whatcomes christmas is lightdream & ribbonweave

wondermussed & happy be

fete be yurs from goodnes borne

livly hopes & grandesprit

spin the orb & be lit inside
mak the darks' langor cease

wit briteng of sittng by th fire

wher sparks & min's fly yellowingd

& biddings come with gatherd warm

to fill th heart that cant be kept

& so was made for givn awee

yt such as He was no merely gave

but dreamd to us of God's mary

as breth to coal is leapt to flame

beckond spirit come livly agin

to shiverus gud, & shineus brite
as ribbns are weave to color th world

the way the parade used to be on tv

i guess what i want now, most of all, is the parade without the people

which is odd

i just want to see the balloons

please

but all of these talking people are in the way

their mouths

the dancing the singing

the selling, selling, selling

could we just have the balloons

please

spiderman and lucy and linus

and the ones i don't even know about yet?

OH LOOK

THERE'S ONE!

more please

night's bounteous song

the rain falling outside in the 3 a.m. dark

is so sweet on the mind

half-dozing, half-musing fingers move over the keys,

it is the slippery moment of reckoning.

whether to break for bed before the line bobs again in the wordstream,

or to abandon sleep altogether?

day 'comes precarious behind allnight bingewriting,

but sometimes merely to write up a thought

that was not born til the letters falling together

made it so

springs the soul from it's sinewy cage

and flings it up in the sky where it belongs

baker's man

well then.

that done,

shall we glance about at the world

outside these silly pleasures

and take in something for

the soul's humility?

perhaps to consider

the haitians starving,

eating mud cakes

of margarine, salt and mud?

or was that so last year?

oh yeah...that and a piece of fried chicken

i.

nothin prepares us so well for hope

than to breakfast on despair.

nothin prepares us so thoroughly for despair

than to eat bacon from high on the hog.

ii.

such relief finally to pull up a chair

to the kitchen table of heart and mind

to look at what we're serving up inside,

the soup du jour in the bowl of the soul...

then spoon and blow with delight

ah, my hat! my crow! my humble pie!

iii.

which explains so beautifully

the odd sense of well-being

to self-joust with

the right amount of cynicism

iv.

it's okay to observe these mastifications

and laugh as often as we find us sitting there

dipping snuff with such pleasure and thinking

my, my, what a nice coconut pie

held softly in the hand

hats

falling stars

dead birds

eucharist

picked flowers

humility

garden dirt

alms

tarantula

hope

time

mother's memory

rainwater

small moments

things left unsaid

your slow sweet-eyed candor,

glancing away to speak of things too close,

as in the way of strangers in a bar,

as in the way of a consciously unguarded heart,
is the unlooked for grace of shared soul

for chad and amanda

it is not lost on those of us who can still laugh

that God has successfully burgled you from our lives

and smuggled you off to a distant patch of red dirt...

with our help

but when i get over that, and myself,

i'll lift a glass looking eastward back at you

no regrets, no turning to salt

only this short time together as GodSpirits

in these bodies, our earthly temples,

our sanctuaries of soul,

wherein daily we lay down our shattered egos

and enter Her endless endless endless Grace

this slow rainy day

is slick with silver

sliding off the roof,

plinking and running

down the pane

in the eloquence

of nature's hand

what lives is what we feed

i.

all tucked in, neatly folded

between the cold sheets

of where i was last sunday

and where i am now,

safely home, absent the exiled heart

seeking solace outside somewhere

rafting on the river of this endless night...

it doesn't matter.

you are not here.

you are unable to make this journey.

ii.

eventually i will welcome the solitude

more as a corm for survival

than for relief from keeping up appearances.

and although leaving the conversation

works against me,

i'll journal on, writing exercises on the

flimsiness of hope in the spartan night

and parsing with care the

excellence of my defeat

while words still come

rather than submissively to lie down

on the daybed of despair

making love to the prideful muse of silence

iii.

i wonder what you think this is,

this not-saying-anything time,

this letting-time-pass thing

i wonder if you think i've moved on

and left it all behind.

vacated love.

i haven't.

that stuff lives inside me forever.

when we talked truth to his arrogance, and love to his vacant heart

i.

wasn't there a certain elegiac grace

in our halting voices, telling out our truths?

a room full of precious many-colored birds

of the same sacramental spirit...?

just so, love's bounty was slain by fear this night

ii.

