Category: poetry

>Crossing the sky
we walk together
as though floating
across dark waters,
with dogs running
in the stars,
and gods, suspended
like liquid crystals,
and again
like mirrors.

Our footprints tracing
passions,
our progress marking
out rhythms,
now mixing
with decaying flesh,
now fading
below cliffs
looming over us
like unconfessed sins
in the half-light.

We are
only shadow figures,
our dim movements remind me
of smoke in a twilight orchard
dissipating among the branches,
or the non-substance
of memories
and empty hands
calling us back.
And in those memories
we too are suspended
like crystals, shining
in the quiet ether,
with the ocean,
invisible,
always on our left.

So here in the very midst,
like apparitions
intersecting heavens,
carrying hearts
like precious jewels,
we advance through the darkness,
across the sand,
nearer now
to the infinite
and the end of time,
nearer now
to perfection
and final chapters,
holding out for the
immeasurable.

That’s what I thought about it,
About walking, and dogs along the beach,
and friends with shimmering sand
reflecting beneath the brilliant stars above,
and how we talked of dreams with eternity
in our hearts calling us away, and how
the ocean seemed to reflect a part of God
that was unknowable, and about how small
we really are compared to everything else,
and how much we really need each other.
Anyway, that’s what I’d say
if you asked me.

I wrote this poem in 1998. I repost it here for National Poetry Month and to remember a great weekend with good friends at the Oregon coast.

>This past weekend we were in Seattle visiting friends and family. We wish we could have spent more time and visited more friends. On Saturday we had lunch down at Pike Street and our friend ordered oysters in the half-shell. You could smell the ocean and taste the salt water when you ate them, even minutes later. Just glorious. Reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Seamus Heaney.

Oysters

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated,
They lay on their bed of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south of Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.

– Seamus Heaney

>

tell me of the fear
for I know it too
I know the darkness intimately
and the open doors
and the thresholds
and the infinite
though I know only so much

remind me of the trembling
but I know that too
the shaking in my boots
the falling on my face
finding supplication
hoping against hope
wanting, wanting, wanting
I so know those chains
for they embrace me

this is where I do theology
I begin with weeping
and self satisfaction
I end with inheritances
and tears

that is how I know
the heart is a place
where I heard
the branches bending
in the wind

tell me again of the darkness
at mid-day
for I believe it too
when the graves opened
and the dead walked
in Jerusalem
when the earth shook
and the holy of holies opened
to the world

tell me all that again
for here I am working it out
knowing glory like shadows
knowing love like faint glimmers
knowing hope like mustard seeds

and I can only say that
I stand on shoulders
I crawl in the corners
I waver in the doorways
I wander back roads
and the best I can do
is know that I too
saw the sky go dark
and felt the earth move

Lithograph above by Marc Chagall, 1960
Job in Despair

>

what weary path is this,
made of brambles and shadows,
serpentine darkness and spirits?

I see the path is worn
and beaten down by heavy soles.
I see the hardships and sorrows,
the weight of crushing cares
and the smooth stones worn smooth
by constant pilgrimage.

I bring with me my own troubles.
They swirl about me, leaping forward,
dragging behind, pulling me left and right.

But I also carry a flickering light,
a fragile, gentle flame I carry
within my chest.

The flame is too dim
to light my way,
but it gives me warmth
for it is a beacon
that says “me too”
and replies “you too”
and connects me
to the other pilgrims
on this weary and
beautiful path.

Painting by Georges Rouault, from the Miserere series, 1914-1927

>1.
Where are these times,
these moments so in the clutch
of nomads: history and faith
and dark matter?

Where are we now, our souls
I mean, when we lay down
at night, flying between stars
and dust?

Who has taken us, is taking us,
through this murky
looking glass,
more deeply into our present,
more deeply into our wondering,
and deeper still into our darkened selves?
(More glorious than we can admit.)

Can we stand?
Can we stand it,
stand this hope in truth and love
and mercy?
Can we hope that much?

2.
What goes for understanding
on this outer crust?
The trees bare their leaves,
the flowers open,
the robins sit nervously
on the fence rail,
the park is full of children,
the machines make machines.

What is our shape, our color,
our wishful thinking?
I wonder.
I wonder about these things
like a stone cracks another.
Hulking shoulders or
straining sinews
cannot pull down my wondering.

And I take in the news,
which burns like paper
and disappears like vapor,
so that I might know.
I know so much less
I know.

3.
I think about my my children’s future
everyday.
Blood flows in the streets,
under the rubble,
into the sand.
Limbs go missing like
a favorite song that cannot
be remembered.
Only my children do not yet
know the song.

I hope they never know.
I hope they understand.

I think about my loved ones
who live in me.
Fire can rain down,
chariots can crush,
deceit can harness the darkness,
but I have seen a ghost,
like the wind in the trees.
I pray for my loved ones.

I pray about the future
when I think about today.

And this is the true light:
Love the poor,
Love the weak,
Love the hopeless,
Love the dying,
Love the orphan,
Love the homeless,
Love the widow,
Love your brother,
Love your enemy,
Love the other.

– June, 2008

>

gentle, go gentle
breeze across my face
in the sweet heat of
early Summer

river rocks, smooth,
laid down in age
upon age,
ring the banks
of this glowing
lake

and we, family,
take our rest
in the sanctuary
of time and cool ripples
on our shore

our shore,
claimed like a friend,
but not for keeps,
like a handshake
or a kiss
on the cheek,
is our shore

and this begins,
again and again
and new all the same,
our Summer

~May, 2008

>We have taken the darkness
and cast it down.
We have thrown off our damp things,
stripped away the grime and filth,
given our bodies to the sun,
and sucked in the cool,
fresh air of Spring.
This is a gift.

But we carry with us still
the shadows of our failings,
the bones of our fragile lives,
the ghosts of our tragedies;
and I am here to testify:
Every word that proceeds,
proceeds from the heart.

And this also I know:
I know it is my heart
that needs its own Spring
more than the budless branch,
more than the bloomless rose,
more than the wintry earth.
For it is my heart that longs,
like a seed longs for the thaw,
for its own true birth.

~ 2008

* * * * * * * *

This morning, when I let the dog out, I noticed it was snowing.

An interesting Oregon Spring so far.

>

ambient
like waves in corners
like ripples in the lee
we pore across tables
islands buoyed upon graces

where are we streaming from?

these reliquaries
of flesh and bone
these uneasy havens
this night of saints
and then to delight
grab strands and threads
flex
to hang in conversation
in blackness
heavy cream and music

we strolled
gamboled intently
at each others borders
knowing the softness of truth
the malleability of love
the beauty of death
and this is the fragrance
of exquisite evenings
friends and friends
and pauses like flowers

~2000

*painting by Marc Chagall, 1926

>languid and low
smoke sifts through
this designer basement
beckoned with the strings
of sweet acoustic blues

the alcoves are full
neon doors wrap around
day’s end caps
and curls

the changes carry us
into the soft light,
sweet swaying night

and with a flourish
blues man closes the opener
thanking the late stars
and there comes Dave
Gulf-Canada cap on that boy
singin’ Uncle Tupelo
his three fingered guitar
elliptical, emotional,
shakes like transcendence
and we can’t remember
Jane’s #

then the next guy
tries real hard
while his girlfriend smiles
like some beautiful sky

~2000/2008