Someday I would love to walk the path through the ancient forest and stop when I feel the shimmering of the air around me as the sunlight breaks through the canopy. Then I’d stop and hold my breath and wait with my head tilted upwards and eyes closed for that goosebump moment when the birds would begin to sing. And then I’d exhale and start to hum the song that I had always known, even from the first time my fingers traced the music in the chord book on the piano back in the spare room that time when I was young. I had of course tried my hand at playing the notes as I thought they fell but I was too inexperienced then to understand the weighty dance that was required to truly play the music as it was meant to sound. So I put away the book and backed away from the piano and though I thought of it now and again, it was as if it was a dream that was not for me. Yet I am haunted still and wonder when we shall meet again, that song and I. I know soon my time shall come and I shall walk past the curtain and into the forest solemn walk. And then in that forest vale I’ll walk but not alone. And I shall hear that music, that I know, but I’ll hear more than that – I’ll hear a voice. I wonder what it will be like, that day when I know as I am known. My heart breaks now for the vision that has been wrought by more than my imagination could dare to dream. When comes the summons? I sit up on my bed and look and see the branches waving past the window. The wind picks up and I see the branches tapping in friendly fashion. Come out and play.
Tag: musing
Autumn Thoughts
’tis a delight to sit and dwell and wonder on all the wondrous things that have gone before. Sometimes it is easy to fill one’s time with little errands here and there and hither and yon. Yet sometimes I find it better to take a breath and breathe in deep and dwell on what lies before me before it’s of sudden gone. I talk in rhyme when I cannot bear to give into mundanity and let all my thoughts run in prose. Yet can there not be beauty in plain speaking and in a turn of phrase that may not have a counterpoint but simply shyly stands alone? I think so. But sometimes I’m afraid of plain speaking or perhaps it’s just that I’m worried that my thoughts are vapid and reflecting on my lack of inner fire. I know it’s not true yet still my dreams groan. Perhaps I feel if one peels back the layers of my metaphors and the billowing tulle of all my words they’ll find a shocking lack of insight and that I just prattle on and on to fake my worth. Maybe it’s silly that even now I can be so self-protective and even paranoid in my lines. Or maybe not? Maybe I just fear that one will look down their nose at me and sneer and say look at this pretense and pomposity – it’s nothing more than wind and lies. Yet still I write and yet still my thoughts tumble over themselves like so many eager puppies at the county fair. Perhaps out of my desire to create nothing great will ever emerge. That would be tragic, one would think. Yet maybe not. For in this desire I have to create beauty in an ordered chaos of rhythm and word, does that not point to something greater than my heart can truly comprehend? I hope that still with my feeble offerings I may kneel and serve. I wonder. Is it silly that I’ve written so long now without actually saying much of note? I will allow it, this once. Just ignore all the times I’ve done it before. I feel that if I’m harsh and overly critical enough of myself, you all will have sympathy on me and with a hand on my shoulder say there, there. He’s been hard enough on himself, poor fellow, and he sees that he has naught of worth. No need to pile on. He is only a brute consciousness after all.
But a glimmer in my eye testifies otherwise. I lay planks of rotted wood across the stream aplenty, I know. Might I lay one or two noble branches, artless in their dress. Maybe an indrawn breath will testify I’ve succeeded. For me, fool that I am, I’m impressed. The fire burns within, low and true. I walk across this brook and breathe deep of fall’s sweet melodies. See how the early evening light falls upon the path now. I forget all else but the strong sweet song that fills this meadow. And I press on to that which lies before.