spirit linger

until no sky is left that doesn't mourn the light

until nothing comes but the comforter's voice

to wash off the stink of my disbelief

and, replenished, to love wastefully the vacant heart

through a glass darkly

the face in the mirror, the one

that is hard to look at with it's
vague stepford smile, is not you.

your face is not you.

your fear is not you.

you are not your monkey.

you are in here. come inside.
look out on this day
with your feral child eyes.

look out from the warmth of your own true light,

the soft you that was made in the image of Love

Who made the first morning of the world.

you are not your legs.
you are not your painted fingernails.
you are not your borrowed face.

the courage required

smiley and rosey, her morning face on

and earphones, garrison keillor online

bananas, bluets and flakes, spoon by spoon

at the farmer's market, company face

primly erect in her jet black walker

as if pretty is as pretty just is

so much for the watchword of my childhood

how long does one fake it, and life is made?

what is the point if we don't find the point?

business face on, she's ready for heaven

but she'd hold up for crackers and cheese, and

a half glass of wine at 4 o'clock, sharp

credo

i believe God is the presence of Love

that animates the soul

and shines through the eyes of all whom we behold as loved.

nothing

and everything

is profound about that

i believe that we understand a little more each time our bodies die

and we take up life again in our spiritual home between lives...

i believe the enrichment of our own Soul enriches the Life of the Whole


i believe God's Great Risk was NOT

killing the Son to appease the Holy Split Personality--with Hate for some and unconditional Love for others ...living out the Eternal Snit: "They Done Me Wrong In The Garden"...


no.


i believe

Love's Risk was creating you and me

out of Their own Spiritual Image,

and then giving us Free Will

to grow, learn, and live our gifts forward through each life,

or to smash everything to bits and start over.

i believe we have a life lessons plan that we agreed to before we come into the physical world...each time...and that we return to be accountable for the gifts we are given and the goodness we came to increase in ourselves by living in the world for others.

i believe every path is made holy by love
and i believe

it is Good and Life-giving and Spirit-honoring

to love 

consciously, intentionally, freely, without expectation
so to live and breathe and mature in our Being of the Spirit 

daily bread

the screen door bangs behind me

as if i had been shot out of the house...

it will take awhile, this new arrangement.

her words follow me like snarling dogs...

she is angry because she is not dead.

her perfect little 98 year old body

mocks her will.

blue-veined hands clenched

she berates her invisible tribe

why can't she die, she wants to know--

how hard could it be?

so it goes. minutes tick by. quiet comes.

she sits there in her elegant bones

muttering as she fingers the crinkling pages

not so much praying the scriptures

as loading in more words

to hurl back at heaven.

my wilted lettuce, having read mary oliver's 'Walking to Oak-Head Pond...'

i.

what could i possibly hope to turn up

that would count

after trudging around in my daily swamp

to compare to mary's words

already dancing about like freckles on a forest lily?

ii.

must i gaze upon her plummy stanzas

while i sit with my morning raisin?

hell.

she has sucked out all of the goody

nothing hangs in the air waiting to come to me

my spirit is off mooning over her substance,

and my will is lost to the soft pleasure of her phrases.

the languid hours of silence before me

reach out to hold my wilted lettuce on a twig with two fingers

iii.

so here sit my little ciphers

with all the crispness of cobwebs,

waiting for an unwary gnat of praise

while her words already recline

in the splendor of gods,

lolling about on the well-lauded page

iv.

'think i'll swat flies
and then take a nap

birthdaypoemicals for fr don legge

i.

the goodness you are gifted with as

lifestoryteller of hurt and grace

is a lovescarred and suppled heart...

you are a born priest, not a made one--

your hands are holy from brokenness ...

you are the light of the prayers you

pray

and spiritual shepherd of those whom

you bend to kiss on their journey home

ii.

all that aside, love just breaks out of you 
until we're plum pecked to pieces by you

...you 'bein' such a shiny 

smiley-beaked,

yellowfeathered

furballness,

chirpin and laughin
and love-spreadin

all over ever'body

all the time

i.

conning the mysteries of the universe

was, from childhood,

always by the light

of the first star on the right...

flying was easy,

you just leaped up

ii.

now lying in bed

on this black-as-black night

comes a far longing

and the monkeymind chatters...

the mother, the daughter, the partner,

the broken down car, dwindling savings

dreams that wait and the weight of care

then like going under water

all i hear is my own breathing

and i wait, being nothing in the stillness...

