Places 14: Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope Once I sought and found quiet in a one room cabin on a Southern Indiana farm. It was built from unfinished freshly milled wood and set inside a partly fenced-off glade of tall unmown grass between woods, pasture, a cow corridor and grainfields. The inside was undecorated and sparsely furnished. It was intentionally off […]
Places 13: Cedars
Cloud brushed cedars
gently sway
into the darkening skies.
Birds that crowded
summer skies
Faith or Fear
On December 11th, I looked out the window and wrote a poem about the wintry view before my eyes. I was surprised that it ended up about fear and faith. What is in us has a way of coming out, doesn’t it. I rarely post new poems, but put it on-line. Dissatisfied, I revised it. Here’s […]
Places 22: Jesus Said to Thomas
Then Jesus said to Thomas Cut out those whispering doubts that won’t believe. Bend, man, bend to truth! Touch my side, receive. Don’t hide, don’t hide. I’m here right now, I’m here. I heard your grief, I felt each sob, each tear. I know you cried and cried. I know your faith and hope had […]
Fog
My weather app says the sun is shining. Surely it is—somewhere—but around me it’s thickening fog. Dense clouds are dripping down a heavy wash of gray. The woods to the north are barely visible. Such impenetrable fogs trigger memories for me—always the same three.
Dense fog triggers memories for me—always the same three. The first, from 1962, is a comfortable one, full of family love, adventure and teamwork.
Places 12: Holding a Moment
Note: This Advent Season poem is not my usual. You may think it cynical, laced with negative subjectivity. I actually do like some jazz and blues— but not stuck records or tapes that never end. And the anomaly of night club music on an early Sunday morning in an upscale hotel lobby all lavishly decorated […]
Places 16: Thin Grass
Thin Grass This poem is rooted in memories. Ed and I had been divorced from each other for thirty years. When we remarried one another in 2000 Ed was a conventional farmer in Southern Indiana. I was a Northern Illinois suburbanite. But way back in the 1960’s, years before our divorce, I’d accepted the truth […]
Places 11: Grain Fields
Grain Fields began in my head while driving South on Route 47 through North Central and Central Illinois—back when towns were small, subdivisions far away, cars were few, speed limits vague and farmlands stretched out far. It’s hard to understand if you don’t know the stories behind the images, so I’ve put references in footnotes. […]
Places 10: My Kitchen Door
Two cardinals sail in, softly feathered watchers, they sit and wait upon the deck just beyond my door. The male bird looks into me, straight into my eyes, then flies away as if to say, “Why don’t you come out and play?” Urges to rise and ride the sunshine lift my wings, then die. Today, […]
Places 09: Love Songs
I Open up and sing! When songs resound with tingling life and the winds of God blow with us as we sing, the tones aren’t all our own— we’re not alone. II Listen to words that surge-up unbidden, let loose all the sounds The Spirit is giving. Surrender to rhythms eternally marked, move into the […]
The Christian Vote
Note: Please READ this and pass it on—especially the Charles Finney quotation and comments at the end
Places 05: Streams
Late winter rains pour down, flood deep / filling gullies, lifting creeks. Flushing ice from caves— where creatures hide…
