these good shepherds–man and dog

Lord, Have Mercy.

“Be still and know,”
the Spirit of Silences admonishes.

It is a call and response, a song
I hear as mourning.

“Jesus said, ‘Let the litttle children come to me . . . ; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.'” (Luke 18: 16)

Peacocks fanning their tails

She wakes in the dark

May there still be love and compassion for a grieving world

this stream of language

Light

always the hero of his adventures

How like the lilies
neither toiling nor spinning

ghost in a crowd of faces

a friend resurrected from the streets

“Lord have mercy”

How they dance, calling us
to join them skipping, hopping

They are the Poet, their lives ringing with a poetry

Baby goats are birth bounding

whisper the prayer, the poem

singing joy of creation, hope against despair

Lucy Dog . . . watching over her backyard

the flutter of sparrows

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them

Companions Of Light

May it be the frolic of little ones

Beauty will rise

Olie appears at stop lights,
insane intersections
throughout the city

my lifetime calling

“. . . as a little child”

Katrina is calling the rain

Kendel rises from his desk, back row, far corner of the classroom, high school seniors, 1964:

Mystery, that which descends in the quiet of 4:00 a.m.

that measure of Grace weighed in the scales of Mercy

hope for the burned out longing for truth and grace

Sundays, I grieve for my friend

Poet, to know your place, you must be still, a quiet place

their names written on water

Her pen heartbeats across the page

the pastors shepherding the lost and hungry flock in line for the meal offered for all

It takes so little, Poet, to feel your way
in the dark night of your soul

For once, the capricious Simon Peter chose to be still

They slip in late, Sunday morning worship, far back pew, corner niche, space for one penitent

Camels are passing through the eye of needles.

Even here, breaking waves of dunes

path of penitence and preparation

He calls me by name.

Be still and know peace.

But Now is our time
of gathering what shines

all manners
of shared grief

They come from the streets
of desert-despair

“Peace I bequeath to you”

Forgive me, it’s the cello.

people we walk among each day, strangers whose touch in crowds pleads for prayer they are too burdened to voice

no easy path to walk, grieving blows to the heart

So he centers his prayer on the bougainvilleas

Her hands speak the name of Jesus

They know reconciliation comes in the morning

You can’t believe this, but the man behind me in line at the checkout counter saw it too

Heavenly Father, teach us to be still and know that you are God.

swirls the walls, floor, and ceiling

“Be still and know what gives you peace.”

The Monarchs may have paused on their perilous flight

“To be filled of vitality with love . . .”

Let there be hands raised
in affirmation of miracles

these hallowed woods

waiting for wings to open

She says she is feeling fragile

Isn’t it always from a distance we see angels.

the kingdom of colors, every page filled with Welcome, be not afraid

an esoteric beauty only he may perceive

the sorrow whose name is doubt

Mary, opening herself,
vulnerable to stoning or worse.
Photo Credit: Karen Cann

Our days lengthened toward this Darkness

There are moments too dear to transcend the Mystery

Are New Hope and Little Hope your only past and present

It’s not a secret, as if between God and me

Venus, bearer of light, blinking on,
nothing to come between this couple

Think kindly of this couple no one believes can weather a week, a month, a year, forty-four years, fifty

My days lengthen toward a blink of light at the rim of shadows

The dog went with the boy
across the dirt road, past
the sycamore limbs reaching out

It is for us to hold on
together, each waking
to what can be a new day

A portal beckons,
we bow, rise to blue, such sea,
such sky, untouched sand,

Consider what the imagination knows,
a six-year-old’s painting–three apples

mothers . . . pleading with God
to hold on tightly to their children

a child born to a teenage mother
cradling the child to a manger, watched over by gentle beasts

Our gentle beasts had already laid claim to their night.

She understands their mothers’ calm now

This day all the beloved dogs
are returning, called by silent whistles

and tomorrow garland their home with lights

“parted into the night”

Having the faith of a mustard seed

May you still gather
each day as if a petal

her almost touch, its surprise

God still speaks to people by name.

cradling treasures
passed down mother to daughter

Do not despair . . .

He would always have the movie, the music

a handful of repose, the quiet of light rising from the dark

The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light

the lost Garden, its vegetarian beasts lying down with tender creatures, a child their caretaker

Though the fig tree does not blossom

Had Mary of Magdala burdened her grief to the tomb this day

“and a little child shall lead them”

spins us from still waters

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.

Peace, Be Still

“a light that darkness could not overcome”

You could be forgiven
if you believed it staged

The noble plan only noble things,
noble their every move.

It’s almost Christmas. Again.

In the beginning your mother delivered you in pain forgettable, your first lesson.

Even in death they come broken

A galaxy of starlings

“The greatest among you must be your servant.”

“…be brave:
I have conquered
the world.”

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret.”

“how long will we cling together in the night
and where will it carry us together”

All of us, in union with Christ, form one body, and as parts of it we belong to each other.

what I came to see
from the beginning

She looks up and asks, “Do you pray hard?”

where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light

“all these silent images
on their shadowy river”

The irreverent belly-burst of a laugh

Meditative seeker, your quiet voice
louder than the roar of ignorance,

The tall young violinist
skips dips across a field

A woman in the choir is lifting her hands, palms up, Jesus raised from the tomb

“I give you a new commandment:
love one another.”
(John 13:34, The Jerusalem Bible)

“Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey.”
(Matthew 21: 5, ESV)

“what remains of incessant striving”

“I am still above ground,”
he tells anyone who asks
how he’s doing

“Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls”

The night is over.
The real light is already shining.

