Polished Wood

22 October 2011

Time is taking hold of my eyelids,
dragging them along
a mostly predetermined path. Evidence
of many meals enjoyed,
perhaps too much,
certainly too late,
bring softness where once
I was, by and large, unyielding--
but my hair in sunlight is still
the color of polished wood.

Deep Magic at 27 Weeks

Today, I am 27 weeks pregnant.

Yesterday, I picked up a paintbrush for the first time since I found out I was pregnant.

I don't think these two realities are coincidental. I've been on pins and needles throughout this pregnancy, waiting for the fateful 27 weeks to pass. Not that it's a magic number; I know it's not. Or maybe it is--"Deep Magic", as a friend of mine at church quoth (very C.S. Lewis of her...) the other day when the incessant back pain I'd been having for 5 months suddenly vanished in the middle of the Holy Unction service of Holy Week. Not magic--but God's hand, God's grace, God's peace--and the little girl in my abdomen finally choosing a more comfy position for what I hope will be the duration of the pregnancy.

I think most people would be surprised to hear me talk like that. The years between 2000 and 2005 beat a lot of things out of me, including the ability to speak in platitudes. But it has struck me constantly, in the midst of those years; in the midst of the Blessing Years that have followed, that God's grace and love and peace are not platitudes. And they are certainly not to be hidden away, but they are very precious, wonderful, mysterious, unfathomable realities that work even when we can't see them. Even when we are so reduced by our circumstances that we wonder if He's even there.

So--27 weeks. Not a magic number. But definitely a point of new vision, and hopefully a point of rebirth of creativity. Deep Magic.

Without Fear

17 October 2009

My eyes are open today. I see

how fruitless are the hours spent worrying

about a form and substance you adore.

These conversations never cease behind the eyes,

laughing or weeping. They never cease.

I hear the fretting accusations,

the whispers of starvation. I hear them,

but they grow quieter with time. Or perhaps

I build a wall inside my head, beyond which

their power diminishes--

I am, without fear, who I am.

Puddleglum

28 November 2007, 7:50 PM

Sometimes I am so very like
Puddleglum, content with nay-saying,
casting the worst case as inevitably given.

Against evidence, Beloved.

So many good and perfect
gifts have come to us in so short a time,
and though the curses have multiplied,
so much more have the blessings,
and neither do we bear alone.

Less Than a Poet

1 November 2007, 7:53 AM

I need quiet,
or this gift dissolves
and I become less
than a poet.

In silence I
sit, therefore; ponder
where I’ve wandered since
the last words fell

from my pen; found
voice outside myself,
affirmation and
validity.

I can’t recall
when last, where nor why
I found time to weep
or laugh or fly-

no mystery
I find myself oft’
dying, not knowing
now how to live.

Sycamore

11 October 2007, 8:14 AM

It hurts an awful lot, and howls,
when the wind picks up and the bark
grows thick; the bite, sharp.
It’s hard to feel much through the layers
of dead brown, pealing away. One has to trust
the next layer will be closer to sage-
otherwise (or even so) there’s suffering to be had,
and tears, with age. Wisdom comes thus.

She keeps on,

though at times she thinks she’d be grateful
if some wood-wanderer would finally
fell her so she wouldn’t have to fight anymore
to reveal her skin, wouldn’t have to struggle so
to see the inward rage- separate the present
from the past; gentle rain from pelting fires of hell.
She’d failed to hope they could not last forever.

Man-Made Wind

6 September 2007, 8:32 AM

Here is life.
The ceiling fan whirrs above
my head, quietly insisting sanity
reigns here. The ribbon on the mantle
reminds me this is true- it reminds me
of you. In so many ways, I am certain
you remember me, but the single,
constant flame in the fireplace keeps vigil
just in case you forget.

Man-made wind- the sound is somehow
soothing, though I know it isn’t natural.
It keeps the silence away, and I imagine
with the silence, it holds back my tears.

New Front Door

28 August 2007, 11:09 AM

We asked them to come replace
the door that stood rotting. I know
he planned to do this a long time ago,
but perhaps necessity dictated
postponing wisdom, until the chaos
and rush of inevitability finally caught up
with procrastination. Whether or not
one's pocketbook agrees, there are some
tasks which cannot be put off another day,
and the gaping hole in the front of my home
only serves to make me wonder if
and when and where we or someone else
might have done this, that or the other
differently, and saved the neighborhood
this cacophony of power drills and saws
and our already strained nerves the worry
of our pocketbook's disapproving gaze.

