the world, the flesh

An unexpected poem.

        the world, the flesh

They did it to me when I was too young
to resist: in my name they renounced 
my skin, my heart, my lungs,
my sex, my brain, my little fingers. 
They renounced my senses, 
my fears, my hungers, my animal urgency.

They renounced the world. 
The deserts and trees, mountains and seas,
everyone who crawls and swims and flies:
denizens of the dirt, tigers and dogs and whales.
They don’t have souls the story goes,
and all that matters is what isn’t.

When the trout lily leaves emerged, 
when the bears came out of their winter dens,
when the buds swelled on the maples,
every spring we remembered our renunciation. 
How strange when the empty tomb
recalls the garden and the flesh. 

I repent. I reclaim all I was taught, 
along with the devil, to renounce. 
Beginning with this patch of ground 
where rotting trunks flower out their fruits,
where robins overturn the unraked leaves
and acorns sprout along the edges of the unmown grass.

words: Open Studio Poem #2

with thanks to Kathy, David, Kathy, and Wanda

 

lazy

looking glass

friend

pluck

OPEN STUDIO POEM 2

Too lazy today to pay attention

to the face in the looking glass—

mirror, mirror on the wall—

Does it matter what we look like?

I’m learning lately to be

my own friend. The kind

of friend I need. A friend

with pluck. Spunk. The kind

of nerve it takes to ignore

the face and see

what’s on the other side.

BIBLE STUDY

BIBLE STUDY

The people were tired 

of being held down,

tired of the collusion 

between the occupying power

and the religious power 

too prudent—or too timid—

to stand with them and declare

enough is enough.

 

They’d heard him bless 

the poor, the hungry,

the mourners, the persecuted.

They’d heard him curse 

the rich, the sated,

the scoffers, the praised.

So when he rode into town 

on a borrowed donkey,

the common people–

the ordinary people–called out

Blessing and Peace and Glory! and

Save us, please. Save us!

 

The powers were alarmed

and tried to silence the people.

And what did he reply?

Turn then, if you would,

to Luke 19: 40-41

and read what he said.

And read what happened next.

 

 

PRAYER

PRAYER

Jesus, we need you in all your forms—

rising in beauty from seafoam,

black-tongued and stamping in battle.

We need you one-eyed, wandering in disguise.

 

Please rise again in beauty from the sea, 

steal the sacred flame and flee.

Give us your vision; open our eyes.

Split the mountains and come down. 

 

You brought us fire. We made you sorry.

Come now with Medusa’s head on your shield,

protect us from your thunder.

Mourn with us through our sorry land.

 

We need you with shuttle and spear,

cloven-hoofed, drunken and mad.

Walk beside us as we cry; hold our hand.

Crouch with us, hungry, underground,

 

and dance full of wine and song, and mad.

Jesus, meet us at the cross-road with your lamp.

Return with all the daffodils of spring.

Split the earth, drive your wild horses up.

 

Come to the crossroad and fill our cup,

add our skulls to your garland.

Ascend through the rock and carry us away.

Descend to us in all your forms.

WRITING ABOUT JESUS

WRITING ABOUT JESUS

~feast of the Annunciation

 

The rules don’t measure.

The untouchable saves you

and you must do the same.

Thieves and beggars at the banquet, 

obedient sheep abandoned to wolves, 

so much wasted seed.

 

Today the sun is warm on my back.

I’m waiting at the café, for my friend.

 

Star in the East

adorns the horizon,

guides around the globe to everywhere

the redeemer is laid.

That which was before the beginning,

contains the whole,

there is nothing drifting sideways 

at some unspeakable

angle, far from the fields

of gravity and love.

 

Hail Mary, 

Fear not.

Everything

matters.

 

A woman talking on her phone in the corridor 

makes a silhouette against the light.

 

The firstborn 

made flesh.

The only story 

is ours.

 

Creeds lean away, defining.

One substance—what else?

