Night to Day

photo credits: https://wallpaperaccess.com/night-and-day

In our Great Vigil of Easter service tonight, the phrase "The night is clear as the day. . .then shall my night be turned into day" stood out to me. The notion of night being the same to God as day might mean a host of things (e.g. God is omniscient and nothing can be hidden from God or God is pure light, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, so nothing can "dull" God, etc.). I chose the concrete interpretation as Easter is synonymous with spring in the Northern Hemisphere with a subtle tribute to Easter.

Night to Day 

Verging on week 3

Since vernal equinox - 

A slow expanding

Of light,

 

Pushing back the corners

Of night.

Coaxing trees to bud

then bloom

 

freshly adorned;

The cardinal red

chases his golden girl

the rays an aphrodisiac.

 

And slowly,

at times imperceptible,

Life returns

in waves and lengths of light.

 

The night growing faint

in memory - 

A poor dream

of some other reality

 

Post meridiem

marked less and less

by dark - a night 

being turned - today.

(4.8.23)

Behind a Day (Six Days a Week)

Behind a Day (Six Days a Week) 

Sung to the tune of the Beetle’s “Eight Days A Week”

 

Ooh, I need some help now 
Guess you know it's true
Hope that you can help me 
Be-cause I need you

Help me, guide me
Help me, guide me

I ain't got the time right - 
It's six days a week

 

Yes I need some help now
Always won-der-ing
One thing I can say, now
I missed my num-ber-ing

Help me, guide me

Help me, guide me

I ain't got the time right - 
It's six days a week

 

Six days a week
that’s the Lent-en length
Six days a week
Is not enough to count Sundays

 

Ooh, I need some help now 
Guess you know it's true
Hope that you can help me 
Be-cause I need you

Help me, guide me

Help me, guide me

I ain't got the time right - 
It's six days a week

 

Six days a week
that’s the Lenten length
Six days a week
Is not enough to count Sundays

 

Count you every day, now
One day counted twice
One thing I can say, now
Count is finally right

Help me, guide me

Help me, guide me

I ain't got the time right - 
It’s six days a week

It’s six days a week

It’s six days a week**

(4.7.23 - counting the days of Lent via Facebook, I missed counted a day and penned this to commemorate the mistake.)

 

Our Golgothas

photo credits:Tjeerd Wiersma

This year the name Golgotha has intrigued me. While archeologist Google claims the area known as Golgotha is so named due to a rock formation at the site, it makes sense to me that the name represented the area's connection with death. Who knows, maybe beheaded enemies of the state sat atop spears like sentinels on the path to the crucifixion area - welcoming the soon-to-be-dead and warning others away. Tonight, during Maundy Thursday services, I thought how we all may have our personal Golgothas, but we certainly have public ones, and this is a poem for them.

Our Golgothas 

Places of skulls

Where death lurks

Devastatingly explosive,

Waltzing through a side door,

Flying in from overhead.

 

Across the globe, 

Golgothas –

Where the innocent

Are sacrificed

With the guilty;

 

Made to carry

A burden, which

Never belonged to them.

The powerful cursing them

For simply being who they are.

 

For spending their days

in classrooms and playgrounds.

For standing up to oppression.

For choosing – striving – 

to be free.

 

Do we wash our hands of these Golgothas? 

Or cry for more bloodshed? 

Do we jeer with the powerful - 

denying these Golgothas exist?

Maybe, we weep with the grieving. . .

 

The story says

the guilty found salvation on that Golgotha.

Yet the Light still was extinguished.

A punctuated exhale, 

and He was gone.

 

A punctuated exhale,

And they were all gone.

(4.6.23)

photo found on: https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/819378-the-8-spookiest-catacombs-and-tombs-on-the-planet

 

Ireland

photo credits: Global Racing Adventures

Using a photo as a prompt, I begin with description and end with ontology. Maybe this is why I love travel: Each place echoes an understanding of what it is to be human. The place pictured is Ireland.

