Friday, July 15, 2011

The Promise of A New Age

The pen has run as dry as dust,
The ink is pale and gray,
The wealthy man, the upper crust
Seem wan, and walk away.
A silent clock clicks on and on
The dusk has passed to light;
An age has turned in to the dawn
And banished failing night.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Sleep, Songsters

Goodnight, fair weather flyers,
Gentle-hearted friends of earth and sky,
Sparrow, housewren, bluebird,
Let your hymnals die.
Wing your last tomorrow,
Winter is arriving---
Goodnight, vale and fallow,
Goodnight, cease your striving.
In the folds of moonbeams
And the floods of sleeping,
Lay away, you songsters,
Hear the starlight weeping.
Put your wings in shadow,
Sun will wait for morning,
Dream of life's tomorrow,
In the night's adorning.

Doxology

The world is growing dim with age,
But You are growing fair,
A blossom breaking through the page
Of stories in the air,
A Man, a Spirit, and a God,
Creator, Father, King,
As ancient as the oldest sod,
And Lord of everything.

Amen.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Presence of Divinity

There is a marine silence in all that I do,
A waiting, a watching, a stillness of thought,
A presence, unmitigated by them or by you
By what the earth gave, or what time forgot.
It lies in my spirit, it rests in my chest
It flutters, unheard of, in thick vales of stars
It seems to be speaking in low caves of rest
And floats on the crest, like a balancing card.
Its cord is the swordfish, a fierce black and blue,
Its softness the velveteen wing of a bee,
Its entity lies in the wake of what's new
And sleeps in the buds of a shimmering tree.
I own it, I keep it, its presence is mine,
I clutch it with hands etched in heresy's mud,
A sinful equation in light of Divine,
Its snowdrop the sparkle in feral and flood.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Lost Stars


Where have you been, fair weather, bright stars?
With your pale, crystal thrones like a hundred gold czars?
Where have you been? On the mount? In the reef?
Why do you fill every valley with grief?
Mourning and moaning, and weeping for you,
Holding their hands toward the veritas blue,
There, perhaps there, they can seek for your truth...
There, like a courtier, aplomb and aloof.
Where have you gone in the vast, still unknown?
Where have you built up your palisade home?
Sweet, errant birds seem to pause in the dark
Searching for you, dear fair weather, bright star.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Month Before Autumn

Summer was here many days before,
A silent stranger at the willow's front door,
A creature with eyes full of skies, thick with rain
An island of heat in a field raw with grain.
Thoughtless with desire, dry with wind
Wandering, faithless, in the glance of a friend
Footsteps in dust, memory's shame
Memory of memory in summer's flame.