star hunter hunting
ask only celebration
by integrity
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photo by Patrick Konior on Unsplash
by the Merton prayer
I’m sorry
I still
don’t know what
to do
at least Merton when he confessed in prayer
was
somewhere where he struggled
yet
three squares and community
and not in jail
but in a place enclosing faith so it might
expand
by life and learning
as two gospel causes
in
the contending world
and
I want some peer-feeling
too
if a guess that it is good to be here
knowing there are others if
only for presence
even
guessed at
and that we’re praying for each other
more so for the world
all
the time
rule the nation by prayer
as mocked in the play
and
yet self-fule and group-rule founds
the way
after will and training or
simply kneel to
ask
about whatever’s happening and
may your will
be done and mine
by yours
so sigh
yes
I’d like a group for this
and closer in
I’d like to know what would please you
by me
and then me to be it
and to do it
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Thomas Merton’s prayer that begins
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
. . .”
the comment about ruling by prayer is in A Man for All Seasons
photo by Alessandro Guarino on Unsplash
"Silhouettes at the Edge of the Sea"
Strangers pause on a whitewashed platform jutting into the Mediterranean as the last light of day bleeds orange across the horizon. A quiet moment between people and the infinite — somewhere along the Ligurian coast, Italy.
Nervi, Genoa, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy
prompt that was illusion
illusion into prompt
I looked at this
and saw
a stone valley
with fossils of an oasis
skeletons
or
trees
and it’s a close-up of
the elephant
eye
in the center
and have we noticed how
lovely are the curves
of
eyelashes
gray
lines
curved
and some seem broken
maybe that is age
or
by design or how age
is designed
a marvel of reality
made for itself
and
for our wonder
if
we may impose the will of
the designer
and as I might see so well
and
given to touch instead
I’d have a part in that old story
I
suppose
of
how is the pachyderm
depending
on the senses and conclusions of
beholders
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(actually, I was looking for a picture of a boat when I was struck by enigma of the photo above)
photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
the job
the love of God
through framing blue and green
by
making branches
giving these
the job
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photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash
applying what is read to the realities outside
the poem appeals
to hope
to strive
to find
to yield
we should be so lucky as to call a final voyage
and then at the dock find
the ready ship
thinking “Ulysses” by Tennyson
Frodo departs
the wound never healed
did it
Weathertop
nice name for tn outlook more than
a small battle
in
the night when all we hoped for
in our travel was
food cooked in our fire
and rest
after
but they came
and not
for the sullen hero on our side
would
have prevailed and did
so far as to lave a wound
that
has not healed not in the land behind
these shores
and so after
all the travail even of
victory
it must be time to go for now not qualifying
anymore
if
ever was to stay
to live through future parties
beneath the large tree
now
a park
as all might grow anew after the war
and yet
departure for
the ones who bore the most
it seems
with
promise of a haven
behind blurred lines
as
surf and land compete
even for the sure place behind of
healing
and
other blessings
near the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
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photo by Ray T on Unsplash
on Easter Monday
day after Easter
Easter
Monday
and
must I give up the feeling
I understand doctrinally and for
and for an attractive metaphor
we
might
call ourselves the Easter people
meaning
more than attendance
on
the day
however that might go
and how deeply from the hear
and
do we look to the weather for comfort
and alliance
that Earth is on our side for
our
beliefs
except there was a flood
and much later
storms
on Galilee that had to be rebuked
and
stilled by one who was divine
and
human
too
we may live in Easter
now
the air of resurrection
which might be good for anyone
to breathe
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photo by Alessandro Guarino on Unsplash
Kfar Nahum National Park
“Sunset on the Sea of Galilee”
rosemary
on Easter
1
oh no
what shall I say
for it is Easter
and I don’t feel Easter
at all
I can think the stories
hear them
more
and hope that they are true
though there are images
so real
inside of me as I
so many stories
believe so many storytellers are
not wrong
and now
church is done
I am
alone
and silent as so many noises
that are inside
allow
and I’d wish for company
regardless
someone for chocolate
even
for ham
[please ungreen]
2
let Easter be a verb
