Isaac

Flood-swollen air lingers

over my backyard, grass spongy

from prolonged rains. Sodden

pine boughs litter the green

while cardinals and finches

argue over available slots

in the sunflower feeders.

Children storm-freed

from classroom regimes,

these feathered evacuees

gorge greedily on dry seeds

while communal hummers

drink deeply the sweetened

water from plastic flowers.
Inside the comfort of my kitchen,

I can only watch and wonder

what air currents have tossed

them into my yard, led them

to the refuge of my roofed porch.

Henrietta

Reflected light whirls and quivers

on the bottom of the pool as I slug

through my eighteen laps. Will

I try for twenty-seven or be content

with an easy half-mile? I peer

through goggles to discern an answer

in the gyrating pattern, a strange

hieroglyphic meant for me.  I cave

at twenty-one, a compromise

with promises to do better. Driving

home in wet sweats, I listen

to an interview, a women obsessed

with the history of Hong Kong peeping

from an abandoned cemetery.  Her voice

rests on the first white woman to step foot

on Chinese soil, a seventeen-year-old

American missionary who died ten years

later, worn out from bearing five children.

Her story resonates in the artificial

language, the shadows on the underside

of the pool, a message missed.

Melting

We melt into the old hymns

hearing not the theology

but the emotions of tradition,

the voices of mothers

and fathers, the sounds

of inherited faith. They sooth

our spirits, comfort us

when the night terrors

disrupt our sleep, the monsters

doze beneath our beds.

Promise

There is not world enough and time

for all the kings men to defeat

the band of angels at heaven's gate.

The nightrider tells me that the cave

in the wilderness is the place to come to. 

If necessary, he will ford the flood

to realize his promise to meet me

in the green glen.

When

Who doesn't have thoughts of Noah

when the waters rise, when creeks

threaten to subsume landed banks?

Ark logic seems more than myth

when we hang on the branches

of the trees that once sheltered

the pool where we were baptized

on a warm August day, clear skies

above our innocent faith.

Mississippi

Light in August is dimmed

by fall rains. The sound and fury

of uncontrollable winds, limbs

falling on hamlets and towns.

These rains, intruders in the dust,

bring mosquitoes to the mansion

where I lay dying, listening

to the requiem for a nun. Faint

memories of  spiritual fable--

Go Down, Moses--structure

a pylon for reivers who would

cry Absalom, Absalom!

Ode to the Egret

He stood on the concrete platform

complete and secure

within himself

despite the morning traffic

just above

his head.

Like some deacon

delivering

the morning prayer,

hands behind

his back, belly protruding,

he could not be bothered

by lesser mortals.

He lingered

above

the drainage ditch

where succulent crawfish

hid in murky backwash.

School Again

I round the corner by the junior high musing

            that the intersection will be crowded

                        in the morning

when school resumes. A doe and faun

            cross in front of me, the faun

                        struggling to keep the pace.

Aware of the sudden upswing of traffic

            at that hour, the doe has already

                        rung the schoolyard bell.

Her deer-child studies the dangers

            that separate lush yards

                        from the woods beyond.

She'll be safe now, and I will settle in

            from my morning swim to translate

                        Odysseus meeting the Cyclops.

Call to Worship

We have entered a sacred place on this holy day

            expecting God to reveal himself to us in a fresh

                        and marvelous way.

            We bring the fragility of our lives and ask for healing.

            We bring our shortcomings and our failures

                        and ask for forgiveness.

            We bring our strengths and weaknesses

                        and ask for blessing.

We come committing our minds,

            our hearts,

                        our souls

                                    to the indwelling of God’s spirit.

            We yield ourselves to the sacred intention

                        of this hour.

As we gaze upward at the octagonal lights of this sanctuary,

            we desire the fullness of the light

                        we know to be God

                                    to shine upon us,

                                                to shine through us

                        illuminating the worlds in which we live.

And now at the chiming of the hour, we give ourselves

            wholly and completely to the worship of the one

                        who gives us life,

                                    who gives us being.

Anthropomorphizing the Chameleon

A mesh bag of daffodil bulbs

            failed to meet their destiny

                        last October--no blooms

in March--but nature is resourceful.

            Waiting patiently

                        on my covered patio,

they've become the answer

            to one chameleon's heart

                        desire. He's obsessed

with what he can't quite reach.

            Crawling over the porous

                        bag, his color shifting

from green to brown, he can't quite

            leave them alone. What's he doing?

                        Making a tiny supper

from their bulk, sharing his love

            for his world, my yard?

                        Or is he crowing

in chamo-speak that he is free

            and they are not. He is exactly

                        what he was born to be.