Loosening My Grip

13 August 2007, 8:20 AM
IRW

I held your hand as we walked
into the school today. You seemed
so confident, for a moment I thought
you'd prefer to walk not so close.

I loosened my grip.

You tightened yours,
so I didn't let go. I never will really
understand what makes me fear
for you. I know you're ready.

Everything was perfect.

I saved my tears for the hallway
and walked away with a boy-sized ache
in my heart, realizing all the precious
time that's gone- the time I missed
when you might have come home
mid-day, and we would have
sat in the dining room together
eating cookies, drinking milk
and talking about finger-painting
projects, incomplete, but soon to be
proudly displayed on refrigerator doors.

I Don't Want to Forget

28 March 2007, 8:39 PM

I don’t want to forget how it feels
not to know if you want me; to wish you did;
to fear our first meeting, and yet long for it
with every fiber of my carefully assembled
person, outside and in- curious if this is the place
where Love might grow again.

I don’t want to forget the rush of hearing
words I never thought that I would hear,
after watching as you fumbled with your fears,
your dignity and confidence, wondering
what you really meant by coming here today;
to wish you wouldn’t leave before you bring yourself to say
you’d like to see me again, because I so enjoyed the time.

I don’t want to forget a single syllable
of Edward, James or William,
and I want to remember When Africa Was Home.
I’d very much like to taste that Port
just one more time before the memory gets past me,
and you become so familiar I can’t remember
what it’s like to wonder what you’re thinking,
if you’re wanting, when and if you’ll see me,
how long it’s been since I’ve been in the presence
of a man who wasn’t focused on the Goal-
had I ever known a man who wasn’t fixed upon
some distant point he’d never actually see
if he refused to move his eye from it to look at me…

I don’t want to forget sharing Indian food,
plans gone awry, and mystical encounters
in chaotic spaces; finding Home in unfamiliar faces;
faces we would barely have noticed a year ago;
faces we could not live without today.

Base

27 February 2007, 11:18 AM
A piece from earlier in the year that I never posted

Getting back to things
less base than mere desire-
wondering what constitutes
beauty. Is it form, substance,
some mix of the two? The gentle dip
where waist joins hip-

wherever it is that they join...

Is it the color of skin, the texture,
the incense of body and breath-
these are form; serve function.

Where lies beauty
in the midst of wind and sand?
The face beheld this moment will be gone
tomorrow. All things will be other,
some joys turn to sorrow, and wounds
to succor and balm.

Armageddon Meets Cloud Nine

27 November 2006, 9:56 AM

Cerulean and silvered white
against a faithful azure sky
lean down to trace my lips
with sunset’s pastel orange hue.

The deeper shades of fiery red,
Cerise and coral in my head
encroach upon a perfect autumn breeze,
a sky as deep as it is wide,
and eyes without a hint of guile.

Armageddon draws nigh-
the muted shades of early evening
deepen to impending doom,

and I wait for it.

The warring sky engulfs Cloud Nine,
meets deepening color as this evening
permeates my own,

and I find I am still alive; at home
as these too long whitened clouds
turn all the colors of the sky

of me

and my heart ambles along its beat,
the only certain part of me,
even as the Truth unfolds
and I am not alone.

Whisper

12 March 2006, 4:57 PM

Another older poem, though not very.

There is one who cannot touch
except to pound the fist
who cannot speak unless to scream aloud
who cannot drink but to inebriate
who cannot eat apart from gorging
beyond his sate

Such a one will never understand
the lengths to which she goes
to beckon forth the parts of her
requiring a whisper
a feather touch
the brush of a lash upon the cheek
the tenderness of breath against bare skin
or gentle summer breezes
wafting silk against an azure sky
scarcely moving a lock of hair out of place
to fall across my face
and hide the parts which cannot bear
the grating of the wind

Complicated

21 November 2006, 9:05 PM

I have a knack for making life
ever so much more complicated than it need be,
fretting, moaning and frightening about this
and that, never considering there might be
an easier way- just let it unfold
with discernment intact and eyes wide open.

Fear is irrelevant, though I may feel it.
If what I fear is coming, it will come
regardless of what I do or do not do
to avoid or rework or disregard entirely.