Mineshaft
I wanted to dance down to the seashore and look at the moon lit path across the waves. Yet the sky was stormy and thus the moon was hid and so why bother I told myself. But sometimes it’s lovely to walk down the beach in the pouring rain. The tears from heaven testify to a greater love than one has ever known and if I cry no one needs to know. For truly in a day and age such as this sorrow seems to be written on every face and I cannot wait at a bus stop without hearing some sad tale. Is the testimony of the current moment different from all those moments that came before I wonder. Or is it just a fact that all the moments from the past have been piled up in just so a fashion and in a moment when a match has been lit and dropped the bonfire pours smoke towards heaven in living analogue for the ephemeral nature of our collective memory? I think this is close to the truth. And thus I read and write and spend far too much metaphorical ink attempting to memorialize the thoughts and dreams of a single specimen of individuality. For reading links me to the past and present cries of man in ways that pluck the heart strings of my soul and reminds me that my thoughts are not so solitary as I sometimes think. Yes I take pleasure at times in feeling unique in my mode of expressing how I feel. Reading the words of others shakes me up in a way that’s needed and show me that I am not that special after all. Well, I am special. But not at the expense of the beauty of my fellow brothers and sisters. Remember that, remember the sacred witness of my brother who walks past me on the sidewalk and that he too bears the imprint of the divine. Remember that, harken to the true nature of my sister who rings me up at the grocery store, that she too points up to heaven with the very fact of her existence on this plane. I write and I write and I write. Oh I can’t help but write as I feel I burn up when I am not and that these words that pour out of me may be silly posturing, mere leaves on the breeze, yet still they are mine and mine alone. Only one other holds my hand as I write, and his hand is a scarred one. The scars on his hand remind me of divine love. I tremble as I think that this reality we see now is only a shade of the true. Someday we will see in brighter colors and hear in more vivid tones. Someday we will sing in purer voices and as I think on this now I tremble imagining my someday home. I consider those who are my true family, not just those who bear the resemblance because we have a common creator, but those brothers and sisters true who confess the truth of life and death and our resurrected God and cling to that common hope that someday all shall be made new. Why do I sometimes break down in silent tears when I ponder what it is to cross the ford to the other side and read of those brothers and sisters who have done so before me crying in joy at what lies ahead. It is far better than anything here, as has been so often said. Not for the absence of the sorrow that is now ever present in this tainted world in which we live. That is a piece, but only a small one. Rather I look forward to a shared meal with the one who has never stopped holding my hand. One day some day soon I pray I will break bread and drink wine with the one who was broken and bled for the salvation of my soul. Imagine that! I will be with my Lord Jesus and he will hold me even as now he knows me and finally I can truly say I’m home. Some day. Until then, I’ll treasure these walks on the beach in the light of rising sun. When shall the day of consummation be? I do not know. Only one does. But for now I’ll write these words and seal them with a kiss. See how the clouds break. See how the gulls wheel across the sky.
Penelope For Your Thoughts
I wish I was better at describing the created world. I love to imagine such things as rushing streams and whispering forests and sunlight streaming through the leaves of early autumn. Yet when my pen is lifted and I tilt my head and think about the words to use to describe the blushing sensations that cause a stillness in the air as one walks through the forest, my mind blanks. What are trees? What are rivers? How does one describe light if one has no frame of mind in which darkness plays a part? Why is my vocabulary so bankrupt that I cannot paint a picture with my words? This drives one to reading. I am stubborn, it becomes apparent. If my mind is not furnished with the proper words to pour out my thoughts, then I simply must fill it. Yet I’m afeared that my acquisition process is a bit akin to wandering through a Goodwill at times. Or maybe a comfy used bookshop is a better metaphor. I wander past many friendly paperbacks and fascinating tomes that I let my hand linger on. Yet how many of these do I pick up and take to the counter? Well, far too many, as it turns out. Yet still, I miss the bulk of what is on offer and seem to only enjoy the bookstore in the moment for the moment as my soul quiets in appreciation for the bountiful treasures all around. This metaphor has run to ground. But I think – or hope rather – you get the point that even as I attempt to feed my mind a proper diet that will enable it to pour forth streams of love-wrought beauty, it seems I am instead allowing myself to linger in the beauty of the moment as I dwell on the written word. I am not properly chewing and digesting – no, I am swallowing whole the sublime that I let my gaze gallop across. To continue with the crude, I am simply eating too fast. Of course my mind does not have the time and leisure to wander through the parlor and shake hands with the fascinating words one sees. Instead it’s a mad dash to the buffet table and a piling of the plate with all the goodies that one has learned to crave. Reading is a pleasure yes. But can it also be a discipline? This is what I seek to learn, even as I distinguish between reading that is merely entertainment and reading that is meditative and pointing ones to higher truths and sweeter climes. As I distinguish such, I do seek to alter the ratio of my consumption so that I do not consume such as would upset my stomach and cause me to get used to fouler fare. Instead, ought I not train myself to enjoy and relish the food that is grown by eternal light? I think so. I must be more deliberate about my reading, I do think. Thank you for letting me wander through my thoughts on this in this stream of consciousness pondering. It has been good to share such. Perhaps now as I shut this laptop and allow myself to pick up my book, I will slow down just a little. Perhaps I can allow myself to pick my way through the meadow appreciating the feel of the grass under my bare feet as I notice the wildflowers in my path and the butterflies fluttering past my face. Perhaps I will tilt my head appreciatively as I smell the scent of jasmine and note the changing light as the sun crosses beyond the tree line and heralds dusk to come. Perhaps I will allow my thoughts to think of heaven and of the eternal one. Perhaps I will allow myself to breathe deep and close my eyes as I stand under the darkening sky and muse on the city that rises in my dreams.
