Into the River Print this poem only
About a fortnight ago I cut the chains
thought I’d risen, thought I’d changed
but then I shot me full of shame
filled the black holes with blame
just too many old habits to fight
I need to hold on to the light.
I stepped into the river with you
sunk my head out of view
said here I am Lord here am I
bid my rusty old wagon goodbye
out of my darkness out of my night
I need to hold on to the light.
A little more than two weeks ago
I sparkled and smiled and said hello
out of the water dripping with grace
they said my youth shined in my face
and here I am nigh filled with fright
I need to hold on to the light.
But salvation now seems over priced
where oh where are you Jesus Christ?
Don’t be distracted or confused my son
you are crawling now don’t try to run
keep it simple and you’ll be alright
don’t forget to hold on to the light.
Don’t fall into the mine of fire
make me your heart’s desire
fall into my waiting embrace
ignore ego’s devil face
and when you’re baffled by your plight
remember to hold on to the Light.
​
Written 9-9-15
Freedom’s Field
Being out in this field of wheat
with its bright amber perspective
all the way to the horizon
breathing in aroma of soil
wind taking my hat into the stalky
expanse
feels both free and forfeit.
Having no path or track
or boundaries beside me
is both wondrous and restive.
In this rebellious space
I wish for a hand
someone to coach me
tell me what to do with this liberty.
I tread back to the car
I parked by the highway
but it is not there
my trusted vehicle gone
I know not where.
My thumb in air
needing hoping longing for a ride
but at least there is the highway
sprinkled with sparkle
and passages of counsel and direction
beckoning to an uncertain celestial
horizon.
Written 5-10-18
Deeper
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I want to become a diver
like the scuba guys in the Thai cave
risking death to save life,
going deeper into convoluted passages
of darkness to pull life from it.
I want to become a heart surgeon
transplanting energizing mitochondria
into babies’ dying hearts
to revive and save damaged cells.
Oh to receive from the gods of creativity
an infusion of fresh energy
into this old body
and renew flagging cells
with a flowering fragrance
as sweet and unique as Plumeria!
May this diving deeper
be as fruitful now as it has been
in the decisive moments
I was able to conquer pride and self
to reach out to others
whose spirits had frowns
whose life energy was down.
I know: thinking, reading and writing
are not quite enough to reach and taste
the fruits of angels.
​
Like the classic tension
between “faith and works”
“deeper” means a marriage
of information and application
to get transformation.
And so these moments of writing poems
and diving deeper, rising higher
for the creative spirit
are not divorced
from kindness and reaching out
in friendship, intimacy, and love,
from taking time and spending energy
beyond these meditative walls
embracing life where it calls.
I am a diver and a surgeon
a spark striker, a flame keeper
always desiring
to move
deeper, deeper, deeper.
​
Author’s Note: The idea for this poem has been lurking within ever since I heard an energetic call from a teacher of mine as he proclaimed it is not enough to go deeper, that we must do good works and serve, move to action, action, action. I felt guilty because in my old age I am not as active, leading, and responding as much as I have been most of my life. I had spoken to him and others of my need to “go deeper.” And his proclamation stung me and sent me into consternation. In this poem, finally, I have been able to respond. And it was the heroics of the Thai divers and the surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital into mitochondria transplantation that brought me out of the darkness of confusion into this light. If you are interested, see this amazing article about the research and procedures used by these pioneering doctors: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/health/mitochondria-transplant-heart-attack.html
Finally, I thank Marty Collier for the inspiring little poem-like statement: “Information plus application = transformation.”
Written 7-12-18
Hand
The hair on the back of my hand
glistens in the lamp at night
it tells me I am a man
I am a creature
a thing created.
I did not create myself
even though I act as if I did.
You made this body
and you keep it alive.
When I look at my hand
sometimes it reminds me of Jesus
who was also a man.
I yearn to feel his touch
his arms around my shoulders.
How often I need his hand
on the small of my back
giving me a gentle shove.
When I picture that hand
in my mind’s eye
I see the hair
the veins that bring the blood
from his heart,
a heart so full
so big it reaches to heaven.
It also reaches into my heart
when I think of his first noticing
and then stooping down
to touch the person on the side of the road
the person nobody else would go near.
I am touched to tears.
That was the hand of Jesus
reaching down as it does now
to this sinner.
Note: With gratitude to David Chadwell for his web piece entitled: “How low will Jesus stoop?”
​
Written 8-10-18
​
Molasses Print this poem only
Unlike Paul on the road to Damascus
my conversion moved like molasses.
But the hound of heaven kept pursuing
his slow moving son prone to gluing
and sticking to his flaws and inept ways
with every excuse for endless delays.
That hound eventually caught me
in the songs that tearfully brought me
to my knees in helpless surrender
to prayer and his merciful splendor.
Unlike Paul on the road to Damascus
my conversion moved like molasses.
But there were hunters following that hound
who kept up till their prey was found
and stood by me gently listening,
my voice quaking my eyes glistening.
Full of my doubts and questions
they heard me and made suggestions
led me to some uncommon men
who described the road where they’d been.
Unlike Paul on the road to Damascus
my conversion moved like molasses.
The hound of heaven no longer bays
but speaks in sermons and songs of praise
he catches me in traffic on the road
and even in moments of overload.
He saves me from my darkness each day,
his Word shows me the way
and other brothers teach me to fight
out of that dark and into the light.
Now, like Paul, my Savior I’ve found
and my pace quickens to catch that Hound.
