But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
– Job 23:8-10
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah
– Leonard Cohen
…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Another dark day for the Roman Catholic Church. I am praying for all those who carry the wounds and scars of abuse at the hands of clergy. I want to believe the light is finally getting in.
http://media-downloads.pacourts.us/InterimRedactedReportandResponses.pdf?cb=112148
You know something about brokenness. You know about the broken world. You know about brokenness in your country. But most personally, you know it in your more intimate life. You know we are broken people and we suffer very intimate pains. The pain of a desire for intimacy that hasn’t been fulfilled…the pain of a relationship that did not work…the pain of an addiction that is so hard to confess…The secret pain of loneliness that can bite us so much…And what I would like to say to you is don’t be afraid of your pain, but dare to embrace it. If you are wounded, and I know that you and I are, put your brokenness under the blessing.
Thunder and Wine
“I answered you in the secret place of thunder.”
Psalm 81:7
thick fog clearing
as thunder echoes
across Casco Bay
on Cushing Island
lights go dark
then Cliff and here
in this dim sanctuary
the cathedral bells
won’t stop ringing
no one sees
the stained-glass smeared
by the blood moon light
once again wine
turns to water bread
back to grain
Of God
Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
so that a flood of waters may cover you?
– Job 38:34
what are my chances
when your words
linger and scratch
like wool uniforms
quietly removed
when the orphan
and widow flinch
at your whispered
good night
I’ll promise to lie still
if your light but touches
the water’s edge
there an egret
white as the moon
hunts in the reeds
Creating Myth
Notes on Jack Spicer – 1978
A really perfect poem has an infinitely small vocabulary.
– Jack Spicer
make myth by
destroying myth
then explain
what came before
one final embrace
before departing
into meaning
or a hell of meanings
everything slipping
or sliding
haunted by the poetic
and the laughter
the duplicity
of words
and how they replace
the historical
with an empty
vessel
and though we struggle
to pull them back
our hushed shadows
will not be closed
simply by stating
their closure
My Final Thought of You
It happens often now, forgetting
the words but not the thing
itself.
This week alone the words cilantro,
Curtis Mayfield, actuary seemed
lost, erased.
You, too, are there in a slight daydream,
a glimpse of a waning moon
on a sunny day.
A thunderstorm rises from Mount Blue
not 20 miles away. The birds and I
find shelter.
The stream is silent, hopeful. My breathing
slows as I count to measure the first
strike of lightning.
Three Halves
(in which the seeker discovers
he is that which is sought)
I am on a motorcycle
say a Triumph yes
a Triumph tearing
out of town on a moonlit
night Friday or early
Saturday morning and say
I am passed by a truck
an electrician’s truck
that has no business
passing a man like me
all in black leather
you’d understand
when I pass again
looking back to threaten
the driver flipping
the bird say or sneer
my surprise
that the driver is me
and all those cables
spooled on poles
by the breakdown lane
are mine to connect
or repair or destroy in this
the third half of my life
My complicated past is an anthology,
a long line painted on the plains.
I feel like literary history
about to startle the professors.
But it’s not true.
Days ahead, snow heaps up
in the mountains
like undelivered mail.
After driving all night
I guess what it’s like
to fly over them.
For the first time you see
how close things are together,
how the foothills push up
just past where you quit
driving. Urgencies
sputter in the exaltation
of chill air.
Your heart
begins to fall like snow
inside a paperweight.
Oh when in your long damn life,
I ask myself, when will
you seek not a truce,
but peace?
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
~ Psalm 66:12
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com
Time to catch my breath, slow my step. Stay tuned.
Edge of Atlantic 