we may unwrap here
God gave warm winter day’s love
ironically
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photo by McKenna Phillips on Unsplash
reading in by white
story that incarnadines
winter thriller day
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(for some a kind of day off due to snow, i.e., snow day, taken with relief—off and it doesn’t look so bad, there should be rising temperatures; day for outside play or inside read)
photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
from Japan a cherry gift
lark but heavy for command
rose George Washington
for his birthday on 22 February
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photo by Mac Peters on Unsplash
the mouse visiting
hello on field-gray haunches
my cat watched then dozed
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photo by Sam Maylyn on Unsplash
(clearly, the image is not of a field mouse, though what’s decpicted is kind of nostalgic for me; you’ll have to imagine a field mouse, while I remember the one that came to call as well as the mouse whose house I visited once a week)
a series of haiku in which nature is partnered with religion
devotion has it
we should love the Earth as God
has made all wondrous
breathing in and out
some days it’s hard for nature
thick by pollution
white and pink blossoms
Japan gives us cherry trees
to bloom in D.C.
shall the Earth give back
opens not what we deserve
receiving seasons
all the problems here
co-op of virtue and fall
first to third chapters
praying goes to God
not thought but by intention
doubt also received
responding to Claudius in Hamlet at 3.3.97-98
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photo by Yan Liu on Unsplash
first day after ashes
count forty without counting
cross ice and green times
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photo by Oleg Lang on Unsplash
2 haiku for Ash Wednesday
ashes to ashes
‘round rosies with the posies
cast east of Eden
Lenten rite with ash
as mortal if devoted
heaven bring us home
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(first haiku could stand a Works Cited or would it be allusions cited?—I will cite Genesis 3:19, part of the pronouncement of God upon Adam and, as far the new postlapsarian state of things goes, upon all of us)
photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash
fish Friday
it’s a gray day
should it get darker
it will look more
than
a fish Friday
in Lent
we’ll hear the silence
the press
of what
will feel more
the smell of storm
for now
the taste
of dry moments
is it a desert
underneath the gray
a world
we will not recognize
has only
death to offer
after all rewards
of Earth
and us
a plane
that has no feature
(worse than deserts)
no signals
no direction
anything
to show a way
to make sense of
any steps
we might try to take
while on this
measureless
level
that might not be level
for
we could be upside-down
or inside-out
then wake up
to Friday
and it’s Lent
the season still
a still
season
have the fish
go to church
whatever
make it count
whatever
listen
watch
and learn
our faith
and our existence
might rely
on these
here
there are
symbols and signs
arrows
stones in a line
weights
to appreciate
and even try to carry
in a season
one walked this way
and every step
a burden
smoothed
wickedly
by sweat
and blood
we’re on our knees
we also
try to walk
that way
the steps now dried
through ages
wearing
ritual
the chance for meaning
or indifference
our choice
like the choice
for faith
Friday
Lent
and the other days
without fat or sugar
or without
tradition
make tradition
with the faith that is forever
that unchanges for
our ages
mutable
and
so very
needful
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photo by James Coleman on Unsplash
[photographer’s caption follows]
I took this on the 22nd of April 2019, on the day I heard of the bombing of 3 churches on Easter Day in Sri Lanka. Jesus weeps with you.
canon
could not love
be a round
as in
I sing
and you sing back to me
we sing
in a circle
one segment sings
and then
the one nearby
we hear the building
then
the denouement
of sound
and in the echo
of our making
the last
notes pass through
a valley we
have also made
of peace
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photo by Alessandra Caretto on Unsplash
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