iii.

loosening the tether of time and place,

feeling my own bareness, my own light

so i lift up my heart and follow it

into the great impossibleness

and fly and fly and fly

and it is so beautiful

so beautiful

iv.

somewhere behind the heart

is the finding place

for being well

and knowing the Good

from there

i.

she said, when we close this world

and open the next
much depends on making soft 

all of the harsh lessons of our life
for our soul's sake

help is always near
ask

ii.

and when i asked

how do i know these things?

she said
how does your tongue know
the contours of your own mouth?

then i asked
but if tonight i could know 

the source of my own spirit
would it be too much... 

she said
how much do you need to know

iii.

i heard small bells 

in a rush of wind

and came to who i am 

the ruella are in the fairy

chaos reigns 

the four o'clocks mock the hour

showing up when 

they damn well please

while the mustangs muck up the la france 

the wilting impatiens are wrist to forehead

faint from heat

even in the shade

as the chile pequins, rigid with delight,

stiffly stick out their little hot red tongues...

standing here in the noisy mess

of my own disarray

i fit right in

and firmly resist the grace that always comes 

in awe of all of this wild abundance

perversely to enjoy 

the wicked invasions of johnson grass

and the proudness of weeds 

so let us praise God, not with
eyes lifted, praying at the heavens on sunday
but searching in the faces of
earthly others on monday...

not the easy ones, not the pretty ones,
but the hard, worn, everyday ugly ones

and find ourselves in Divine surprise...
reflecting the love we are made of

so the moon slides down the throat of a storm

here i sit with these reasons
for holding with tradition--
not least for the sheer beauty

of two thousand year old words...
 i don't even have to think
...believe and you're done with it,

snug in the bosom of the
family. just sit down, and
for God's sake don't rock the boat.

'get over it with all of these
questions about meaning and
data on life after death.

maybe even think about
taking up the ministry...
maybe 'could catch up on my sleep.

begotten not made

if we knew we came here
spiritual bodies templed in physical bodies
to learn the lessons of the virtues of the spirit
would it make a difference in the way we lived?
would we find purpose in suffering?
would it take the sting out
if we knew it was all to learn
and grow in the ways of grace?
listen:
you do not blow in the wind
like a seed willy nilly
to grow once and bloom once and die once
merely to throw off more seeds
for more souls to come...
no, you are born again and again and again
to find your own rich warm brown groundedness within
to grow stronger and more true in the opening of your soul
toward the bright yellow Sun of your eternal longing

i look at you

i look at you.
i have made promises
with my mouth and my hands,
and i have left the womb of safety
to love you.

it is not much to sacrifice.
of what good is a safe world,
securing the memories of
my dusty little life?
this love is a risk i choose to live with.

and where will i be when you die?

right here
holding the hand of your carcass
whispering 'safe journey, my love,
see you soon, my dear sweet love.'

comes fire

i.
in my waking dreams, looking out--
rain sliding down the windows--
i see myself walking about on the lawn, pretending to be loved,

feeling the delicious wet midnight grass under foot...
my sleepy hands fumble with the sheets
and then search along the long wall of my mind

not knowing if i am sleepwalking while feigning hope
or walking while awake unconscious with despair
it may be all the same...

arriving at the threshold called mercy
i cannot reach the latch...
but your door, lord, is patient

ii.
no telling out brings peace
nor does pummeling the hardness inside
soothe the hurt

is all of this necessary?
to move me? to what?
truth? using words?

i could easier tat syllables into lace,
every scalloped edge rhyming with orange

iii.
not that all wordy shallows
are poor wading

but the well of silence
is rich and resonant
with watery glintings
and crashings of light

iv.
you do not know how to go
from this moment to the next
you cannot merely think it to
raise a foot or pick up a pen...

no, it is the will, the pulsing spirit
that impels to write, or propels to run,

or nudges and provokes a mountain
to move, and opens a door inside

v.
in the small hours of quiet and disquiet
in our hollow rooms that make for wanting,
that ache for the echoing swells of bliss

we long for hands to reach inside, to rip out
the cold heavy blocks of darkness and pour in the sticky
warm love of angels, and the burning urgency of galaxies

the gift of lovefire is the spiritual birth material of the universe...
we are born new, not out of the clicks and gutturals of ancient tongues
but in the warm communion of lips telling out love with a kiss of peace.

