Love, Death
and Resurrection

Will I See?

As I walk along this path,
I wonder how will heaven be?
What are the things that truly last?
And, will you be there with me?

Will all that we once held so dear
shine brighter in the world above?
I wonder, will I see you there
among the places that I love?

See you in the north country
where the leaves turn red in fall?
Beneath a blue Sierra sky
in a mountain forest tall?

Will we walk the golden shore
and climb the dunes beside the bay?
Will we see the heron soar?
Will we, like him, fly away?

Will you ever walk with me
with the free wind in your hair?
Will you still be a mystery?
Will I know you better there?

Will the beauty be revealed
beneath the rubble of the past?
When the scars of time are healed,
will we be who we are at last?

And when this darkened age is through,
when all shall be at last set free,
will I then see the truth of you?
Will you then see the love in me?

Eyes That See

O for one with eyes that see
into the deepest part of me;
past the things that went awry,
not what they were meant to be.

O for gifted eyes to see
into our humanity
and behold the inner beauty
with a calm and steady gaze.

Which will not be led astray
by appearance;
sees the worst and
believes in you anyway.

O for loving eyes that see
not critically, but truthfully,
and in that seeing finally
set the captive spirit free.

Image

Isn't it a little strange,
after all that we've been through?
--So much I can't believe for me,
I can still believe for you.

What haunted wonder do I see
when I turn to look at you?
It's almost like a part of me
is living there inside of you.

If I can't hold you in my arms,
take away the pain and fear,
close the wounds or heal the scars,
I can hold your image here

Deep inside this special place
where to know is but to love;
speak your name, hold your face,
and lift them to the Sun above.

The Ocean of Your Love (Song)

I pour my tears into these waters
deep enough to absorb all sorrows;
Where scarlet is transformed to whiteness,
the sea of your forgetfulness.

O and how I long to go
where the healing waters flow;
Where our sins are swallowed up,
the Ocean of your love for us.

For there is no punishment,
fear of judgment, hell, or death.
These can have no power there;
where there is love, there is no fear.

For perfect love casts out fear;
the one who fears has not been made perfect
in love.

O and how I long to go
where the healing waters flow;
To where our sins are swallowed up;
the Ocean of your love for us.

Scarlet Cord

How often I've seen it: God's secret servants,
guardian angels, some of them human;
the quick, saving stroke, the outstretched hand,
the line flung in time to save the drowning man;
the cord strung across a Jericho doorway,
marking the ones set aside for protection;
the scarlet streak on Israel's dwellings
for the angel of death to see and pass over;
the five scarlet wounds flowing rivers of healing,
the signs of his covenant-love on the altar,
this seal of betrothal, standing to witness:
"This one is mine, and noone may touch them!"

And there is a river faithfully flowing
down through the years of my life's many seasons
like a thread running through a tapestry, weaving,
binding the wounds and stitching the edges,
the ripped, ragged seams, the gaps in-between
these striving attempts and sad incompletions,
the things that were done and the heart's real intentions;

A touch of his grace when I least expect it,
a song in the night, the words of a poet,
the music contained in a reddening sunset;
a face in the crowd, the smile of a sister,
the soft, secret force which binds us together.

And so I have found that it's not by compulsion,
nor by decree, nor force of persuasion,
doctrines, religions, organizations
that a heart is redeemed and bound to another:
but by covenant-love, faithful, persistent,
the gentle betrothal of spirit to spirit.
O prophet of old, truly you saw it…

"Not by might, not by power,
but by my Spirit", says the Lord Almighty.
(Zech.4:6)

Prayer in the Night

A vast, broken landscape,
fragments of dreams,
Dry desolation;
hopeless, it seems.

Scattered dust-memories
blown to the wind;
All that I lived for…
where to begin?

Lying awake
through the watches of night,
Awaiting the break
of the first rays of light.

And the one word to which
I restlessly cling
Is the Word of Creation
ordaining all things.

"Let there be light"
to scatter this darkness;
Beauty and order
in place of these fragments.

May all be made new
as on that first morning,
Raised up in you,
reflecting your glory;
Yours to complete,
my unfinished story.

My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen….for the morning,
more than watchmen….for the morning.
Psalm 130:6

Waking

I wake before dawn, the good earth beneath me,
the stars bright above, glimpsed through a portal
of shadowy boughs, a forest-catherdral.
The stars have begun to fade into twilight,
their many lights merging into the One Light,
the silvery glow on the eastern horizon;
roseate gold, the colors of rising,
calling forth joy, a chorus of birdsong.

So is my knowing called out of darkness,
my thoughts out of borderless, wordless impressions
drawn from my dreams and the ground that I sleep on,
substance of earth, stone, tree, and pine cone.
So do I sense all times and all creatures,
all that has lived, as living within me;
all human longings, hopes, aspirations,
memories, feelings, unresolved questions…

I take up their songs and lift them to heaven
as one with my prayer and praise in the morning,
raising them into the light of the One Day
to which they can't dawn without me to sing them.
So do I know that what wakens within me
is the light of the world, the life of its creatures.
I rise from my rest to greet the dawnlight
burgeoning, breaking upon the horizon.

Morning Moment

The rains of yesterday are through;
the sky a wide and seamless blue…

I climb atop a wooded crest
to watch the mountains of the west
rising through a veil of mist,
awakening in innocence;
the glory of the dawn unfurled,
echoing the heart's remembrance
of the morning of the world.

May this morning moment be
as song within my memory.
May its remembrance be as light
to see me through the darkest night.
And when my sojourn here is through,
then so may I remember You:
the moment when the sun broke through.

