Poems from Places
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GERANIUMS
Geraniums against all outside snow,
Coral lights within my room,
Reaching toward the windows white
In winter bright,
Ignore the tiredness of cold,
Opening spring out of season.
***
***
WAITING FOR WIND
Heavy air weighs on these grasslands
Presses along the fence lines
Covers the treetops
Rests on the fields
Higher, above, it whirls
While around me steam
Glides through the hollows,
Settles into sinkholes,
And blankets the heating land with heaviness
Incubating me with time and place
in pregnant wait.
May 2006
Bedford, Indiana
***
***
IMPALED
Impaled
up there upon the cross
Looking down through time,
His eyes intent on seeking mine
They were red that day
Bloodshot and puffy
Bruised
Framed by crusts entangled in His matted hair.
Low before Him,
Up there on the cross,
No courage to lift my eyes
Past the nakedness,
The shame and pain,
Somehow, I did.
And He crushed my conventional mind,
Destroyed me in His gaze,
Shattered my rituals with His ways.
Just one look was all it took
To break the mocking maze of man.
Eyes locked,
Culture’s imprint splintered off my soul,
And truth rose free,
Ardently loving,
Broken,
Far below a battered, swollen, unrecognizable face
Blood-streaked-with-love
***
***
SAFETY
Within, where God in truth abides,
Every child can safely hide.
Greed and glut, now undenied,
Rapacious flesh, dissatisfied,
And evil plans, made plain before wise eyes,
Are endorsed by popular vote;
Hatred seeks its scapegoats.
Discipline is scorned by lawless men,
Such signs suggest a coming end.
Stretch the wedding bands
Bonding earth to sky.
Strain the foundations of earth past understanding.
Birth wrings increasing groanings,
Twisting rocks and seas, shaking stars and trees,
While creation moves, still steadfast in the Maker’s praise,
Squeezed out now on troubled days.
Come—
Touch the warmth of His breast.
Hear His heartbeats, feel His sounds.
Questions of life and death dissolve
In perfectly ordered beauty,
Perfectly simple rest.
