Places 03: Patterns Change

I

steady west winds
breathe hot over grasses,
on roasting ground
greens dry to gold, golds fade to brown

clouds cast warm shadows
across thirsting fields,
under trees, the shade perspires,
damp beneath the heat

walkways burn bared feet
shifting patterns on the paths
that we must take today— dusty, dry—
we seek fresh ley lines for our time

II

My husband and I,
bodies weakening from disuse,
weary before we began,
sigh, and just a little, groan.

Is fear of lack our fair excuse
for pulling heavy hoses,
for watering parched land
once moist and washed by dews and rain?

Pushing aging bodies,
we pray our bruising deed,
to plant and water seeds,
births fact from our small faith.

We’re growing pumpkins—
(we could buy them at the store).
Our bones ache afterwards,
his in the right shoulder—

We’ve hope for holidays once more—
for thanksgivings with family and friends,
for memories of joy again
and, of course, spiced pie.

III

Patterns play
throughout my mind today:
the math within the music
that sings inside my heart,
the tug and pull of moon-tides on my skin,
the rests and rhythms between our heartbeats—
his and mine—
the pulls and pushes of surrenders—
once to each other—
lately to illness and old age.
Through duty, terrors and delight
—we tried to yield to God.

IV

His wrinkles all are settled down,
to smiles around his eyes—
set by years of looking far past sun-filled fields,
and far through storm-strained skies.

He looked beyond our fast-paced years
and joked his way through stifled tears;
he’d set his busy mind to love—endured above
the words he read, the thoughts he said.

And when he turned to die, he died.
His joints, once muscled well
and set to synchronize,
once supple on a horse or easily bent
to swab a deck or pray,
once quick to grab and down a beer
and kind to change a stranger’s tire,
had done their best;
his mind and body turned toward rest.

His spirit-oil was full— to run forever—
but how his frame decayed—
the grace that moved his body as a boy
steered his wheelchair those last days.

Both days and hours and minutes moved
to hold him slow and still—
but slow and still He smiled—
eyes crinkling all the while.

V

It’s not just us.
It’s entropy and plan.
It’s Alpha and Omega,
Weaving love of time-bound man
through patterns of beginnings
into patterns that must end.

Sighting an eagle’s steady flight
against a dark blue cloudless sky—
thoughts lift, reminding me that I,
despite two grounded legs,
can also rise and fly
above catastrophes like death,
in faith refuse the lies that lucifer,
angel of deceptive light,
throws out to challenge everlasting life.

Searching for sense,
intelligence,
(supposed to be) a gift for man
to help us understand
our God’s good ways,
and help us lovingly obey
through gloriously grateful earth-rich days,
our minds, (mine at least)
get wrapped in mental-paradigms—
trapped in darkness pride would hide.

VI

Striving to be free,
forgetting history,
peoples replay enmities
unconsciously.

Old worlds abide in wicked powers
waiting to again beget
the insults modern man forgets.
Herod’s and Hitler’s and Stalin’s crimes,
rise up from the floors of time—
join with Esaus’ jealous will—
to all ride on together
—unless—until—
little folk like you and me
get still enough to stop—
get off the ride—
exchange our hidden sins for love,
welcome Holy Spirit in,
and, with trembling hope, obey
the mercy of our God’s good ways.

VII

The Pattern Maker longs to heal, forgive, restore.
He allows hot winds, sends thirst across our earths,
Maintains His flow of death and birth,
Sustains our aging bodies,
And, when our small patterns change,
He helps us harvest hope with pumpkins
and undying faith that we are not alone.

© Ginny Emery, An earlier much shorter version was published in Places, 2011