Bedrock
Devotion to truth and beauty is admirable. But there is a potential for this devotion to sour as one notes a misperception that leads to a devotion improperly placed. In other words, something is called true that is not true. Or something is called beautiful that is not beautiful? Nonsense you may cry. Who are you to define truth or beauty? These are nebulous concepts that cannot truly be nailed down. I agree that I am not infallible and it is very possible – even probable – that my comments stand on sand at times. Yet I am not putting myself forward as the arbiter of beauty or my own poetry held high as the level of truth. No, all I am stating is the statement that there is a standard of truth and beauty and so perhaps this does point to one who may judge such. Is this too far? We may quibble on interpretations and paradigms of course. But is it wrong to posit that there may just possibly be realities that are solid in and of themselves and are far beyond our ability to alter? This is all I say, at this time. Later on, perhaps over a coffee or something more bitterly delicious, I will discuss with you my thoughts on the realities that to me are more truly beautiful than any others I can dare to imagine. And yes of course, these realities are based in the God whom I call my own, the one who is more beautifully true than my mind can truly grasp. It is difficult for the finite to grasp the eternal, yet I try. And so in what I call feeble faithfulness upheld by the infinite united to my soul I lay my head down in sweet peace that I am known by the one of whom nothing greater can be known to be.
Still Waters
Oh how wonderful it is to have a spare few moments to sit and breathe and think on the abundant mercies of my God! I sometimes write in poetry and sometimes simply prose but for now I don’t think I have the energy about me to write much of anything creative this night, alas but is that really such a bad thing? Sometimes it is most beneficial to my soul to simply read on lovely things that are true and meditate on what God has done for me. So I will now shut this laptop and cease staring into a screen that I cannot quite commune with even while pouring out as many words as I write now. This outpouring of my thoughts from my head to this empty white space may seem grandiose at times but can it truly capture the flickering of the candle that is my soul? I know not but oh still I try. For now though, I am off for true. Farewell my friends and be at peace this night, I pray. Peace and love.
Intermission
she bends over the little secretary desk
and scribbles with all her might
outside the thunder bugles triumphantly
but Emma doesn’t fear the night
for all the raging of the cosmos
only fuels the maelstrom in her heart
and she bleeds messy prose onto the paper
witness this faltering house of cards
but it’s ok she says to herself
for surely soon this candle will go out
and on my pillow i’ll lie down and
lie awake and for hours muse on art
and the way the wooden crosspiece
struck my eye as the autumn light
fell just so upon that old red barn
i remember that afternoon i wrote
a poem upon my scratchpad as i
leaned against that tree and breathed
deep of pine and felt the comfort
of the old withered bark against my back
cozy in my sweatshirt and my eyes alive
with all that was on the page unturned
now alas i’ve seen too much and i fear
that perhaps all my best lines are burnt
but at least i can’t say i haven’t written
even if the pages are all fluttering
in the wind
and who knows what backstreet alley
they’ll end up in
alas my soul comfort yourself with what you know
and rest in those old promises
i have nothing else
Carnival Dreams
Too often do I wish to write with sparkling wit and put down on paper thoughts that will cause those to read to exclaim in glory. I wish to write with subtlety and with prose that dances up and down the page in elaborate harmonies. Yet what so often happens? My fingers and thoughts run away with themselves and though I start with such grand intention and with such a perfect framework cottage in my mind, I end staring at a castle of grotesquerie that proclaims in bold typeface that theme that I thought so delicate when I began. Alas can it be that I simply do not quite have the mind or tools to express those burning lines of poetry in my heart? Or perhaps – the worse option – is it that the thoughts and dreams I think so lovely are in fact reflections of a dullness within that yet remains no matter all my attempts to burnish in flame. Well perhaps it’s good for my humility that I am destined to be no great artist. It helps me to hold a candle up to my fellow humanity and whisper soft – yes, I am just like you in the end no matter what words I write down. I am too like you a mere clay pot. But still yet my eyes peer to the far horizon that I may gain a glimpse of that glory for which I long. And see. I’ve done it again. I might as well own up to my own folly and be resigned to being called a fool for that which I hope. Better that than a crown that’s destined to burn.
Visions
It was a long time ago it seems that we walked this forest path. I breathed deep of pine and beech and of an impulse I take your hand. The air is quiet in the way you only get when you’re far off from any sounds of engines or whirring gears though now and again I hear a bird pipe up and say hello hello my friend I’m here! And the air is quiet but it’s also heavy with the air of anticipation that a long awaited moment brings. This of course is something I bring into the forest and so is not native to this land. I turn and look at you and note how still your face is as you simply soak in the moment of a quiet stroll through this fairy realm. It does indeed seem like one of the small woods-folk could be around the next bend and we could have a chat, if only we had the eyes to see of course. But do we? I don’t bring this thread to the surface and chase it down for fear of diverting us from this melody of life. Do you hear the music, my friend? Do you? With that breaking of the silence, you turn to me and smile. This wood is delightful you say, truly I can’t believe we’re here walking where once legends dwelt. And for this moment I’ve waited ever so long, to be here with you, while overhead towers the trees we love. Is it enough, this wood?