Ireland 

The trail - 

Shifting left, then right - 

Snaking to the cliff’s edge;

 

A line of people - 

Looking outward - 

Taking in the horizon.

 

The ocean - 

Trembling beneath

forces unseen.

 

Arrows in the sky

pointing toward

what’s just beyond sight.

 

Earth striving

to reach the place

where sea and sky unite, 

 

Yet stubbornly - 

Weighted - 

Too heavy for air;

 

Too solid for all

the drops

surrounding it;

 

Encompassing

the conundrum

as old as time -

 

Our beings: Earth

And sea

And sky

 

Pointing - 

Always pointing - 

Where sea and sky

 

Meet,

But our earth

Can never - reach.

(4.5.23)

 

photo credits: https://www.cbc.ca/kids/articles/how-do-you-haiku...and-what-is-it-anyway

Haiku Tuesday

Aging

My neck with pain from

Some unknown task telling me

The body keeps score.

Busyness

Sleep has been lacking

As I nod off while sitting

almost anywhere. 

Love

A guitar played close

His voice a song of loving

Cushioning the heart

Coincidence

 

Photo by vickholius nugroho on Unsplash

Coincidence (Matthew 21:1-11) 

Each year at this time

the trumpets blow and

the crowds gather:

Traveling from North and South, East and West.

 

The songs they sing

linger, echoing across

all the history

written and recorded and taught.

 

Spring drawing nigh,

Sun bright, not burning,

A perfect day to celebrate

What will be triumph, justice. . .one day.

 

A heritage promised

Yet always out of reach.

But faithfulness,

Faithfulness turns the ear of the Almighty.

 

“Hosanna, in the highest

Heaven! Blessed,

Is the one who comes

In the name of the Lord!”

 

Before him,

Behind him

A joyful shout

the song of Israel, greeting the stranger

 

Who may be God

at your tent - 

Disguised in flesh

one does not expect.

 

How many other men

Ride bareback on a colt

Into the joyous crowd?

How many other women?

 

All of them welcomed

As one coming 

In the name of the Lord

All of them seated on the edge of prophecy.

 

But for the One 

Who is Prophet

And Priest

And King

 

The coincidence guards

The truth

While exposing it

For all to hear, if they listen

 

The song fulfilled

In raptured refrain

From earth

To highest heaven.

 

(4.3.23)

We Were All Meant for Something

Glowing earth

National Poetry Month begins today, so for the last 8 days I *may* try to write poems of some kind. Ada Limon is the current poet laureate and happens to spend part of her time in Lexington, KY and part of her time in Sonoma, CA – two areas which I carry in my heart. The poster for national poetry month includes a phrase from her poem, “The Carrying,” “. . .we were all meant for something.” 

Red Bud in bloom

 

We Were All Meant for Something

 

Made for such a time as this

The forest glowing with springtime - 

Explosions of color: 

Fireworks – without fire,

Without work (!)

Flaming from the mysteries

Buried in earth.

 

The tiny petals of Redbud,

Slippers for a pixie metropolis,

Blazing on limbs grown long,

Bolder with each day

Declaring the arrival of the season,

Until its many hearts

Unfold on its sleeves

 

Riley takes a longer stroll

Visiting “the girls.”

Leaving “presents.”

Marking what he clearly believes

Is “his” yard (lest the girls forget).

Then running home, size differential

Turning “play” into discomfort.

 

“We were all meant for something”

She says – made for such a time as this.

A time of rebirth?

A time of transformation?

A time of interaction, dominance, play, discomfort?

Meant to burn brightly and herald

Our own seasons and courses?

 

What defines the meaning?

What parcels out the time?

The slow turning of universal bodies

Wound by forces unfathomable

The weightiness

pulling us all toward the center

giving us our own weight, our own meaning?

 

I look out into the sky

Darkness throwing back the curtains

And hope she is right ,

And believe she is right,

The dog curled and resting

As the bats circle and dive

Consuming the pixies of the night.

 

(4.1.23)