The order of things in not always what we expect it to be. I’ve come to appreciate that this is very often a good thing.
***
Leading and following walk
hand in hand through the world. Evening leads
morning into the new day. Mercy follows
judgment, which leads to grace.
Sometimes the best leaders are those who know
first how to follow.
This poem is for R., who has invited me to read Agnes Sanford’s The Healing Light, and for R., who has invited me to accompany her on a journey of healing.
Filament
I want to be conductive so that life
and spirit flow through and beyond
me, but I also want to have just enough
resistance to incandesce and radiate
warmth and light for others.
The snow has finally melted from my garden, revealing these wonderful Iris reticulata ‘Pauline.’ If I were naming them, I would have called them ‘Elizabeth Taylor’s Eyes.’
Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes
The picture does not do them
justice – they are a shade of blue
so purple the sky weeps, not
out of jealousy as one might
suppose, but with joy.
In the past few weeks, several people I know have lost animal companions. My own four-footed shadow these days is feline, but her behavior is often more like that usually thought of as canine. (Don’t tell her I said that.)
Devotional psalm
Your comings and goings and much that you do
are a mystery, but everything
I have is by your hand so I watch and wait
to greet you with joy.
All I ask is to be with you, to follow
wherever you go; I implore you not to shut
the door or make me stay outside.
If I cannot lie on the couch beside you
let me then lie at your feet
and run through sunlit fields with you
in my dreams.
I’ve noticed lately how the expedition of life is made up of so many smaller journeys. Each moment may turn out to be the beginning or ending of any one of them.
Destination
We cannot see very far ahead of us, even when
the light is good. We do not know how long
we will travel or where we might end up. In truth,
nothing is certain this day but the path
beneath our feet, so we give thanks for good
companions on the road.
The latest snowstorm hit the Bluegrass last night, but fifty or so hardy souls turned out for our shared (between four local congregations) Lenten service. The church I attend hosted this week, and the youth choir got a chance to try out Sunday’s offertory piece. They sounded lovely.
Lenten storm
It had poured all day: eighteen hours’ worth of heaven
weeping. As we arrived for evening prayer, the rain’s dull thud
turned to slushy splatter against the windows. We sang
the litany to the ricochet of sleet, but when we heard nothing
in the silence between petitions we knew
it had become snow. In the parking lot we called
prayers of safe travel and made careful way through streets
thick with snow, a communion hymn on our lips. It was very good
to be warm and safe when at last we were home.
I have been told by traffic experts that speed itself is not nearly as great a danger as differences in speed between vehicles traveling the same road.
Speed differential
Each day in our bodies cells die and new cells
grow in their places. Skin and stomach turn over
every week or so; bone and muscle take years.
Heart cells, once thought irreplaceable, regenerate
so slowly we would live at least two
centuries before all had been renewed.
And so we exist in a state of wide and varied
flux, but our hearts refresh at such an incremental rate
they wear out before they can change completely.
I turned this prompt over in my mind all morning but couldn’t decide which of several ideas to pursue. Then I took a nap and woke up with the material I needed.
Lucid
Driving in an unfamiliar city, I take an exit
that becomes a parking lot. I brake hard, but the car continues
too fast to stop before an approaching fence. I close
my eyes and think, This is a dream.
Can I rewind this scene, or levitate
the car, or change the setting? I open them to find
myself and the car in a driveway on the other
side of the fence, unscathed. For a moment
I consider the parking lot and the freeway
beyond it. Then I shrug and drive
out to the street, wondering which way to turn.
Discipline is practice, and the reason practice can make perfect is that one is not perfect to begin with. So after an unexpected Sabbath break as well as a planned First Day break, I take up my discipline, my Lenten practice, again.
Empty
What you seek is not here, the bright young man
told the weeping women. The one you look for is out there, always
somewhere ahead, leading the way, calling you
into the world of saints and sinners who suffer and love
one another. Go and tell the others
what you have seen, what you have heard, and ask them
to join you in the search.
Some days are busier than others and the poetry piles up in my head but I don’t have a chance to write it down. Most times I lose it, but this one just stuck there until this morning.
Damascus
I can truly say I never saw it coming, the bolt of light that dropped
me blind into the dust, ears ringing with the roar. Stunned speechless
and bewildered, my companions led me into the city where I sat
three days in darkness with the sound of that thunder rolling
in my head so I could not eat or drink or talk. The household moved
about in hushed tones, fearful – who could blame them?
At last a man came to me, touched my arm to let me know
he was there before placing a warm hand on my shoulder. His voice was gentle;
he called me brother and something fell from my eyes. Vision returned and I saw
my enemy had healed me. My life was never the same.
The Daily Compost 