The
fate that awaits you
Once
you see the truth,
there’s
no turning back.
You
might hover a while
near
the old haunts,
going
through the motions,
acting
out your appointed role
before
you confront yourself
and
the truth that there is no sweetness left,
not
because the well is dry
but
because the truth is different
and
deeper than you ever could have imagined
and
it compels you now to faithfully allow
a
change in direction, a change in yourself,
to
remain obediently true to the fate that awaits you.
O
child of God, the real search begins when first you sense
the depths of yourself and the inevitability
of the goal.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
The
scriptures of the heart
Standing
on the carousel,
having
ditched my golden steed,
looking
outward at the spinning world,
(as
usual) expounding to the crowd.
My
incoherence met with glazed eyes, quizzical brows.
Every
written word I once practiced
and
preached as gospel, I now profess
to
be beyond my ken, beyond my authority to espouse.
Each
time-worn ritual, sacred icon striking me now
as
rudimentary, external and conceptual;
the
preparatory substitute for a genuine,
interior
communion and fealty. Maybe it’s humility
that
has stolen my tongue or perhaps, futility,
as
round and round I go, amidst the glaring lights,
the
distant shouts and clamor of the midway –
the
hawkers, the carnies and the rubes.
O
child of God, turn your back on this gaudy world
and endeavor to read
the scriptures of the heart.
The
Reality of which we are made
God
alone is real (said my Lord).
Which
means . . . we are not.
Wrinkles
in the holy fabric are we;
waves
upon the sea; clouds upon the ether.
We
are the wind-shape of the dunes,
a
burl in the bark; a hitch in the stream;
a
speck of dust on the mirrored glass.
How
holy! How precious and precise are we!
Like
the Reality
of
which we are made.
O
child of God, what is the worth of that
which comes and goes?
Only
its connection to the Everlasting.
The
usual suspects
My
youth corrupted by the usual suspects;
the
sprouting of tainted seeds already there.
I
long ago stepped out into the weather,
trudged
from past to present,
from
fear to faith, from who I am
to
Whom God has made and is yet making,
kenning
with more clarity the transformation
and
crediting more precisely from Whom it comes.
What
does it matter if the poet
can’t
find the proper descriptions
rummaging
through his time-worn journals?
Truth
is not found on ink-stained paper.
This
poetry is assembled
one
image at a time
as
the light above blinks on and off;
faithfully
transcribed until my pen runs out of ink.
O
child of God, what a hodgepodge
of images from an age-encumbered
mind.