Light

"Let there be light!"
--The Word of Creation
is echoed in every radiant moment,
in every birth and new day's beginning.

Morning by morning I witness the dawnlight
burst through the peaks to baptize the landscape
in radiant color: the waters, the meadows.
They leap forth as one from where they've been hidden,
hailed by a jubilant chorus of birdsong.

And so has it been with each new appearing
of Christ in my life, in my center of vision.
And so for us all, for the whole human story
on that blessed morn of his Resurrection:
Suddenly, unity, focus, and meaning
where there was none, a great desolation;
fragments of time in a landscape of ruin.

And the morning to come: who can imagine?
The whole world reborn! …Perhaps it is always,
all things made new, an ongoing Creation
birthed and sustained by each breath of his Spirit
who was and who is and who ever shall be.

All live to him now; eternity meets us
in every moment, could we but know it.
Creation goes on, and so, resurrection,
if these inner eyes could waken and see it;
if we could but draw and live from that Power
which raised him, and will raise
and unify all things.

Messages From Home

Why is it so hard to know you,
to see you, brother, sister, friend?
Appearances can be deceptive,
and wisdom comes but at the end.
And I have wondered, why is this?
Is it because of fearfulness,
or race or gender prejudice,
seeds of blindness sown within us?

Yet, what the darkness veils from view,
the eyes of faith can still see through:

Now, brothers, sisters, I can see
the hope in you, the hope in me;
Christ, the hidden hope of glory:
here, the meaning of our story.
Immanuel, beloved true,
the hope in me, the hope in you;
how I need you to keep on hoping,
to find my way back home.

And when you see within the veil,
you know that love can never fail,
though time and death stand in-between us,
our lives too short to let the fullness
of his ultimate intention
blossom forth in all dimensions.
Still, we are his seals of possession,
given each to be a blessing.

Not one of us is left alone;
we are all messages from home.

The Love of God

Wide as the sky,
deep as the ocean;
High as a star;
fits in a manger.

Held by a mother,
heals the leper;
Cries on the mountains,
walks on the water.

Covered in spit,
scourged with whips,
Pierced by iron,
still forgives.

Time cannot fade it,
nor hate destroy it;
Stone cannot hold it,
nor earth contain it.

Nor can the darkness
comprehend it,
Grasp its nature,
nor overcome it.

No power on earth
or in the heavens
Can sever us from it:
The love of God.

Losing, Finding

You can never really lose
what's become a part of you.
It goes out with the tides of time
and comes back to you.

And if a thing is held within,
the tide can't fail
to bring it back again.

Poems, prayers, images
cast upon the wind, the waves,
keep on coming back to me
in the most peculiar ways…

Cast your bread upon the waters,
and you will find it
after many days.

Miracle

And after all is said, this seems
the greatest miracle to me:
that the very stuff of dream,
of earth and all her memories,
all the treasures stored within her
can bud forth in a living person.

How one well-familiar face
can sum up an entire landscape;
how the mystery of All
can be rendered knowable
and even this vast universe
be made near and graspable
in the visage of a loved one;
very hope and resurrection.

Looking through my gallery,
I am most amazed to see
so many buried loves and longings
risen, blooming now before me..
The deep blue azure of the sea,
the golden sand along its shore,
the brightness of its windblown air
are in her eyes, her skin, her hair…
The beauty that I sought is there,
smiling in the morning sun
by the roses in the garden.

Revelation

This love-haunted face, this never-told secret,
this form which describes my inmost desire…
I find my sight reshaped
around a smile.

Your heart, your eyes are so like a diamond
refracting the innermost rays of the Sun
through all the colors
of living Creation.

Something divine again shines through the human,
and the world becomes bearable, meaningful, truthful
at least in some small part
I might cleave to.

Your coming to light is a tangible witness
that beauty is real and hope never wasted,
that God hears the heart
and knows every longing.

Open your heart, allow me to know you,
for you were made to be known, and so I was
made to know you, so endlessly,
always.

Who knows how endless this love may yet be,
this infinite sky, this angelic chorus,
the gates of eternity opening for us?

Worlds

The meeting of our eyes
is like unto two suns
shining each in each,
their light becoming one.

Is like unto whole worlds
coverging, windowing
the soul of forest, mountain,
falls, and flashing sea.

And where else could we
glimpse eternity?

Only Now

Your face recalls another time;
my childhood funny valentine
who lived one house over from mine.
--Those simpler days of childhood, when
our chief joy was to see a friend…
How we valued friendship then!

Yet, for this, I don't see how
we could have loved as we do now.
Only now, I start to see:
You mean the very world to me.
Yesterday's most unthought blessing;
today's reason to go on living.

Wildflower

Sometimes a rare wild flower breaks through;
sometimes a natural wonder like you
pushes up from the grey-matted sod,
the carpet of leaves which the years have trod,
and the original colors spring forth
from deep in the dark brown heart of the earth,
where they have lain for so long sleeping,
waiting for winter to turn to spring.
I see them shine for me as you sing,
delicate, strong;
your wildflower-song.

One Whose Spirit I Love

She sings special moments,
essential encounters,
what moves and exchanges,
what changes, what doesn't.

Her faith is expressed
through imagination,
through acts of creation,
through love of the living.

Her words paint a picture;
new worlds grow within her,
for she is a mother
as well as magician.

…Or someone familiar,
a lover or sister
who knows how to put herself
in your position.

She takes them within her,
makes them her knowing;
binds broken hearts
by the sound of her singing.

The prayer within her
ascends into heaven;
the cry in her voice
can call down the angels.