Drawing by Rich Panico

Fly to Him

Fly to Him                                                                                       

For those who are Mine, my Beloved said,

I put all their stars and planets

in my cup of tea and drink them up!

Every path and pattern, signpost, scriptures,

bridges, leaves of tea,

the dust at our feet and flung across

the heavens stirred and upended,

sweetened and aligned

by His Presence on earth, 

His steady, knowing hand.

Every need, entreaty and prayer

must fly to Him, must fly to Him,

the Source and Center of our quest –

for the essence and strength of His method,

the core of our salvation

depends upon total dependence.

He stirs in His cup our planets

and stars to sweeten His chai,

to spin us tighter still into the web

of His work and our ultimate salvation.

O child of God, drink from the Godman’s cup

and taste the rarely-tapped mead of heaven.

       

The drunken man

The drunken man                                                                         

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

the woman asked the drunken man

(who had stumbled and stomped upon her toe). 

“Yes,” he replied, “every moment

of every hour of every day.”         

How to tell serum from pathogen,

elixir from applejack?  A shot of whiskey

might prove a bracing tonic for one

but, it’s like gasoline on the fire of a raging drunk.

A madman might be slapped and brought

to his senses or, sent off on a violent spree.

The Prayer says, Repent  . . . for our constant failures,

but does the evidence add –  then proceed unashamed?

Repent and see the essence of yourself above the artifice?

Drowning in shame, what do our inherent

and ever-recurring failures and repentances matter?

What drove the children from the garden? –

their transgressions  or their disgrace

even now enmeshing, riddling with culpability,

the daily machinations of their progeny? 

O child of God, keep your head above water

by endlessly repeating the name of your Beloved.