Stillness

Be still, and know that I am God...
Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

I come to this place every morning,
empty-handed, barefoot,
long hair uncombed,

to resume my daily visit
through French doors
that smell of tapestry and apple blossoms.

The smell of impending work is
always within reach, but better to breathe
the scent of the lilies in the fountain.

Better to hear the splash of the water
for a moment more, and smile
at the chipping plaster on cupids bow.

In my place of stillness,
the tree is always blooming,
the vines are always green,

and the water is always warm.
Retreating through French doors,
I notice too, that they are always clean.

Exiting stillness, I can still smell
the tapestry, though the apple blossoms
and lilies have grown more faint.


Window Seats

The words
extraordinary ways
of sharing

what would otherwise remain hidden
in the darkest corners
of the window seats of the mind,

the cobwebby places,
people love and fear
at the same time.

Breaking free from these places,
shaking the webs loose,
bringing to life the page, and the mind.

So many adjectives,
so little solidity. Ineffable
in their ability to soften and penetrate.

The words
breaking through
the dust and the cobwebs,

the creaky hinges,
locked doors,
and layers of memories,

to find their way free,
from the darkest corners,
of the neglected window seats of the mind

to become
poetry

finding the soul,
and putting it back
where it belongsright next to the heart.


One

and the two will become one
Ephesians 5:31b. (NIV)

As we sit together
on this old, cracked bench,
the one that swings,
if we lean just right,
and smell the purple flowers
still blooming in late summer,

and laugh at the tiny fichus,
no taller now
than the day we planted it,

and complain of the ivy
growing wild over the neighbors fence,
next to the orange tree with blossoms
falling on our side of the required divide,
we come as close as two people can
to being one.

One with each other,
one with nature, and one with God,
as the bench swings with each heartbeat,
the setting sun still warm on our backs
and the smell of sweet bell peppers
wafting through the fence.

100

Rising slowly, but without assistance.
Dressed in red,

in a dress that doesnt quite fit,
for no one stands at 100,

quite the same way one stood
at 40, or 60, or even 80.

The bones are strong, but
shorter here, and stouter there.

The hair is a perplexing shade,
no longer found in a box of 64 crayons.

It now falls somewhere between
Lexus silver and Camry white.

No longer cut or styled,
simply a mass of locks

that doesnt grow or change anymore.
Too old to grow, too tired to change.

The honored birthday girl turns
to her great-great-granddaughter and asks,

did I remember to eat today?
as she shuffles to find the kitchen.

100, in ruby,
slipping quietly through the house,

seeming to forget that the party is for her.
What does 100 need with a party?

If one lives to be 100,
every moment is a celebration.


Empty Vessels

Never put a period where God has put
a comma.
Gracie Allen

Have we started over, yet again?
Are we okay now,
or are we still fighting?

The person of all the yesterdays,
still wanders, still lives,
in myself and in you.

Were still here
and the same,
and yet only shadows

and whispers
of what made the orange blossoms
smell like passionate candy.

Empty vessels
surrounding the essence
of the joy that was here.

Its still here.
Buried somehow,
too deep to dig out,

too hard to soften,
too calloused to care.
But still here,

in the ramblings of the mind.
Still alive in the soul
of the shadow of the memory of our lives.

Have we started over, yet again?
Are we okay now,
or are we still fighting?

Behind the black snow of inner eyelids,
lies the residue of purpose,
intertwined with the remains of joy.

Out of focus,
twisted, disjointed
and quivering.

Empty vessels
struggling
to regain their place.

But only for a moment,
and only in the darkness,
of the black snow of closed eyes.


Insignificant

apart from me, you can do nothing.
John 15:5b (NIV)

Living as grains of sand,
dotting an expanse of eternities,
stretching forward, stretching below,

in never-ending mindless paths
that go everywhere and nowhere,
simultaneously defining and destroying.

Where are we on these paths of sand
like so many granules?
We speckle a stretch of imagined importance.

Enveloping darkness surrounds us.
We reach out,
we touch the limits of what we see,

of what we can grasp,
to satiate our finite understanding.
We find our place in this world; we are happy.

Finding temporary solace
for the explanation of our lives,
we fit, belong; we have answers.

Continually floating,
as the whim of the wind to the dandelion,
we smile and embrace our insignificance.

Mere specks, dots, these grains of sand,
waiting to be kicked and scattered, to regroup
and reclaim, again and again, as often as needed.

Mere grains of sand dotting an expanse of eternities.
Simple schools of thought,
floating perpetually on the wind.