If it comes not, I cannot make it- though I can
create other knots to fill my time in the future,
other dilemmas to keep life interesting,
other potholes to fill later on
with the mortar of disinherited memory.

Solace

20 November 2006, 8:34 PM
On the eve of the Feast of the Entrance.

I'd had my fill of butterflies-
honestly, I didn't see how they'd fit
another kindred into so small a space-
they were crammed wing to wing already,
beating furiously against my abdomen.

I hadn't realized the power of simple,
unassuming touch to calm the chaos-
she's such a mother, such a gift to me
for my sanity, to know just what I needed,
and just when; how silence coupled
with a ken which entails my world's
complexities could bring the butterflies
to rest for just a moment
in the solace of our Father's house.

Insomnia

I HATE being wide awake and exhausted at the same time. Most 'specially and 'sclusively (if you haven't read Kipling, you really must) at 0430 AM in the morning. Yes, I am aware that "0430 AM in the morning" is doubly redundant. In Hebrew (or is it Greek? Or do I care anymore?), repetition communicates emPHAsis.

And it just occurred to me that I'm hungry, which adds insult to injury. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to find Sleep again. Do pray, Best Beloved, that Sleep finds me.

BEST BELOVED
19 November 2006, 4:36 AM

There comes a moment in waking
when you realize there’s no going back.
You’re stuck with wakefulness, perhaps
until morning, though you may be desperate
for any sort of rest. None will be found,
for you spent the day filling your head
with thought after thought after thought,
and not a one of them will let you sleep.
They've got you by the tail, Best Beloved,
and not a one of them will let you sleep.

So you go about your business at 4:30 AM,
trying to pretend it’s normal to be
so very alert and feeling so drained
it’s difficult to sit up.

Yet it’s torturous to lay down.
There’s nothing on that couch
nor in that bed that will coax your mind
into letting go its vigilance.

No, Best Beloved, there’s nothing at all
on that couch nor in that bed
to lead you on to rest.

“Best Beloved” borrowed from Rudyard Kipling’s _Just So Stories_.

Unknown

9 November 2006, 9:54 PM

Please don't think me false if I can't appear
at home in my own skin- it's difficult,
may even seem contrived when I attempt
the simplest expression of what may be
so fundamental from the outside
looking in: Few things here are granted.
Every speck of reality is up for debate
and rigorous testing. Assume nothing
when you've finally attained the Inner Sanctum-
even I don't know what I might say,
where I might go, who I might be
when once an Unknown steps inside of me.

Granted

3 October 2006, 8:12 PM

Earrings, skirts, blouses,
and scarves- don't forget the scarves.
Outward, visible signs of an inward, spiritual
confusion of what ought to go without saying.

Ontology is anything but granted.
We are so satisfied with the brand of reality
we assume. So many things
are not the way they are but for the blood,
sweat and tears of someone who toiled
or didn't
in order that another might walk any given path,

and I know this.

So many have not found an existential groove
save earrings, skirts and blouses. These
I do not take for granted, choosing
each so particularly every chance I get,
satisfied in the knowledge
that if one wants to see,
(and most do not)
all he has to do is look.

What You Would Say

12 August 2006, 1:17 AM

I can’t say I didn’t stop and wonder,
only that I didn’t stop as I wondered
(as if there was any question)
what You would say
if I asked.

I pushed and grasped for things not mine
and foiled a good gift You might have given;
foiled the good gift You could still have given
even as I realized what I missed in my grasping.
Even the thing grasped might end in blessing
if I let it.

And now, thwarted in every plan and gift,
the blessing may yet fall,
if I let it-

so now, “after the ruin has fallen,”
I will stop and I will ask
what You have to say about who I am
and who I’ve been tonight,
and though the blessing may strike
thrice the more painful for my struggling against
the answer I’ve known all along I’d receive,
I will receive, and in the pain
Your blessing will fall
as I let it.

Near Enough

5 August 2006, 3:28 PM

This gift can be a burden,
driven to encapsulate every movement
of grief, rage, despair, joy.
Pen runs dry, and so do I
tire of the attempt to convey
imperceptible shifts of mood,
light and shade- they play
perpetually upon the waters of mind,
broken not occasionally by fin
and ken which runs too deep
for words. I cannot stretch
far enough to find the place and time
wherein self knows and is known
perfectly- must be content
with a near-enough representation,
far from enough to sate desire.