Barren Prayers

Barren prayers lie like a crumbling edifice interrupting
a sweeping green glade--lie chipped, cracked, and echoing in abandoned emptiness
as a forgotten abbey: vine-grown, encompassed in weeds and earth,
nested with birds and mice. Walls detach from roof, roof from shingle,

A door hangs by a single hinge. The stone wall of the abbey garden crumbles,
moss-covered and grass-covered, just a tracing slope above the turf.
Beside, worn headstones, etched with a cross, mark unremembered tombs.
Quaintly pastoral to an observing eye:

Almost serene, a photo-stop to cross off the sightseer's itinerary.
But the barren prayer heaves with life
like the barren tomb, and what was dead comes alive and enters
the locked and barred room, baring its scars to show its death

and prove it's no phantom risen, but flesh and blood anew--
having passed through the darkening river of death, parted
its waters, trampled its dry and stony depths to stand
now upon the eastern shore.

And he is dead whose prayers
must always be said only on the shores of living water.

The Dark Night of Peace

Take heart when darkness blinds the glowing day
Before your eyes. It is no more than night.
Be still, be still. Peace will yet guide the way.

There is no sky whose fearsome cast of gray
Can close God's eyes, or darken His Truth's light.
Take heart when darkness blinds the glowing day.

This moment comes to all who seek to stay
Close to the heart of God. In delight
Be still, be still. Peace will yet guide the way.

Your eyes grow weary and dark; watch and pray
Until your earnest prayers and faith turn sight.
Take heart when darkness blinds the glowing day.

The anguished heart lifts its voice to say,
"Enough. I'm through. I can no longer fight."
Be still, be still. Peace will yet guide the way.

Notice, now, your deepening faith's array,
And love's growing bloom, and hope's fledgling flight.
Take heart when darkness blinds the glowing day.
Be still, be still. Peace will yet guide the way.

Selah

The ancient interlude, interspersed in Holy hymns
Speaks in its stillness-- in the pause--
With Sacred reverberations:
"Don't rush on. Wait--
Silence. Nothing is
lost in the hiatus
of sound."
Quiet.

Nesting

I saw the swallow making her tiny straw nest
Beneath the eave of my house. She found a nook
So small and slight, that any wise soul
Would have advised against the choice. But
She didn't ask, so I didn't offer any contrary counsel.
My voice would only have frightened her, anyway.
So, instead, I watched her flit from branch,
To ground, to eave and back again. Maybe this
Is her first attempt at home-building I wonder?
She thinks only of design and follows her inborn blueprint
Perfectly. Perhaps she over-estimates her skill
Or under-estimates the wind, but I know disappointment
And can hear already her song when the egg-filled nest
Blows to the ground in the first fierce storm of spring.
Once more she returns, and I go on regretting
Advice not given and advice forsaken.

Four Poems on Love for an Infant Son

I.
You are a gift
entrusted to us
from our Heavenly Father.
He has charged us with your instruction and your care:
And the first lesson you learn must be learned
in the rocking chair.

II.
Learn as I rock you, that love can be tender.
Feel as I bathe you, love can be pure.
Know as I dress you, love must provide.
Hear in our songs, love can rejoice.
Taste as I feed you, God's love is sweet.
Let your first steps instruct you,
Love will encourage and pick up and cheer.
Learn with your first words, love must speak.
See as I bandage your scrape
And kiss your fevered head that love heals.
When I leave for work, know that love sacrifices;
And when I return, that love prioritizes.
Let my punishment remind you, love corrects,
Seeks the good, and expects the best.
Let my hugs teach you, love forgives and understands.
Learn as I hold your sisters and brother and mother
that love can be multiplied
without being diminished.

III.
Do not be fooled by the imposters:
Passion and fashion and beauty:
Love is not made of such sentimental stuff.
Love is rugged and strong; willful and tough:
Chasing and embracing godly duty.

IV.
May you see in this father your Heavenly Father,
And know every morning as you climb in my bed
That it's His heart that loves you when this face is smiling.
It was He who is love who made the first man,
And you are the man He made you, my son, when you love.

Treasures Held in Earthen Keep

May it not be held in scorn in heaven's eyes
If I retain one earthly prize.
Oh, I know full well--Yes, I realize
The words well-spoken still hold true,
That if you find a man's treasure,
you've found his heart, too.

