other,
Each thought, but said nothing.
Years passed in the interlude.

Finally, the silence was broken,
Like the shattering pane of glass
The boy had put his hand through when he was five.
“Is it worth the trouble. . .the pain,
To go on like this?”

“You could have done something before now.”

“What could I do?”

“Something. . .Anything!”

“How could I?
You know I did everything I could.”

“No, I don’t know! He’s your son.
Why didn’t you make him?”

“That’s not fair!
It’s not like the boy’s a child anymore.”

His own words caught him off guard,
He saw; he realized the magnitude of the words. . .
Where had the years gone?
Why wasn’t he a child anymore?

He began again, "And...
And I’m...well…I’m not a father anymore.”

Tears fell silently down his creased cheeks,
Like the first tricklings of a stream
Down a long-dried creek bed, not sure which way to go.
His lips quivered slightly;
He was no longer strong enough to exert his will
Or fight back anymore tears.
He sighed the longest sigh,
As though he’d been holding his breath all his life.

Solace (Audio Poem)

FATHER, while we toil here--

whipped though we are by life's branches
and pricked by this Forest's
thorns,

the long, pointed thorns which would hold us back,
point us away from our pursuit;

and tripped as we are by the
underbrush,
the dead, crumbling remains of yesteryear,
the year of falling, losing our leaves, being stripped

bare

by the shivering wind's taking from us all we would
hold on to, dashing our hopes to the ground in a
twirling,
twisting,
spiraling,
fluttering decent,

piling them one on the other until they have become
not the road in which we would walk,
but the barrier in our path--

I find
s o l a c e
in YOU alone.

The Pageant (Audio Poem)

Parading through the City streets,
Up the hills and through the light,
Hordes of saints go up the flight
Where glowing sun meets
the waning night.

Angels greeting them for their march;
Rushing wind blowing through the air,
Paraders routing to a Chair
Beyond the blue and silver arch,
in City fair.

Adorning now our dear deceaced,
Woolen gowns of purest white,
Crimson fringed the hue of light--
Robes shorn from the Lamb's dear fleece
and God's delight.

A shining circle surrounds His throne;
Their crowns are cast before His feet.
A thund'ring praise welcomes the fleet
Of weary pilgrims now come home
to Yahweh's Seat!

Wind Storm (Audio Poem)

"Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull

and close their eyes."
Isaiah 6:10

Windy prophet hushing out your secrets

Under a gray ceiling of clouds, your

Mystery--still obscured to the crowd--

Sounds only as wind through the pines to their ears.

O numbing words to deafen!

O stunning light to blind!

The breath of your message breaks

With the force of thunder

And the tenderness of a whisper; still

They do not hear. They do not see.

O numbing words! O stunning light!

Wind in their faces tousling

Their hair, rustling clothes,

And flapping beards,

They rush into the hurricane,

Bodies angled against the wind

They never see; the wind, they never hear.

O numbing words! O stunning light!

Kaleidoscope (Audio Poem)

Standing on the corner of a forgotten dream

and the future,

We squint and peer long down the path

to a radiant, bustling, opportunity;

to an aszure, cheering hope--

Back the way we came, again

dawn-tinted tomorrow awaits.

Never here again,

and yet never quite able to leave

homes and childhood,

halls and haunts,

lessons and lesions of a varicolored past.

Ashen night come or the speckled, dewy morning,

the proverb still holds true:

"We never leave the home we love";

we only return

from time to time.

Gazing wide-eyed into the glass, we

imagine we peer into Providence,

but see only the kaleidoscope--

jeweled with our hopes

and mirrored with our past.

Morning Rises Gentle (Audio Poem)

Morning rises gentle

like the spirit within you,

Her first beams breaking across the horizon

like a smile.

The still darkness retreats before her,

and my darkness dissolves

in your light.

Dew

beads the fields

in crystal pearls

glimmering

in morning's low light.

Shadows breathe out the morning mist.

Rose rays

like embers of your laughter

cast their joy to the sky.

And like low clouds catching the sunrise,

my heart blushes with your love.

Day has broken

from a distant Sun.

The sky blooms into its blue array,

and I wonder at this sky

God has painted

and the hue of your graces--

one into another--like the

white

of the horizon

melts into the indigo high above.

As the sun reaches its height,

the dial marks this moment:

The Noon of Our Joy

with flowers opening beside us,

and the Day yet before us.

Too soon will the golden sun

give way to amber evening,

but I will love you

until morning rises gentle

ever.