One essence, one congealment.

Do you understand?

m=E divided by the constant

through whom we live and move.

 

The sun is warm on my back and 

I must shade the page to see. 

For the time being, 

there is nothing between me and the light.

JOSEPH TALKS ABOUT HIS OLDEST SON

JOSEPH TALKS ABOUT HIS OLDEST SON

 

After what we went through with him—

all the business with angels, and Egypt—

I was hoping things would settle down.

 

It seemed they might. I thought

maybe he could save the world

by being a good man, right here

 

in Nazareth. As time went by,

I even began to think he’d be 

a cabinet maker. He had such 

 

promise. He was careful, deliberate.

He had an instinct for how things

fit together. And he was good with

 

customers. What they wanted, what

they could afford. But then, I had

other sons to carry on, for Mary’s sake.

 

And Jesus? Well. 

It seems he made something

of himself after all.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

It’s about being lost.

Really, really lost.

Squandering half the family fortune

and eating pig food and crawling home 

without even a name to call your own.

And it’s about saving and working hard

and being responsible

and no one notices or cares.

It’s about getting paid the same.

It’s about being meek and poor

and hungry and sad.

It’s about being left for dead

then rescued by someone

you’d cross the street

or maybe the ocean

to avoid.

It’s about a wedding reception

with all the wrong sorts of people

but you’re there, too.

What’s that about?

 

It certainly isn’t about the rules.

It isn’t about going to church

and potlucks and biblestudies

and committee meetings.

It isn’t about being good

so you’ll go to heaven when

you die. It’s not

about saving 

your little 

soul.

 

It’s about letting everything go—

every flying buttress and rose window,

every pipe organ and bible

and prayer book and linen cloth

and silver cup—

every attitude,

every certainty,

everything you think you know—

in order to buy

one pearl.

 

It’s about bread and salt.

It’s about a lighted lamp.

THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN

THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN

 

 

. . . which I will not keep

for the evangelist.

Not for the eagle looking 

down on the world

his Jesus saves with secrets.

My Jesus looks me in the eye.

He doesn’t tell me who he is,

over and over again.

He tells me who I am,

as he told, I like to think,

that sweet boy—

that fisherman who couldn’t

write in Greek—

who left his father’s boat

and followed him.

 

ALL SAINTS

ALL SAINTS

 

O you obscure, you once-known,

venerated in some small town

where your fingerbone rests

in a tarnished silver box

behind a screen in a dusty church

that smells of old beeswax and must–

What did you do to merit dismemberment,

the naming of this provincial shrine?

Did you cure a child? Make some rain?

Were you martyred by an ignorant prince?

Or did you, perhaps, now and then

arise from your cave when the moon was dim 

and fly over the sleeping houses,

singing an incomprehensible hymn?

OAK AND MAPLE and FOUR LITTLE POEMS

OAK

Drop your leaves for now.

Stand alone in the cold,

squirrels sheltering

in your hollows.

 

Under your feet,

forgotten acorns already

swell, each holding

your pattern encased.

 

Length of day, 

strength of sun, 

depth of rain, 

the air, 

 

the axe,

your future 

contingent 

on the world.

 

 

MAPLE

Sweet ladies in green, 

whispering secrets, 

flirting with birds, 

drawing sugar from the sky.

 

Bold ladies in scarlet, 

throwing their favors 

profligate to the winds, 

the soils, the streets.

 

Skeletons of ladies, 

cracking 

their knuckles 

in the night.

 

Generous ladies–

oh how generous!–

filling our mouths 

with blood made of light.

 

 

4 little poems

1.

You see what is there:

the dying trees.

What can the sun do?

The wind?

 

2.

Learn to worship dirt,

to worship water.

Under your feet is

every thing you need.

 

3.

Do not waste your mind

on the future.

All you have is seed

to plant today.

 

4.

At the end, abundance

of distinction. Like human

hands, no duplication.

Every loss a loss.