sunflower

along away

through yellow petals traced with the scent

of summer grass,

my face in it

and falling through

to roots of trees and other things…

a small cascade, if there’s such a place,

is my escape

and last autumn's leaves

impress the sun around the water’s face.

overcast

overcast isn’t over anything.

it’s perfect.

a shade of dark that accentuates the green under my boots.

constant conversation in the air entreats my silence.

but there is music and narration in my mind,

atop my footsteps,

in my place,

because i am invisible here...

looking at things, more things, and pictures of things

has closed my eyes to looking into

for a time,

but the thought, that acknowledgement, has been the transition

back to awareness

of myself, of what is beautiful, of what is valuable,

of what is desirable.

and my memory sings and sings…

“oh be careful little eyes what you see.

be careful little eyes what you see…”

…be careful little heart what you want,

for your desire is your worth,

and your Father has paid so much for you,

so much,

because he loves you.

the lines on his hands must be the most beautiful—

the hands that formed the dry clay;

that hold the weary when they walk, for we must walk;

that wrote upon our hearts his presence and his will.

those lines…

what beauty, what mercy, what love.

at these thoughts, the significance of my physical eyes subsides

and that of my soul’s sight rises to the welcome task of recognizing

the Savior’s face, the Father’s hands, the Spirit’s voice,

and then I see

what I must see.

oh be careful…

oh be full of care…

reflections

is it late enough for you to come climbing in

through cracks and quiet hallways?

dark enough, and late?

***

what is the cloth that covers eyes when mem’ry overtakes?

a film, a picture, clear as sight, and yet unseen,

so that the slightest twitch of your finger

means to your mother that you felt the wind,

when really, you felt two years ago when you worked so hard to do so well,

and he put his arms around you to reassure you that it was not in vain;

you felt his heart,

in his words and in his touch,

not the wind.

the veins that show on leaves against the sun

are invisible though vibrant as a backdrop to a tear against skin

made warm and red with sincerity and love.

the stem between your fingers means to your sister and to your brother

that you are savoring life,

you are cherishing light…

in your mind you are,

but you instead hold his face in your hands

and feel his warmth and sweat,

a testament – no need for proof – to the powerful hand of our God.

that warmth rests around your hopes

and cradles them like babes whose eyes are closed in sleep.

***

you are absent here, replaced by a distant cousin,

one less distinctive and distinguishing than you…

where you lay meaning,

she is the meaning you try to encapsulate.

where you evoke sentiment,

she is the sentiment that quivers on their lips,

and where you meet

is where we learn how to hold on

and what to hold,

for a word without meaning still speaks,

and a meaning without a word still breathes.

with love for those who can't help their red skin

You’re rosy in May—are you mine?

Are you mine? Walk this way.

When we look off the edge of the bridge,

we can tell it’s still raining,

but we know it won’t stay...

Cast from clothing, our legs hanging down from a pier,

quite the pair of true lovers we look from afar.

Can’t stand still or sit still or be still and still,

it’s the motion that turns me to stillness inside…

Wait one afternoon, or two hours, but don’t hold your breath.

A fresh scent lingers on the deck from leaves left…

When the sun dies down, we know it’s time.

Are you mine?

You are mine…

Her tangled mass of long, thin hair

caught the wind and held it and they played,

like red yarn holds kittens

whose whole life in a moment is to stare and paw, fixated.

The concrete of the cracking farm wall beneath her feet

looked like Time giving all his strength to help her stand

as she walked and talked,

and in her smile, the Sun…

Each memory matters as much to me as my lungs

to keep me breathing,

to keep me alive.

She was my poetry child,

her movements words that I have taken down

on the wrinkled lines of my brain.

She gave me pages filled with the trees and sky—

how she captured the sky—

and the grass that once touched her face…

Still so distinct from any other grass in the world.

Taken down from her hill by the grayest cloud,

she sleeps and keeps a constant watch on the stars.

Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand…

never through, her fragile fingers glow against the blue of twilight.

My light…

When I return to the wall on afternoons that keep no name,

I dust the cracks with weeds and wonder

if the wind can recognize what she inherited from me—

soft skin, a focused brow,

a small brown freckle on her left ear…

Sometimes it nods or strokes or speaks of these things,

but most often of her warmth

in words so softly spoken I can’t trace their origin;

of a disposition so mild, in voice and in pen,

yet so powerful that it traveled backwards,

from her into me.

We are free.

Psalm 16

I've been on a kind of roller coaster this semester, especially the past few weeks. God always seems to put the right words in the right place at the right time. In His Word we rest secure.

Psalm 16

“Keep me safe, O God,

for in you I take refuge.

I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

apart from you I have no good thing.”

As for the saints who are in the land,

they are the glorious ones in whome is all my delight.

The sorrows of those will increase

who run after other gods,

I will not pour out their libations of blood

or take up their names on my lips.

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;

you have made my lot secure.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me.

Because he is at my right hand,

I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my toungue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

because you will not abandon me to the grave,

nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

First Fall

It has been a long while since I've posted... too long. July completely escaped me, and August is about to do the same. I confess I have not kept up on my poetry (on or off this blog) as I would have liked... I give you these words to usher in the Fall and the many changes that come with it...

First Fall

The tree outside my window has begun to change,

its red face turned to the new sun,

the rest looking west

remembering summer.

I knew him when he was small,

and he knew me,

the little one trudging the yard

    in search of Easter eggs or a favorite kitten.

And then I grew up on the other side of the house.

This is our first Fall together,

and I will have to leave him for other trees,

trees that say little to me but "We are here."

I'll return when his branches are bare

    and the shadow he casts has atrophied to a whisper.

He will wake me,

and we will remember.

free

(the portions in quotation marks are taken from a poem by my best friend.)

“barefoot and crazy

but mostly free,”

i discuss with myself

the me that i wish i still knew.

she was contemplative, focused—

i am scatterbrained and distracted.

she was innocent, graceful—

i am worn and bear witness,

self-conscious and uneasy.

a battleground between confidence and self-doubt,

between soaking it all in and articulating the beauty before me,

between knowing what i have learned to know, and learning what i’m told i should.

my mind wanders with my feet to the field,

to distant memories brought close by the familiar sounds

and sights of home.

the sun keeps his promise

to rise and set as he did when we were children,

but now the grass grows shorter

and in different places,

my secret places gone or changed.

i try to fit regardless, and i find only mild satisfaction.

what is this desire?

i scold myself for hiding here,

for waiting as the days pass, as the light drifts

and looks in on me in my quietude.

have i abandoned freedom for fear?

(this question has changed me…)

for fear that i must keep my freedom?

that it is somehow i who must portion off some days to be free

and others to be full, filled by obligations and “the rest”?

we cannot live as we once did,

and yet we must.

we cannot forget the feeling of dirt and sand and grass and stone beneath our feet.

“we are free, to the same extent we are fearless.”

they are bound up in each other,

the freedom to fly and the fear of the fall.

they direct our steps,

sometimes careful, sometimes reckless.

both can result in injury,

one results in joy despite pain.

in my hands, in my feet

i remember beauty the way it should be.

“barefoot, be free.”

sometimes

sometimes i forget that you haven’t known me all my life,

that you never knew the little girl

that became a not-so-little girl

that became this young woman you call friend.

sometimes i remember what never was

because today is something that i never imagined.

sometimes i forget that i have to tell you about myself for you to find out

what’s in there.

sometimes my past catches up and my present wants to step aside.

sometimes my present catches up and i just want to go back.

it is strange for me to think that you have made assumptions

about me,

but i suppose we all have our suppositions.

i feel i know you where the rain meets the leaves,

whatever that means,

and though i am so familiar,

you don’t know what to think

sometimes.