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Month

May 2016

Jazz Mass

Jazz Mass

 

Syncopated praise

Offbeat words and rhythm

Liturgy and litany

We have our ways to get

Involved

 

Invocated presence in

Bright colors through the

Music that we see and

Feel as well as hear

 

All are especially welcome

Here, for come-as-you-are

Takes new meaning

 

That which is not day-by-

Day is especially

Welcome now and here

 

It’s all right, though, the

Day-by-day folk are

Welcome, too

 

Everything is solid, yes

Though with haze

Around the edges

A cloud of unknowing

Truths because all of

Us might not know

What note might be

Arriving next

 

What might be played

What might be heard

 

What might be

Received from God

Snapping fingers,

Tapping toes, humming

As if the tone were

Sitting right with us

 

Because it is

 

And we might be

Changed for this time

Of many times—6/8,

4/4, 5/4, 7/8—however

It Gospel-goes

 

Out of the blue

Out of the blues

 

 

(a contemporary form of

Christian worship)

2

Rain Today

Rain Today

 

Rain today

So I pray

 

My friend who has a daughter

Who fast-slips like an otter

 

For sister whose new store

An on-line hope for more

 

For colleague who needs work

Through academic murk

 

For brother in show biz-ness

Clarity with stars’ fuzziness

 

Dogs next whom I park,

Cats who never bark

 

A world of tender faces

Food and all home-places

 

Peace ev’rywhere prevailing,

War mindset starts failing

 

Help us now, our God,

To like us when we’re odd

 

In knowing how to love—

Hand inside pray’r-glove

13

(going west, going east)

(driving out)

 

Misty Mountains, Pennsylvania

 

I travel west on I-76, and it is there:

The Lonely Mountain

 

Higher and set apart from the ridge

That falls away, behind

 

A dragon set atop, searching for

Prey gone to ground

 

Orcs lurk below, ready to battle

Dwarves who stand ready ‘round

The deep tomb of their king at rest,

Diamond earthstar guard upon

His chest

 

I see these shadowed and

Foreshadowed parts of epic

Because

 

Tolkien, the literary mentor, first

Saw his

 

 

(driving back)

 

Rainbow World

 

I drive east on a four-lane reach

Of road, not an interstate so I

Have concerns to watch out

For local traffic

 

It has been raining, now mostly

Stopped with dark clouds in

The distance

 

Yet there must be a band of

Spectrum light somewhere

Because before me is a rainbow

 

That, against grey background,

Shines with every ordered

Color distinct and bleeding

Into from each other

 

Purple into blue into green

Into yellow in orange into red

From blended shades

Between

 

It arches, and I see both ends

Where it leaves the hillside,

Arcs before my car, lands on

More dimly-toned earth in

My direction

 

Of course, I think of Irish

And of argent pots inside with

Their own hills, sun-colored

Coin

 

And the folk who keep it,

Minding with angry magic any

Interloping

5

Who Mourns for Half a Million

Who Mourns for Half a Million

(Holocaust Remembrance Day)

 

Greed waits them out

Holocaust survivors, remnant

Of genocide

A gift of ghosts to generations

 

They die in need

Imprisoned yet in holding cells

Of systems

 

That will not return

Them to earthly life

 

In receiving of their own

 

 

 

the forty-seven nations signing the Terezin Declaration (2009) are Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay

2

Canada on Fire

Canada on Fire

 

Wish it were an idiom

Expression of fashion

A bon mot, small jest

Here

 

But the country burns

In unbordered reach

Of untamed fire

Destroying all that

Lives: dissolved into

Libation for a demon’s

Thirst of unsatisfied

Flame

 

With all we have and

Are—think, feel, pray,

Help

 

Reaching must meet

Rescue,

 

Our community rain

Life

5

Psalm 37, a song of earthly rendering

Psalm 37

a song of earthly rendering

 

When news is so bad

Coupled with lack of opportunity

Everything is weighted down, dear Lord

I don’t know how to make it better

To see it better

To feel it better

Please, what shall I do

In past work, we see

That you are there

That you follow us through mountain passes

Over peaks

And in valleys so blinding in fog over the way

That we could be underneath earth as well as above

 

You bring us home, dear Lord

And are with us in safety

Or in peril

Calm our fears so that we might enjoy some relaxation in peace

Some soft moments in our day

Some mercy on the way

 

Let your justice prevail, O Lord, so much better than ours

May your help be plentiful

Your presence touchable

If only upon

The surface of our spirits

Because we can keep it dense and difficult

To allow you further in

 

Pardon me and be with me

Even when I am poor in realizing you

9

Psalm 36, song out of poverty

Psalm 36

song out of poverty

 

I would sing to you

But my throat is raw

 

I would give to the poor

Except that I am one

 

What may I do for you

When I have nothing to share?

 

Well, I am something, I guess

Even in the vacuum

 

Of offering

Something in my design

 

You liked in making me

And sustaining me thus far

 

I guess I do have

One more thing to give

5

The Good News in Straightening Up

The Good News in Straightening Up

 

I have cleaned

I have picked up

Washed things

Put things large and small

Away

 

Sun arrives, maybe only

Passing through

But I see blessing in the timing

Calm and peace are lit

For the time they’re here

 

I am sore

But inclined toward watching

Surfaces

Feeling energy and a little

Healing from the shine

6

(haiku) From the Back Yard

(haiku) From the Back Yard

 

 

Cardinal on fence,

Momentary red still life,

Flies away—that’s good

 

 

Cold morning air, one

Bumble-bee under flower

Following its call

 

 

Rabbit’s tall long legs,

Wary, lope across the yard:

Mitigated zeal

10

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