POETRY PLACE

REFLECTION ON PSALM 25

To Thee, oh Lord, I lift my soul
as a child lifts a bruise or cut
to its mother, to be kissed,
for Thy touch heals all
Thy breath moves all
Thy love saves all.
I wait for Thee, Lord,
for without Thy touch I am broken
without Thy breath I am lifeless
and without Thy love I am lost.

A SIMPLE CRY

My God and my all! 
So prayed St. Francis
but dare I echo his words?
"My God" -- most certainly
He is the Almighty God,
but do I make Him mine?
Do I ever offer more
than an empty patter of prayers
to Him who wants us all,
heart and soul and mind?
My all!  For what else is like Him
in Whom we live, and move, and have our being; Who holds us in existence,
as a child holds a bubble
in the palm of his hand.
He is God, and there is no other,
but is He ever more to me
than one element in your typical
"well rounded life"?  So I wonder.
But sometimes . . .  here in the silent church, before the unspeaking Host. . .
or sometimes out on the prairie that stretches
too vast to be real, beneath an even broader sky, or sometimes
in the middle of a sleepless night
when every other reality vanishes
and I am left reaching for anything
strong enough to hold body and mind together; sometimes, then, I barely brush
against something bigger than the Kansas sky and deeper than the deepest silence.  It is a truth too large, too solid, for more than these five simple words:  My God and my all!

LENTEN TALE

Other Kings in other tales
fought dragons, won maiden's hearts
and came back to grow old and fat
from drinking mead and wine
at oh-so-boring feasts.
They spent their later years turning their heads away
as their once-maiden wives
sat in the labs of other kings' emissaries;
and blinking through meetings of state,
and yawning throughout royal processions.
No such future did the carpenter-king face.
He had instead a triumphant entrance
into the royal city; a few speeches
badly received by the higher-ups;
one cup of sorrow shared among friends
then the pillar, the thorns, the angry crowd
and the long stumbling procession
up the hill towards Calvary
where He put death to the sword forever.

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