The Poetic

Oh Temple-dwelling Power, Source of all, 
Who in tents sewn by calloused human hands, 
Once made Your place, filled with deadly awe,
A house collapsed and carried through the sand.
This thing of wood and gold and skin of beast
(All spoken into the world through your Word,) 
Seems but a flame held up against the east, 
Too frail to hold its shape! So absurd
To imagine Your Spirit–(You!) would be contained  
In such a way back then and now in me!
“No less intense,” my reason now complains
To put my faith in this new audacity: 
The God who breathed the land and sea apart
Would make a throne room of my broken heart!
                                                                              (Friday, Aug 28, 2026)

The face that first my eyes behold each day
So fresh, so fair, asleep and dreaming still,
Is yours, my love, for God who in His way
Did favor me to find you through His will
And once the arrow smote my willing heart,
Persuade your heart to love mine in return!
Oh joyous, holy, truth! We shall not part,
Though age and poverty like billows churn
Through trial, through glorious days our life will run,
Most days we’ll stand up arm in arm, (some times
It’s face to face) but ever, we’ll be one,
And through the years remember we these lines:
          “Therefore a man, he will his parents leave,
          And all his days (by God) to wife will cleave.” 
(Sunday, August 30th, 2026)

          This is the finish line, My Lord-
          My strength is at its end!
          Last stop along this road,
          It’s just around the bend.

This is not the finish, Son,
Although the news be hard to bear.
It’s not the journey’s end ahead,
But the starting line that’s there.

          Oh, dear God! But how!?
          How will I go on?
          How can I move forward
          When all my strength is gone?

          My legs are weak and lame,
          Oh, my heart- it aches!
          My feet, they drag and stumble
          With every step I take.

My sight is growing weary,
Though true, the path is clear.
My head, it throbs so loud
That I can hardly hear!

          This is the finish line, My Lord.
          My tongue and eyes are dry.
          I can only breathe your name;
          I’m out of tears to cry.

Please don’t hate the lessons, Child,
Nor the trials that I’ve sent.
You are correct in one thing, though:
Your strength is at its end.

No, this is not the finish, Son.
You still have a race to win.
Now that your strength is at its end,
Now… Now, we can begin.
                                        (January 28, 2021)

Within all things, let there be truth
May it ring out from the center
Through all the edges,
Ring out to those who stand near, ready to hear

May they become new centers,
All their own, and ours, too.
Ringing with a truth that is their own, but
Not just their own; ours, too
May it ring with the tones of those who rang before

Echoing, yet adding more to the great undulation
the surf of sound
And Truth’s voice will sing

May our hearts beat time to the dulcet, dissonant, the harsh, the brave tones of Truth.

A glorious, transcendent bop session
Truth and beating hearts

Our blood will carry this life-music
From generation to generation,
And it will be
The Faith of Our Fathers flowing
In our veins.
                                            (May 6,2008)

Perched here, hoping
to fly
To jump, not fall
but float
to find firm footing
here, in the obviously empty space before me. 

I trust not my eyes; 
they know how to lie.
Nor my heart, 
for it is a fool…
like me.(And like me, no longer mine)

I trust the words of Truth,
spoken long ago, and tomorrow,
and (most powerfully)
just now, and again, 

now…. “Step, Son.”
No explanation to weaken them
No qualification to imply weakness.
Just words… imperative, importunate, impossible to:
forget,
ignore,
resist… despise.

But I do fear them;
how could I but?
Though my eyes sometimes lie, 
I am not blind.
I see the expanse before me;
I see the rocks below.
And though my heart is foolish, 
it beats out in warning, a fleshy klaxon:

“Don’t go.”
“Don’t go.”
“Don’t go.”

And yet, 
though fear would hold me fast,
Your palm in my palm, 
Your fingers in my fingers,
… now, squeeze.

The words your eyes tell me you heard,
just now, and again, 

now… “Step, Daughter.” 
(March 5, 2013)

The Ballad of Anne Goode

Part I

The trees were uneasy, and breathed in the night
With no wind from the left, no wind from the right
It was hard to see, for there was no light
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

It was late in the year, for the air was chill.
My bones were so cold… they are cold still
With memories of the night that I cried,
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

Trembling with sadness and freezing with sweat,
Not scared to die, but not dead yet,
I fled to the wood, and stumbled inside
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

Anne Goode’s story was well-known to me.
Though I confess, I did not believe.
The truth struck deep when I went to hide,
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

Part II

Sweet Anne was in love, so the tale reads
With a fisherman’s son, who was often at sea.
Anne loved him so, and would cry when he’d leave;
His heart was with Anne, but his life was the sea.

One fateful night, as the ocean rode high,
Anne’s dear beloved sailed out of sight.
“He’ll soon return.” – so she believed,
But he was swallowed that night by the rage of the sea.

When they came to tell Anne that her true love was dead,
She called them all liars, wouldn’t hear what they said.
She screamed and she cried, and fled, in her grief,
From the news that her love had drowned in the sea.

She desired to stare hard into the dark night–
To curse the black water that took her love’s life.
She ran to the wood that grew near the beach
And stood at the edge, over looking the sea.

“Curse you, foul water!” she screamed loud and shrill.
To her surprise, the salt-air grew chill.
The voice of her true love began to speak.
“Come to me, dear Anne, here in the sea.”

The next day they found her, the men from the town.
She was lovely as ever, but she had been drowned.
She was lying there dead, among the dark trees,
Long hair and nightgown still wet from the sea.

No tracks could be found from her to the beach,
And the tide never reached the edge of the trees.
Still it remains a dark mystery:
She was found in the wood, but killed by the sea.

Part III

I ran from my house, from pain and despair.
I fled from the sorrow gathering there
I could not escape, though I did try
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

The love of my life had been taken from me
The fever that killed her had no remedy.
To end all my pain, I would end my own life,
Deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

I walked through the trees toward the cliff at the edge.
My plan was to throw myself from the ledge,
But while walking I heard a whispering sigh,
From deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

I turned out of fear that I wasn’t alone
And from behind a thick tree, a misty light shone.
Then I heard a song, gentle and shy,
Drifting from the wood where Anne Goode died.

The sight was unnerving, but my fear did regress.
It was a young woman, in a soaking night dress.
She turned as she saw me, and chills tingled my spine,
Deep in the wood where Annie Goode died.

Her face was quite pretty, like others I’d seen,
But her form wavered slightly, as if from a dream.
She moved ever closer, with a small hint of pride;
We were deep in the wood where Anne Goode died.

“I have waited for you, as you told me I should.
A long while and lonely, I’ve been in this wood.
You told me you’d come, if I waited for thee.”
Her sweet voice was sad; she smelled fresh like the sea.

My wavering voice said, “I fear you’re mistaken.
I’m not the one for whom you’ve been waiting.”
And then with great passion, she cried –she screamed!
“T’was you who did kill me, there in the sea!”

I turned and I dashed out of the trees,
Her desolate voice still pleading with me.
“You said you’d return, that you’d make me your wife?!…” 
That was all that I heard, for I ran for my life.
The trees were uneasy, and breathed in the night
With no wind from the left, no wind from the right
Even now, I’m oft haunted by cries in the night
From deep in the wood where Annie Goode died.