we are crowned not with tongues of flame but the radiant nimbus of desire,
beholding the beloved in yielded communion of flesh and spirit
to know and be held in the very heart and hands of God.

a great blue flies over with a grraaup
headed for the rookery on the river below
pumping the air with his big gray wing-paddles,
long stick legs trailing behind...i keep pace with a smile...

a hummer zippps by, whirrrs in and out,
sipping at tiny red trumpets-on-a-stick...but
how did i miss these before, right here by the road?
so i slow down to wonder at it...trying not to disturb with my puffing...
have never seen a hummer here...can these red things grow in a day?

and now a cottontail pokes out of the tall grass
and quiet-hoppities across the road
like no one's around
like i'm not standing right there
arms akimbo, amazed and steamy,
with a mile and a half of earned sweat

morning glow swells and shoves over
my beautiful fuzzy gray dawn...
the daily egg breaks over the hill
spilling yolk on oak and cedar
and i turn back toward the house
and coffee
and contemplation of all of this magical stuff

let
us
Cross
pollinate
and
become
the
Love
yellow
of
each
other

"oh dear," you sigh

here, look at this...i mean, really...
eucharist is sometimes just too much

a sip or a mouthful of bloody wine
chewing and swallowing the bready flesh

confessing all sorts of things done and undone--
how about a little less of then, a little more now?

how about instead of a homily we all talk
about being surprised by holiness at work?

we could still have bread and wine while we talked...
or maybe dr pepper and mashed potatoes

where dwells and moves the spiritual author of your being

it's not your daddy
it's not an old man 'up there'
or a finger that points at your shame
judging everything you do

but the felt Presence that holds you
in the wake of your betrayal
the Grace that pushes back the wall of your despair
the Other who beholds you in the eyes of a beggar





whom we call God is
the ooze of life
the marrow of the soul
the evergreening of love
the envelope of grace

except for love, var.

except for love

the wind despairs

hearts wither

stars forget to climb

and heaven departs unsung

except for love

oceans whimper

hope shatters

clouds are without witness

and spirits faint at hell's door

but on this day

Love's silver bell

shouts the light

shouts and shines and rings true forever

hanging from a nail

on a cross

and every stone lifts up the song

alleluia! alleluia!

easter alley

except for love
hearts clang
the wind despairs
stars forget to climb
and heaven's song is unsung

except for love
hope shatters
the earth flies apart
clouds are without witness
and spirits faint at hell's door

but on this day
love's silver bell
shines down the darkness
shines and rings true
hanging from a nail
on a cross

allelu
allelu
allelu

i look in monday's mirror

you look back at me with a stepford smile
with a mind borrowed from whatever you heard on the radio...

your thinking stinks of someone else's sweat
and your manufactured viewpoints mock your eyes

...your emperor wears new petticoats.
you have forgotten who you are.

come now again new...
look at me with your feral child eyes

with the sparkling clarity of true north
sing out from the only spirit you have

from one life to the next... your soul's own bright imprint
of the First Love That Made the First Morning of the World

six ways to sunday

solitude marked the hours,
a gentle procession
of ten thousand moments
of well ordered quiet

then heard my own voice
sob like a betrayed child
...to give up on wanting
that life, that kind of love...

...

what does the spirit gain
by knowing this despair?
i should learn merely to
endure by enduring?

...

you said these were holy
tears, and to mark the day
of coming to the holyself...
but what have i confessed?

self-abandonment?
so far it's only
an admission of
a hopelessness of desire.

i should take on
chastity if only
to assume the piety
of a masked emptiness

...

it is not enough to
play it well, to hear the
music but not to know
where all the songs come from

behind my eyelids
in my dark and many-colored closet
you come to me
from the ether of goodness
a warm thumbprint
on my forehead
all i desire is here
you flood my spirit
with words and warmth
until my heart is new
and quiet comes
and i am lifted
into the foreverness
of this day

what i said was 'don't worry about it'
what i meant was 'i am still ripped all to hell inside but i can't tell you how i really feel because you can't do anything about it anyway'

what i said was 'it's okay'
what i meant was 'i feel an aching despair in my stomach every time i think about it...it's just something i have to live with until it quits hurting...'

time passes

what i said was 'i love you'
and it was what i meant with everything in me, and so i cried

i cannot die
because there is grace

i only live
because there is grace

we are never without grace
we are only without knowing it