hinges upon a meaning
broken
as if on the verge of the utter
beginning ending
what i see in passing
advances
far into the coming
of now and thunderstruck
i breathe out in
verisimilitude of awe though
nowhere spoke
high enough to escape
the ascent of night
as streams of light reach
brilliant
a notion why lipped
down a pen
and i can’t believe it
In the past I stole many things, and now I think I understand the way of the world, as year by year is stolen from me, whatever it is that I might do. For if I had never stolen, I would hardly think of it in this way, of time being taken from my helpless hands, but as we sow, thus we reap. And now all I can reconcile with myself is that I am deserving of such punishment, where time is a thief that steals itself. Like my helpless victims, however much they were (sometimes) faceless corporate entities, now as it is I who am deprived of costly things: as a divine and poetic retribution, myself am I able to perceive what is being taken, so so precious, and can do nothing but see that this is merely justice being done. This is my cross to bear, now I understand. And even this: we are to count it all joy.
One good man, — one man who does not put his religion on once a week with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets the thought of God grow into him, and through and through him, till everything he says and does becomes religious, that man is worth a thousand sermons — he is a living Gospel — he comes in the spirit and power of Elias — he is the image of God. And men see his good works, and admire them in spite of themselves, and see that they are Godlike, and that God’s grace is no dream, but that the Holy Spirit is still among men, and that all nobleness and manliness is His gift, His stamp, His picture; and so they get a glimpse of God again in His saints and heroes, and glorify their Father who is in heaven.
my dreams drink from the endless stream of whispers
flowing from the milky starlight night has spilled from her dark breast
i hear the liquid darkness pools where dip the roots of all knowledge
(all waters reflect infinity, however much they resemble your face)
the darkness shall evaporate from the shoulder of dawn
like a soldier over a hill, another day will rise and subside
my whisper drops into eternity, to be dreamed by someone else
the fruit
a pale rose drifts dreamily down the waters
as we ride our horses through the heavens
visions of light and fire pour from our eyes
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
there is an incredible melting i have to taste
where the road dips into the rivers of hell
and pours up the brim of heaven, like smoke
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
the sky cracks open to expose the electricity
the child of the thunder dreams our sight
cloudy veils disintegrating into dusts of glow
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
i have sacrificed the blood of many promises
in discovering how many false gods listen in
in earning my plastic halo before midnight
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
the hush when a thousand doves are set free
and time slows to the pulse of a galaxy’s turn
so is expressed of eternity in the ink of now
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
in the beginning, it was not like this, or that
the primordial chaos mixed the is with not
from which the infinity of the sky was divided
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
in the end, soundless angels burn with light
to tip the world over, and see what spills out
the child of the thunder to awake all sound
and the tree of forgetting of good and evil
blooms of sleepy fruit, of bewildering fruit
White cliffs that hide the mountains’ height when one looks up from the beach, below; clouds that have meaning in the shapes they seem to describe, as if our dreams lifted off from within our minds’ eyes into the heavens; rivers that flow in constant rhythm, as if time traveled down them, rode the currents steady, fish who swim within them never to grow old… I painted images within my imaginings in dull technicolor, all that a mortal visualizing could generate, and then I understood that it would serve better in words, which could invoke in greater hearts much the more spectacular sights: if God Himself would read them, I could wonder what the pictures would be in His cogitations, and how incredibly wonderful and strange they might be.
Prayer frees us to be controlled by God. To pray is to change. There is no greater liberating force in the Christian life than prayer. To enter the gaze of the Holy is never to be the same. To bathe in the Light in quiet wonder and glad surrender is to be slowly, permanently transformed. There is a richer inward orientation, a deep hunger for communion. We feel as if we are being taken over by a new control Center, and so we are.
Airy
Dream again like as a child
When you went wand’ring in the wood
And seeking lonely in the wild
Found the evil and the good
Fly thy spirit like the leaves
In autumn wind caught in the draft
An airy pattern so to weave
Learning heaven’s sacred craft
Speak as if the world could hear
For all that’s hid shall come to light
And all your words shall find an ear
Come the dawn that follows night
Love, to hear what heartbeats say
The whispered wishes hearts will send
That all of life’s collected days
Of love we’re given what we spend
Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our holiness is an effect, not a cause; so long as our eyes are on our own personal whiteness as an end in itself, the thing breaks down. God can do nothing while my interest is in my own personal character — He will take care of this if I obey His call. In learning to love God and people as He commanded us to do, obviously your sanctification cannot but come, but not as an end in itself.
the stranger wind leaves us stranded in memory
as the trivial angel categorizes our reactions to beauty
it is because we have been here before are we here now
to gaze into the uninterrupted horizon
to fathom the deeper colors as the light descends
forgetting time, lying down to die another day
we walk into our minds and join the flow of the dreaming
a billion bits of information fly by unnoticed
as we remember lovers that we never touched
to speak in riddles we ourselves do not understand
never to look above or below for the answers
or to feel as the mind remembers, remembers
the angel measures the distances between forgettings
where we were awoken from that stranger wind
that seemed as important as life, mysterious as death
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