I know as well the dangers of treasures
Held in earthen keep--
Of moths, of rust,
Of thieves who never sleep.

May it cause not upheaval, nor heavenly strife
Though, if I still treasure my precious wife.
Oh, I know full well--yes, I realize
The words well-spoken still hold true,
If you find a man's treasure,
You've found his heart too.

I am willing to risk the moths of sin,
Which would rend the gament from without
or from within.
I am quite ready to face the rust of time,
And I'm not so afraid of Death,
That great restless Thief,
That I would never,
For cause of some great fear,
Allow this treasure to be to me quite dear.

Oh, never for a moment once suppose
That I, a single ordinance of Yours, oppose.
I simply ask if it be fair
For me to hold one treasure here,
And all others there.

All delights I lay in full measure
Upon the stores of heaven, save this part:
On earth my wife is my treasure,
And in my treasure lay my heart.

I Am Looking for a Man Whose Thoughts Are Thunder

I am looking for a man whose thoughts are thunder,
Bellowing, resounding, startling thunder;
not the peevish tinkerings of fools
echoing what they thought they heard
and have called their own.
I am looking for a man whose thoughts are thunder,
Inescapable, shuddering, sounding thunder;
not the clicking of heels echoing down a narrow corridor--
Thunder that soars to the mountains, canyons and rocky precipices
and bounds back as ferouciously.

Split Logs

I went out beyond the shed
To bring the last logs in. But the snow
And ice upon the wood seemed so
Precariously poised, set there upon the pine's
Gray face by an order not seen to me,
That I didn't deserve to alter it,
Not yet. Not until I had been so weathered,
I thought. But the icy wind blows
Right through me. I shiver and twist
My head, half expecting to see winter
Standing right beside me in her best white gown,
But it's only the oak trees there and their
Brothers the fir in the stand beyond.
How did that wind sneak through you?
I think, but don't say aloud.
Then conclude, The way it just passed through me.
There we stood in a way of conversation:
The white-topped, seasoned pine; a solemn, silent oak
And I. Inside the fire's dying, and wonders whether
It’s feverish hunger will be filled.
I take the split log by the end, spill the mystery
Upon the ground, and trace my way,
Over my own tracks, backward through the snow.

A Father's Prayer

I.


When stars wink and grin against the black sky, I think of you.
When I hear Falstaff’s laugh, I think of you.
When the burgeoning, yellow sunflowers nod in a golden field,
I think of you.

When dancers twirl and bend and flow to a symphony’s brassy song,
When a single violin quivers out a note,
When autumn’s breeze nuzzles my cheek, I think of you.

I think of you
When the dark silhouettes of horses gallop against the horizon;
When I hear, “The LORD is my shepherd”;
When the sweet, tart juice of peaches tingles my tongue;

I think of you,
And pray these be your joy as well.

II.


May your mother's beauty be your own;
May her peaceful, quiet spirit abide when you are grown;
May you be filled with her simple, loving grace,
And may her winsome, gentle smile charm you little face.

Lamentation

I will weep tonight as I think of you
And the distance that is between us.
And I will take no wine to lighten me,
Nor any consolation while I sigh—
It is sometimes better to weep than to laugh,
     And tonight I wish to cry.

I will sit alone in darkness weeping,
As my neighbors lie restfully sleeping.
And I will take no light to lighten me,
Nor any candle to chase away the night—
For darkness is sometimes better than the sun,
     And tonight I want no light.

My heart will toll a sullen note,
As I weep for you and our brotherhood.
And I will hear no tones to lighten me,
Nor ask that any glad songs be sent—
For a dirge is sometimes all we need,
     And tonight I will lament.

Progeny

O damned child,
I have given you the worst of me,
of all before me.
Conceived in sin, cursed from birth,

Now you stand beside my bed afraid:
A shadow in the darkness,
Awakened by a nightmare you can’t remember;
Haunted by a dread
Your yet unformed conscience can’t fathom.

“Daddy, I’m scared,”
Your small voice startles me awake.

Climb into the warmth of my bed.
Be safe in your father’s love,
Let your pure soul rest,
And dream of the innocence you never knew.