Youtube link -- Listening to the rain

                                               Video by Debbie Finch

A poor man's truth

A poor man's truth

I would seal my lips.  My pen put away,
my keyboard -- abandon words;

better still, opinions, queries, notions,
conjectures and suggestions

until I make the point
of every utterance praise.  Praise!

Readily, would I praise --
unstintingly -- but, I am unable

to tell the Truth.  And so I must resort
to a poor man's truth -- honesty,

broker the words faithfully
as I know how.  These poems

begin in the realm of praise,
begin in the realm of praise (!)

rasp and slice away, grind and whittle away
a measure of darkness, a measure of darkness,

a measure of darkness,
tiny, slight but, steady on the mark,

flood the page and reward the heart with beauty,
with private confirmation and communion.

O child of God, abandon words
when they no longer connect.

                   

Only love

Only love

Virtue, intellect and effort fail,
(so says my Lord).  Only love unites --
only love, My child, doth lift the veil.

Scholars outfoxed, the pious quailed,
only love brings forth the Light.
Virtue, intellect and effort fail.

Faith embodies what love entails --
braving the path devoid of sight.
Only love, My child, doth lift the veil.

Merit on tottering spikes impaled,
artifice tumbles from a giddy height.
Virtue, intellect and effort fail.

Fix the beam; drive home the nail.
Unbent to force, grace rarely alights --
only love, My child, doth lift the veil.

From God to mortals, uncompelled,
how might grace be seized outright?
Virtue, intellect and effort fail.
Only love, My child, doth lift the veil.

                   (Unpublished)