Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The Living Room

Stretched across the living room chair
I read chapter one, the book opening to
an old man stretched out across
the hospital bed in his living room

waiting to die.
And hearing laughter I look up
to my wife, knees up in the recliner,
smiling, making faces at the baby, and

I love her.
I love her as an old man looks back
on his young bride in a dream, as she was,
just so on some unparticular evening.

I love her, bright eyes shy, wondering
why I am staring at her that way,
memorizing the ordinary eternal moment.

I love her, living and young,
a present beauty on the fleeting pages
between the first chapter and last.

I love her, the woman in my living room
beside the hospital bed.

The one from which I awoke.


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Weep Rachel's Tears

Weep loud, O daughter of God, wail and cry,
you loose from chaos and life disordered,
you whose poor mother never was murdered,
you without wound or the need to ask why.

Weep Rachel's tears, all comfort refusing,
for children in anguish of heart and head,
for sleepless and sad, no room for a bed,
who woke up broken against all choosing.

Weep for the wandering, wasted, alone.
Mourn the abandoned to prison walls strong.
Keep vigil until the shadows are long
and cast only by the walls of a home.

Weep for the children, tears fall as our prayers
rise to the Risen, He suffers them there.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Only Me


I've tried to be so many men
While married to a single wife,
I can't recall who I was when
I stood and pledged to you my life.
Of all the men I've lived to be,
The man you wed was only me.

I've been a leader, been a friend,
Have played the hero and the foe.
I've been a preacher, steeped in sin,
Been searching more than most could know
To find the man I'm called to be.
With only you, I'm only me.

I've sang and played upon the stage,
I've written with a poet's pen,
I've worked to earn our living wage,
I've failed and won and failed again.
No matter what I've done, you see
Beyond the act to only me.