Not long ago was it that we sat on the edge of a cliffside and gently tended that fire of roses. We talk of this and that upon this cliff looking out over the seas that leap and shout. But in the stark grey beauty of the ocean there is a moment that I quiver. And I sing now oh be still my heart! From where comes the song that was promised for I wait to hear the long lost melody. You say softly that the song was written on that piece of parchment. And I reply that somehow I knew it was meant for me. I shiver as I think that soon my lips shall sing these words. We both lean closer to the cliffside and let our bodies rejoice in this sea spray. My eyes sparkle with anticipation as I turn to you and say – shall we sit upon the edge here and let our feet dangle and talk of all the tales that we’ve not yet told? You giggle and stir the fire casually and mutter low – I have so many things to tell you. I never want to let you go. As we breathe deep of fire and roses and the song leaps unbidden to our lips we look to each other as blue meets brown and wonder – how did it come to this? This fire, is it enough?
Soon will come the moment when we’re standing upon the beach and gazing off into the west. Do you see the pinks and purples and oranges of the sky and wonder what they all mean? Is there a deeper significance to this beauty or is it just some grand coincidence? I laugh and squeeze your hand a little tighter and you turn to me and radiantly smile. There is more to this than the world that was promised. For truly this world is not enough. I know I tell you, I know. But surely we can bring a little meaning into the world if we in our hearts summon deep the joy and pains we have written thus far. But are we the originators of this meaning or are we merely echoing a long told tale? Echoes and symmetry I sigh. I know, I know. Just as this sunset plucks a chord in our hearts and we tremble knowing that we are made for more. Do you hear the music now you ask me. I do I reply. Oh surely I do. But still something is missing. Or someone.
These rhymes that fill my mind have not stopped. My love do you remember that day we walked in that wood? I do of course. That was the day my heart began to quicken as I began to believe there was more to this world than our eyes could see. But do you remember that grey twilight upon which we sat at that fire and burned bouquets of roses as we told each other our hopes and dreams? I can only reply you know I do. That was the day I knew we were on a road that we could not leave. Then you know that we only wait one thing. Our lives have spiraled around the core of truth that can be no other than what is now before us as we see the sun set before our eyes. Where is the one that was promised? We have been given much but still where is the well-laden table, where is the bread and wine? We are missing the one that was promised, the one that takes away the sin of the world. But remember you say your eyes now beginning to glow with inner fire, that one is provided by the one for whom our soul longs. In fact, you say now in a hushed and reverent manner, that one is come into the world and provided himself for himself for us that might dwell with him in the most full and rich communion that could ever be imagined in this world. Imagine that. Behold the lamb.
I take up the vision and fiercely pen all these things my mind have seen. In the darkening of the night, I feel your hand tighten upon my shoulder as we gaze up at the falling stars. And as light flashes from east to west, I whisper to you do you remember what joy is ours as we look forward to taking cups and toasting at that table? Oh my heart quivers. These words now ring in my head as I prepare myself for the consummation of all that’s been written. We now stand in purple twilight and gaze up at the fires of angels as we prepare to dine in heaven. The echoes of that long ago forest walk come back to me and I whisper what I heard him say and my heart rejoices that he is now near at hand
I will drape my cloak over you
I will ever draw you with my hand
I will call you by the music of my voice
I will surely bring you to my promised land
You and I stand together under the banner of redeeming love. We have no qualms about what is written for now united in sweet union are the songs of faith and hope as they look upon what descends from above. I should not say what, but who. And you know of whom I speak. His name is upon my lips as we hold hands tight and prepare for eternity where the songs will never stop and there will be no more echo for the source shall be before us in perfection of beauty and glory – that one robed in infinity and yet marked still by the suffering that he bore for those he descended to save, that in the fullness of his divinity and might still he stoops down that we might know his name. And now we tremble as we stand before him in a way and place I cannot describe for my thoughts flee far above and far beyond and before him we stand and I see his face.
Witness
What does it mean to walk down the path when one knows not the middle but has faith in where it ends? Sometimes it simply means the slow and simple approach of taking that next step and planting your foot firmly upon the path and avoiding the temptation to look behind. That is good to remember and easy to exhort one to but considerably harder to remember in the moment when everything seems opposed to you. True? So as I trudge around the sputtering volcano and feel on my skin the warm brush of ash, I know that it is folly to attempt to turn back now and that path off to the side must be avoided at all costs. For truly where I come from is the halls of darkness and so instead now I lift my eyes to the skies and continue to bear this cross. It is not a fraction as heavy as the one the one before me bore. Remember that, my friend. So I whisper prayers I’ve said so many times before and softly aloud chant these promises that were written that I might delight in them. Heed the word written and look up to the promised word that stooped and wrote in the dust for you. And now though the fog settles and my feet are shrouded from my eyes I smile for I tell myself the stories of the coming glories that shall be written in the skies. Courage, dear heart.
Something Weird 