Stonecatcher

Let me be a stonecatcher
The world is sore in need
Were I imprisoned for any deed
I pray remember me

Put down your stone the weight of which
Sinks deeply in your soul
Many summers sing to you
For me there are too few

When judgement roars into my cell
Like rolling thunder clouds
Let blindness be its calling card
Mercy – its vanguard

Were you to catch the stone for me
The dawn would surely rise
On hillsides where the swaying grass
Meets the open skies

Stubborn Is a Kind of Power

Stubborn is a kind of power
You see it everywhere
Many miss the brief encounters
Sometimes they catch me unaware

I saw it in a patch of snow
One sunny winter day
A sea of green usurped its borders
Yet by night was held at bay

My favorite is the blue eggshell
Tiny – broken – below a tree
Wings stretched new upon a bough
Life escapes its own debris

She

She is the one who sings her song
When evening comes and day is done

She holds my hand on lonely days
When she sighs, the prairies sway

Crickets hearken to her voice
To temper midnight’s sleepless void

The wind, too, hears her overture
The mountains bow and welcome her

She counts the stars and names each one
And grants all pleas and dreams far flung

She shines her light on the forgotten
Sides with the lowly and downtrodden

Would you pretend to know her mind
And fathom life and death divine?

She decrees there is no slave nor free
All are one as all must be

I Found It In An Old Wardrobe

I found it in an old wardrobe
Beneath a folded pile
Of woolen socks and cotton sheets
Was old and not in style
The color made me smile

Was deeper than the deepest hue
Of joy and fear and wonder
A sense of loss and deja vu
A life lived full of summers

I picked it up and put it on
It was a perfect piece
There was no seam, no stitch, no flaw
No stain, no tear, no crease

Now I wear the love of Christ
All hours of the day
The folds of peace envelope me
Like night the Milky Way

Imagine

Imagine being Noah
Imagine rain and thunder
Drumming in your ears at night
And not a leaf in sight
And the animals everywhere
Doing what animals do
I would drink too
Imagine the world in disorder
Imagine being Lot’s daughters
Motherless in a dangerous world
At the mercy of the writers
Who always blame the girls –
Oh, so many authors
Moving ink across the page
(carving her into 12 pieces)
Imagine my rage

God Moved Into the Neighborhood

God moved into the neighborhood
I opened my front door
A surge of swallows swept down the street
And shook me to the core

I followed to the ocean shore
A dove with silver wings
Flew past me with a knowing smile
On her way to crown the King

A wave reached up and blessed the sky
And then returned to me
Enveloping my soul in bliss
Then flowed north with the sea

My feet sank deep into the sand
My spirit lifted free
A voice as lonely as the wind said –
Come and follow me

Rapunzel

Rapunzel, let down your hair
Your patience is wearing thin
The longer you stare out the window
Rehearsing “Oh, where have you been?”
The louder the chorus will chant
And play on their tiny violins

Gather your skirt, run down the stairs
There is a door, you know
The key was fashioned long ago
(And to you we duly bestow)
By those who well know their own worth
In Heaven and here down on earth

Eulogy

Unlucky in love, unlucky in life
There are worse things you could be
I see you in my mind’s eye
A pillar of stone, a monarch butterfly

When all is said and done
And sadness fills the room –
In words and deeds – generosity unbound
Denotes a life profound

It is meet and right
To remember you thus
When time betrays your heart of gold
Dance with the angels on heaven’s threshold

Truth and Beauty

I was promised truth and beauty
Then I spoke the words
That, in my heart, leapt and shimmered
Yet never was I heard

They pushed me into a tunnel and said
Find and follow your heart
Darkness like an oil slick spread
No depth, no breadth, no chart

Step after step, the walls they glimmered
As my beauty passed on by
Within my corporeal form –
A luminous liquid glowed –
From which no truth could hide