I guess from a substance
a meaning
to the action
and
if I am alone and that’s a problem
for
how much to do
I could acknowledge there’s a presence
beside my own
to help
that
gave me my own
the spark
however done
and there is
faith
and love
from that source
that made
and is
still making making all
for
our collaboration in the Earth
and by the spirit
invested
in so many
things
not the source
but
sanctioned and even given us
for use
though with accountability
but back from cosmic
to just me
and am I just
that
means so many things and are they lost
in translation
idioms
truisms
first
and final meanings
in order to employ
to apply
who we are
and
what we’ve been given
though
at the moment
is
alone
and Easter resurrection
that does not happen every
year
for having happened once
and we’re the versions
ever since
not because we
save ourselves
we don’t
as
that was
you know
once provided
and so for this love
shall I love me
so shall
we love each other and each other
to keep it
healthy as
a change
thus and
so not
to have earned my loneliness
but stone rolled back
for me
too
and we’re
released
God imprisoned first
releases
us
so Easter with baskets and with paper grass
with rabbits who do not reproduce
by eggs
that are candy or
the real thing
if
striped
eccentrically
for me
let me have the silly ways
for
remembrance
and let’s have them now
in
the now
for delight
if
for forbearance
sometimes as other matters
problems
press
even the lonely state
and try to see the joy with inward
sight
as with outward longing
by
the interest and investment
realized
in
safe as well as expanding
fire
in each
from each spark
as
today
emblemizing real from the source
given
through sacrifice
as love for
you
for all
as we are served and toward our
service
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photo by Bernard Faure on Unsplash
trees a softer green
struck thunder to surprise us
spring paradoxa
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photo by Stefan Lehner on Unsplash
bad Friday
1
it’s pain
pain everywhere
though it’s localized
but
feels everywhere to overwhelm
normalcy with a wish that
it would all
go away
and how much all
new limbs
new organs
new
life
or to end this life
which is extreme
of course
except as another wish
this one doctrinal
promise
of paradise
in time
Job persisted over
all
the losses
the agonies far away
and closer in
even
to the body
but
the spirit persisted
and that matters more
over matter
as
the seat of will
from which to rise
for
faith
curse God
and
die
how awful a direction
and I’m thinking how
pathetic
a moment funny
grim
for
what was left
what had been there
from the start
affirming
prosperity
and now affirming poverty
as if
to wonder
as Job wonders in a scouring of soul
yet
stays where he has been
if
for no good reason by the mind
or body
but the thread to embrace
slender when tried
yet
invulnerable somehow
and to hold
maybe in thinking
that another thread
that of hope
shall
be restored
to help both hands
not out of reward
for
anything that had been good is gone
but for remaining
Job
believing God
even when the last thread is tried
and was the offer to
let go
and is it an
allegory
a lesson in curriculum
how
to hold on
no matter what
when all the reasons in the world have
failed
along with one’s own predetermined sense
of things
as
a new kind of faith if called for
if tacitly
since we don’t know that God or anyone celestial
spoke with Job
for
explanation or
for comfort
a faith that lives regardless
that
is chosen
and keeps one going through everything adverse
not
to judge but have extraordinary love
persisting
oh
persisting
in camps
in whatever prison might be made of life
in war
and whatever’s left after
the missiles
launched by sin
have done their work
2
pain
too much
a prayer for healing
or
the prayer for telling
as
the rational fails
while the telling drama must go on
and
we might question motives and
with reason of our own
but
have to hang on
anyway
so it goes in our own book
of loss
and faith
not in loss but in what might come next
to aid
and at last
to resolve
now
a new day of broken land
fabric torn as if to judge
or mourn
and
yet a curtain that is
torn
to challenge what had been
worldly
religiously decided
as one died who
had
taught life
for learning God is close and God’s
realm
now
Earth splits and by a guessed-at storm cries
while darkness forms or
furnishes
the question
and
faith might be done
for most
with that one
nailed
planted on a heap
announcing death the moment
before
signs
not determined yet
beyond tragedy
and irony
for
who rules now
and where is hope on Earth
maybe in space where the intrepid
might conceive
whereas the instinct here
to cover
and to hide
and
yet in love
to bury first
and moan
and keen
with Earth’s
screams of fracture
for
a while
now
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Job 2:9
photo by Maksym Tymchyk 🇺🇦 on Unsplash
Kyiv, Ukraine
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