mother's day leftovers

i.

the savory pungence of the daughter's cooking

still lingers all over the house.
'faith of our mothers'
indeed...

most days faith has
nothing to do with it
and everything to do with just hanging on.

and here we were laughing

while so many dire things threaten... 

here i am, required to live
all the way through the smooth silky easy
minutes and hours and days

in a stone and mortar house
under the oak trees,
with these memories,

to make meaning
in the work of my soul

ii.

and across the way is another one like me

in the subsaharansomeplaceorother...

with no lesser thing to marvel, nor is

mothering any more or less poignant or beautiful, 

nor the smell of cookery by younger hands

a sweeter more savory memory

so i look far far far and

her look comes back

with the same knowing 

how it all just is
and the deep goodness of it
the way we are made

fairy and old blush and souvenir heavy and pouty with rain,
secure in the many blessings of being born roses...
this late spring day hangs low,
and drips,
and seeps into the soul,
a muddy balm for winter's rawness
and a momentary protection
against the summer heat to come
when even the the limestone will lose it's cool
and the garden abandons all restraint when the sprinkler turns on

golden calves

Episcopal Barbie. The new face of episcopal evangelism...with "black" Bishop Barbie and ''latino'' Deacon Ken coming soon down the diversity pipeline. Too sweet. 


It's surely a labor of love spending over 100 hours sewing her little mini-36-24-36 vestments, using fabric from an actual clergy shirt...BUT  I cannot for the life of me fathom a serious commentary--much less serious heads nodding agreement--that Episcopal Barbie is a sign of hope in what Walter [--. Russell Mead] calls a faltering, gasping, near-death church in his little debbie "Faith Matters: Will Barbie Save the Episcopal Church" ... 


"...This, frankly, is a tremendous relief.  Every now and then I am tempted to believe that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States is in a death spiral ...  As it moves inexorably toward expulsion from the worldwide Anglican Communion,... I sometimes wonder just where it will all end.


But then I see something like this.  There is still hope; we Episcopalians still have a message to the contemporary world.  We are ‘fun’.  We dress up.  We are PC.  We have incense.  As a church which has borne Christian witness in this land for more than 400 years falls to pieces on our watch and around our ears we have hundreds of hours to spend making vestments for dolls."


THIS from a foreign policy guy at Yale who writes for the Wall Street Journal AND the New Yorker?  I thought he was someone with a little gravitas. Turns out he is a batterfried fluffball. 


Talk about lost opportunity. The new Episcopal Goddess is totally sans that ''bad'' kind of diversity --not one Transgen Ken or Bi Barbie anywhere on the horizon to muck it up. This baby doll is the perfect All American Alleluia. 

One week after Easter Jesus we've got Evangelist Barbie. I say, there musta bin a u-turn somewhere. We're back in the OT with the golden calf.  

the other easter

light is only light because there is dark
love is love because it perfectly repels fear

surely the spirit of christ risen 
cradled the soul judas sacrificed 

to become the darkest knife ever to trace
  a bright seam of blood on That Good Light.


and so we too are cradled in christ's love
when humility calls us out and forgives us our daily treacheries 

so this is what i learned at breakfast:
that the freakish zing of a very ripe strawberry
can break the flow of everything--
and to miraculously close the shocked eyes that  
so nearly electrocuted the brain  
reading the Baptist Standard about Ken Starr 
as a potentially great president for Baylor...
gawdamighty, what a fookin disaster.


mouth and mind agape, the strawberry as catalyst,
suddenly jumping up are letters in strings
spewing from some thin corner where sits
my muse of rare inklings and mystic wisdoms.


panic. no writing tools naturally 
habituate the kitchen bar,
so nothing comes to hand for catching 
wild tribes of raucous lines
racing like monkeys over the canopy of mind 
without a backward glance.


all gone, only the receding tails
of epic lines that came once, whole 
an english major's paradise lost 
for want of a pencil stub 
and the back of an envelope.


even tho i had been only 
a lowly music major, 
now i was mad,
so i ordered an ipad. 
and i think i'll name it 
the jabberwok strawberry.
and wouldna joyce be pleased?

the cameraman said 'think bliss'

i knew what he was thinking...a quiet room
misty fog lingering outside the window
enough wood to last 
no phone
a little ooolala...
and i was thinking
a quiet room
enough wood to last
misty fog lingering outside
...and writing, writing, writing
which made me laugh
which made him smile...
'perfect' he said 
to his laughing mary magdalene
for the vestry wall

song for a standupforjesus rallythesaints candlelitelovesongfest

we are made to be who we are
God's people, God's people.
only to be who we are
God's people. 
all God's people.
and like the stars we shine
and like the oceans are full of the heavens
we are God's people
and like the warm sweet rain gentles the earth
we are God's people. 
all are God's people.

safely made is the night's passage

borne on the iridescent wings of sleep

borne on the softly feathered air
of ten thousand breaths
taken, unearned
to arrive again on these bright steps of morning
an unrepentant thief of grace                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

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