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Poetry

Poetry

The Return of the Prodigal

after Henri Nouwen’s studyof Rembrandt’s paintingof Christ’s parable I look at the handsembracing            clutching               caressing                 the hands I can only seebecause Rembrandt saw them for me  the hands as seenin the light            Nouwen shone on themhis power of suggestion …
Poetry

Crevices & Crannies

for the Sons of Korah (Psalm 84) Swallows swoop across the courtyard well above the notice of those alonefacing stone robed in black They flit & fly & loop back disappearing into gaps in the wall well above the reach…
Poetry

How Like Manna

Bright May—but Sober, somber, alone. Scored By razored circumstance. Emptied. So retreating To the soothing shade of the sweet gum tree, A few pieces of stale bread in my hand (The meager offering of the poor in spirit). Broken, the…
Poetry

Insomnia Lines

Life is such weight! That is what you suddenly thought Lying awake in the enormous silence that isThe focus of the insomniac’s pained consciousness.So in that pain, rising to the near window, spying The city’s stillness with street lamps intensifyingThe…
Poetry

Shadow Line

Night shadows are the feast of awakenings. The outskirts of compassion, absent of spiritual thresholds. They are the counterparts without conversation; the willing partner in an imperfect sphere. They are unassuming. Their intension is directed, visually controlled, a bondage of…
Poetry

Searching

Disturbed waters are the evidence of youths seeking a smooth belonging; searching to square off the circle. They are dreamers between rocks, pushing from a hard place, attempting to re-create the beginning without pain, escaping the fires between the lines.…
Poetry

Striving

When the kitchen table becomes a confessional and the combat with demons in the heart hears conversation turn toward tired despair, How many more years, Lord?; I’ve tried to overcome, my spirit scrambles to defend motivation by considering itself a…
Poetry

The Active Voice

After Camille Pissarro’s Haymaking at Éragny   Pissarro clumped, sculpted, plowed his oil paints to produce this hayfield: fertile pigments mixed, molded, together like squelching mud to cultivate such an agrarian landscape sown with greens, blues, yellows, browns; his passion…
MagazinePoetry

Bigger than Him

It was bigger than him Smooth heart wood     called a walking stick For a three-year-old trying to be older It’s not about walking     running Being first down the trail      nor about the tangle Of want and need        in his legs…