​
Author’s Note: A small group I belong to was discussing how the Christian life is one of being continually conformed to be Christlike. One of the guys said that starting from birth, God gradually works on the things in our life that need to be corrected and when those get done, he moves on the next thing we need to work on (things that need to go or things that need to be added), and so on and so forth. In his case, my friend said, this is slow as molasses since it seems all the issues and things he should have worked out a decade or more ago keep holding him down. I related to his comments and decided spiritual life as molasses would be a good metaphor and topic for a poem. I came up with the first two lines and was going to make it a two line poem, but then I got to thinking about how that process has worked out over my life and in the past year in particular. Written 5-5-16
The Hound of Heaven refers to Francis Thompson's poem by that name. Below are the first few lines, the ones that inspire me the most:
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I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
See also the Wikipedia article on the poem
Pilot Light Print this poem only
​
Today the pain is strong
it is a gravelly nagging voice
speaking its own foreign tongue
or no tongue at all just groans
or whimpers, or random unexpected wails
but it is there
an unseen, unending presence
an implanted
galling calling
thorn.
She has been corrected
a hundred times
always with the idle reply “sorry”
seemingly
to placate and deflect
another chide.
Is she unable to learn
or just unwilling?
I have taken into me
her and her flaw
a scratching
bedeviling
claw.
Oh! the stories each of us could tell
a million moments of our little hell
but just as sure as those thorns
haunt us and bore inside
there also light abides
like current ready at the outlet
we can plug in when we’re beset
by fear, fatigue, and folly
or bouts with melancholy
maybe that’s what they call grace
maybe inside of us there’s a sacred space
where we can make our retreat
where our soul and circumstance can meet.
Being human
means having both darkness and light
always the dark is ready to bite
and pull us under
tearing our lives asunder.
Busy with a hundred tasks
playing our roles wearing our masks
we forget the calm within
and the deeper force under our skin.
The butterfly flutters by
snowflakes and autumn fall from the sky
we giggle with the little child
we brush up against the wild
write a poem, hear a song
breathe cool air sing along.
These tiny moments of grace
should remind us to embrace
and fan and make bright
the flame from that Pilot Light.
Written 10-10-17
​
​Ever There Print this poem only
You are never never in any land
where you cannot reach my hand
never never in any space
out of my embrace.
​
I fly between the windmill’s blades
in the rainbow and in the shades
in every corner of your anxious room
even in your desperate doom.
​
You and I have walked together
when you knew not whether
you would make it through the day
and you took your mind faraway.
​
But I was in your every hair and breath
where I will be until your death.
Your heart is full of mine
a vessel brimming with Divine.
​
So when you think you’ve crossed
into the desert and are lost...
Stop. Fill your lungs with air.
And find me always and ever there.
Written 4-13-17 See also Poems of January - April 2017
Upon the Waters Print this poem only
Oh you brash God.
You call me out upon the waters,
me in my fears and inadequacies.
But beyond human understanding
you have faith in me.
I am Peter. I step out of that boat
then when things get rough
I panic.
Like Peter, I call upon you:
Save me from sinking,
rescue me from my dimming faith
and vanishing courage!
I see you vaguely
hear you faintly
I am not saintly,
just an ordinary man.
But they were 12 ordinary men
you called them
they followed.
So here I go
because I know you are there
to calm the waters - if I but reach out to you.
You are here - to help me into the boat
for this journey
across the waters…
I leap
-------------------------------------
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand
And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine
Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now
So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior
Yeah
Oh Jesus yeah, my God
I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine
“Oceans” by Hillsong United Songwriters: JOEL HOUSTON, MATT CROCKER, SALOMON LIGHTHELM
© CAPITOL CHRISTIAN MUSIC GROUP
Written 1-18-17
​
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Constancy Print this poem only
I woke up adrift today
not knowing If you would be
close to me or far away
my mind was an angry sea.
Do you lead to waters still and clear
through the valley of the shadow of death
to green pastures where no evil I’ll fear
where you’ll be in my every breath?
Oh Lord, sometimes anger overtakes
and I’m chained by my ego pride
or a sadness breaks and shakes
the fabric of peace that’s inside.
Sometimes it seems an evil descends
invades the very rooms of my soul
and I feel lonely and devoid of friends
yearning and burning to be whole.
They say you never change
but down to the river I go
I see you move from range to range
I hear the rush of your vibrant flow.
It matters not how far I feel,
if guilt and shame bow me to knee
you’re here inside and really real
and I know its your love that’s my constancy.
​
Written 4-16-17
​
​
Resonance Print this poem only
“From resonance comes the day
of increase and degree…
of expanses, of shadow recently fleeing,
and drops that from the heart of heaven
fall like celestial blood.”
From: the poem, “One Day Stands Out,” in Residence on Earth by Pablo Neruda
The drops of your prayers
fall upon me like moments of heaven.
Encounters with friends and lovers,
full of exposure, weakness, and fragility
resonate and crown these brief eras
like royalty forsaken for love,
like the cherishing of a mother’s eyes
gazing at her baby
who looks back as if to say
“this moment with you
is why God put me here.”
Author’s Note: Written after an evening of sharing deeply with close friends, after reading a friend’s email assuring me of her prayers, and after reading the poem by Neruda excerpted above.
Written 5-24-18
And yet… Print this poem only
Here I am this tiny planet
garnering your full attention
and yet
you pulse in every nebula
explode in every star in my galaxy.
I in my small orbit
around this rich spacious solar system
breathe only this oxygen
but with each breath you exhale a universe.
and yet
you inhale
every impulse of my mind with ease
suspend yourself in every particles of my soul
with such love.
I a mere ion
swirl in the plasma circulating
in the heart of your love.
​
I beat with the firm rhthm of Marley
and the sweet strains of Debussy
I jangle in the metal bracelets of my first piano teacher
who taught me to play Rhomberg
and urged me to write my first poem.
You are infinite
​
and yet
​
so personal to me.
Written 10-5-22
