Category Archives: poetry

Could I pour unending streamsBut for the joy of splashing,Or storm I high above the seaBut for the lighting flashing? Might I become so much like youThat only my self-givingCould ever light my deepest fire,Or make my life worth living? Is it true that once poured outA cup is ever empty?Or can my love becomeContinueContinue reading “Apotheotics”

I was reflecting on the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and thinking this might need to be the response from a privileged person like me. I imagined singing this to myself when I am tempted to join one of the basic lies that props up the powerful. Stand a Little Taller? No! Fuck grit and determination!Damn yourContinueContinue reading “My Response to Mary’s Song”

Burl of TrailOn the Hemlock Point Trail at the Green Lane Reservoir in Montgomery County, PA When those who looped a trail around this lake,Arrived right here, there was a brief reprieve,And someone wondered whether they should snakeAround or cut the path right through. The tree Survived, but sometime between now and then,The tree wasContinueContinue reading “Burl of Trail: A Friday Sonnet”

The Child in Their Midst The child, my inner child,  or the childlike faith yet in me, does not demand more of the seen than he ought.  He knows there is so muchHe doesn’t know. He doesn’t forgetall things beautifully unknown, The always more on which his seen reality rests, The everything of which he never expects to know.ContinueContinue reading “The Child in Their Midst “

I was hanging out with some philosophers this weekend at Theology Beer Camp. Here’s a sonnet that fell out of my journal. The Hard Problem of Consciousness Are we just flukes of impossible chance?Could something as uncharted as my mindEmerge from concrete churn of cosmic dance?Colliding into consciousness to findEternity’s blind dream seated nowIn timeContinueContinue reading “The Hard Problem of Consciousness”

A Better View after Matthew 18:22 It takes a long timeTo get to the beginning.It takes decades, maybe,To dig up to breaking dirt.Counting up to zeroFrom minus forty-nine –Counting up form negativeFive hundred thirty-nine –It’s seven times sevenTimes seven times time!The first shall be last,Because your first is far beneath you;Underground and dead where youContinueContinue reading “A Better View”

Photo Cred: Manfred Neumair Where Wolves Go I pressed my palm into the snowBeside your giant paw;My fingers stretched just longer thanThe claws above your toes;I want right now to understandYour running into lowsAnd over highs with empty jaws;I want to feel desire’s ache,Your longing’s lactic acid flowThat blood alone can slake.Could anything propel meContinueContinue reading “Where Wolves Go”

The choice is clear; I know the only thingFor anything is love. No matter whatThe claims of either side may be, we singCreation into nothingness, and cutThe chords that sing inside us unless weIn flowing fifths or even fourths, our choice,Addend the primal song of love. We’re free To make each note our own; butContinueContinue reading “I Could Never Write a Love Song”

One wakeful midnight, I went where my mindWould go, and found myself a ways down waysOf Would-Have-Beens, in woods where many kindsOf rancors live — red hot regret, despairAmong them most for me. But that night cameA coolness (maybe from the mountain airI welcomed through my open window frame,Or maybe the cicadas singing there)That placedContinueContinue reading “On Ways of Would-Have-Beens”

He Could Have Each time I’ve gone for a hike in the cloudsI’ve made my own way through rich loamy white.Once my boot sank deep and cried I aloud,”Don’t rain me down! I would die from this height!”To my surprise a cloud voice then replied,”You have no wings, no wand here to waft you,How cameContinueContinue reading “He Could Have”

On Missing the Perseid Meteor Shower  I didn’t have it in me; not this year. Instead, I dozed in dreamless sleep. Lights on, Heartsong silenced, dreamscapes dashed by TV Sounds, flickers, surfeit of nothingness squared.  Meanwhile, high above me, Earth’s atmosphere Was sparking falling stars. Now night’s gone, And morning dreams of what I failed to see Are only flicked off matches whenContinueContinue reading “On Missing the Perseid Meteor Shower”

Counting Birds On My Front Porch  That’s two hundred swallows, it must be, (200) Nine mallards chasing their lust free, (9) Four sparrows in street dirt get dusty, (4) And across the lake in the brush, I can just see One heron so stark-still he trusts me. (1)  Six geese gliding doubled in lake green, (6) Two mourning dove songsContinueContinue reading “Counting Birds On My Front Porch “

Nephelococcygia From νεφέλη (nephélē, “cloud”) +‎ κόκκῡξ (kókkūx, “cuckoo”) +‎ -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā). 1. cloud-cuckoo-land, a utopia, imaginary place with unrealistic or silly people.  Dragons and dolphins mostly; Draping my waking eyes in dreams, Whilst stare I high above to see Forever in the shapes that more than seem. They grow me toward whom I’m meant to be, This they must and do achieve. A singing bird in flight, A wolf’s head, hippo, cartoon ear, AllContinueContinue reading “Nephelococcygia “

for Gerard Manley Hopkins and the kingfishers he saw catch fire Oak, Elm and Cedar, Pitch Pine, Walnut, Spruce. Your names, dear friends, must speak and spell this place, And yet my habits baffle in disuse Of lips and lungs to lovingly embrace The shapes of Birch and Beach — of Tulip Tree — Unmaking ground beneath my feet, beneath WhichContinueContinue reading “On Forgetting the Names of Trees “

When was the first time you saw the long shadOws? Can you bring to light the light that stretchedYour darkness out behind you like a sadNess? Or before you like the joy of sketchedTomorrows? Or both at once as it oftEn is? Remember the white gravel walkFrom back behind the barn where grass so softLyContinueContinue reading “The Long Shadows”

If you know me, you know I love George MacDonald. I write down quotes as I read through his works. I haven’t read them all yet, but I’m getting closer! This quote felt like it was close to a found poem all by itself, but it evolved into a sonnet below. “Does he not demandContinueContinue reading “What I Know: A sonnet with the Marquis of Lossie”