Shapeshifters shepherd the neighborhood streets

A light has shown.

“and after shadow and darkness,
the eyes of the blind will see”
(Isaiah 29: 18)

“Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.” (Luke 2: 10)

“And heaven and nature sing”

To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death

And the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy”

“But when you can’t walk away?”

“Hello City Light,” my friend shouts, Black, Vietnam vet, towering over all of us, the Displaced, suffered in line for a hot meal

“Which is the way
to the home of the light”

May we, in a spirit of wisdom and insight

What is good . . .

I Needed Some Extra Jesus

Again the morning
its demarcation
from the night

I have been in danger
of becoming a grownup.

She speaks to small creatures,
speaks for them–

It comes expected as another fall
from your bike, or sudden sinking, how to swim
forgotten as the spell to rescue you

The castle walls have been breached,
the castle keep in ruins.

Pale horse of a blank page
the pencil worn to a nub

in blossom, bougainvilleas dripping
pink from their hanging baskets

I can find no poem opening line
sad or romantic enough
for a supermarket-bakery cake
inscribed “Happy Birthday Edna”

One day we find ourselves
running on a ridgeline,
an ice storm seconds behind

It is good to have a good ear for music

whispered in the sound of silence

“Blessed is the apple the banana loves.”

She is all our mothers, too young and lovely, probably alone except for Gracie Rose, eighteen months old

“Last night in Jerez some people lived, some people died.”

Haven’t we always known the trees are talking to each other

I’m sure I have. I must have. I just can’t remember composing a poem in my sleep before

This is a poem for the poem I wish I had written.

And the prophets will rise.

This week especially I wish all of us the inexplicable joy
of finding (receiving) the words, the only right ones.

“And God said, ‘Let there be light'”

You won’t find it
on a road sign

“And the dark
that comes
doesn’t feel so
dark.”

and a child leads them

“Cry out for joy and gladness”

This remembrance is my story-picture Post of my heroes–the Sunday morning breakfast crew at City Light

He calls to me from fifty feet away. I veer toward the middle of the street. A social distance, not, I recognize, from caution against COVID-19 contagion.

“. . . on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shown.”
(Isaiah 9: 1, The Jerusalem Bible)

Okay, I don’t like the New Normal any more than you do.

I’m the new guy at City Light, having been volunteering a little less than a year. I am offering this Post to express my admiration for the City Light veterans, faithful caretakers of its beacon of shelter and hope.

Once there was a baby who when she was born winked at her mother, and in the wink was a smile her big sister saw, and smiled back–a Secret between sisters.

The sun rises, the sun sets
a generation comes, a generation goes
southward the wind, northward it turns
and turns again, again it turns

“There is no need for you to be afraid.”

Today, Friday, April 10, 2020, is “Good Friday,” but on the day of Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and burial, there was nothing good about this Friday.

Living on the street doesn’t mean we’re homeless.
Should God decree the whale’s belly does not make us homeless.

“‘You see, there is nothing you can do;
look, the whole world is running after him!'”
(John 12: 19, The Jerusalem Bible)

Margaret, four years old, fresh from her bath, red hair haloed about her face, gazing up,

“I only know that I was blind and now I can see.”
(John 9:26, The Jerusalem Bible)

Her street composed in leaves,
each one a song from a jukebox (Remember?),
its catalogue of poems singing sibilant cities–
St. Louis, Jerusalem, San Antonio.

7:00 a.m., City Light Community Ministries
preparing hot breakfasts–scrambled eggs, gravy,
bread, a banana, homemade chocolate donut,

Ludwig van Beethoven was thirty-eight years old, hiding in his brother’s basement, terrified by the bombardment of Vienna under siege by the French:

“and the pleasure, the only long pleasure, of taking a place in the story of leaves” (Donald Hall, “Kicking the Leaves”)

Hardin-Simmons, the liberal arts university where I taught for forty-two years and quickly came to love, is disappearing as I knew it.

“When animals die out, the last survivor
is called an endling. It is a word of soft beauty,
heartbreaking solitude, and chilling finality.”
(Ed Yong)

I’ve given up getting better.

“They were our guardian angels.
Naughty, nippy, yippy angels,
but angels nonetheless.”

To my friends cast out.

“and light shines in darkness,
and darkness could not overpower it”

“In spite of everything, don’t lose your faith
in a table circumferenced with friends.”

Bryana Joy
“10 things I learned in the ’10s”

I never imagined I would not be able to throw a baseball.

Every day bodies tumble from high buildings, achieving maximum velocity, the streets below spinning kaleidoscopic colors clicking their stained-glass windows

“Better two than one by himself. . . .
If one should fall, the other helps him up.”
(Ecclesiastes 4: 9-11)

I am not a preacher. I do not claim to be wise, but I can recognize and celebrate wisdom, humility, and compassion in those who are servant leaders

There has come an arctic cold that sweeps across the screen, the confident weather lady conducting blue into orange and red, no green this time of year in Abilene

“Is it I who have come to this age
or is it the age that has come to me
which one has brought along all these
silent images on their shadowy river”

He is, I think, his own angel, or mine,
not winged or gifted with a voice of annunciation–
Blessed are you of all–or wielding a double-edged sword