What is the splendor of Your love, whispered?
Is it a flash of lightning in the corner of the mind’s eye,
a flash that quickens the spirit?
Is it a steady breath to the heart’s dying embers,
a breath that reignites – gently – the fire You intended?
Is it a constant flow of water over our stone,
a flow that inexorably smoothes our jagged edges?
Whisper Your love to me.
Burnt Nortons’ pond,
and the bird says, “Go –
always burning just beyond
is the brilliant blue echo
of the eternally present.”
You rouse my heart gently
and it is alert for Your word.
I clear my mind of all but You
- NESCIO –
and my pen is poised.
This is how I wait for You,
wishing to be free
of the tedium of me.
Yesterday, I could not bear
the sky’s oppressive weight or its outrageous,
unreachable height,
holding me down where I stood,
bent, unmoving,
eyes down toward the dark path,
far from the vast expanse of air
that suffocates; weightless weight
Today, I cannot bear
the sky’s accessible glory
or its brilliant refraction of pure light,
drawing me from where I crawl,
upward, soaring,
eyes searching all that might yet be,
far from the dark law of gravity
that I must temporarily obey; burden of light
Yesterday, I could not see.
Today, Your bright wing has lifted me.
Always on the brink of drought and fruitlessness, we
reach with arms and hearts for
water -
water to sustain, water to purify.
We know only this until
You look on us with love and reveal that You
are the Rock from which flows living water, and You say,
“Come to Me.”
And then You show that this water can
flow deep within.
Cana’s drought of wine
might abrupt the feast, and Your time is not yet come, but
You are eager to give in full measure, pressed down,
running over -
the water of our sustenance,
the water of our cleansing,
the water of our offering,
becomes the richest wine,
the wine of celebration,
the wine of joy.
Because of the eagerness of Your love,
Your time, which has not yet come -
the glorious Feast, which is our eternal Wedding -
is NOW.
The Bridegroom is here.
Let us surrender with joy.
Amor proximi
I sought His love in kneeling throngs of prayer
In liturgies sublime, incensed, communal,
Gathering for myself the perfumed air
And richly vested full confessed tribunal,
I listened for His voice in chant and hymn
From page and word I strained to visualize;
In solitude and quiet rest pursued Him,
But caught my first true glimpse in Samaritan eyes.
So I sacrificed to serve Him in my neighbor –
Gave past my wants to lessen others’ needs.
I’d thought I would find God upon Mount Tabor,
But heart-proof of love is not what glows but bleeds.
The sanguinary road to Calvary we must trod
If we would listen to the heartbeat of God.
“Open to me the gates of holiness: I will enter and give thanks…
I will thank you for you have answered and you are my savior.” - Psalm 118
The first rays of the dawn are stone cold gray
And they still allow the depths and heights to hide,
But they portend a warm renewal and the day –
The Bridegroom ever coming to His Bride.
Something’s on the point of breaking forth:
Cold embers can be coaxed into a flame,
The thread of my remembering and support
Woven to altar cloth to offer my shame.
The wilderness has ravaged all I held,
Darkness whispered I was far astray,
Poverty persuaded me I cannot save myself;
Yet I trust the love I knew will not betray.
This barest light disperses every fear;
His Heart is the door burst open by the spear.
