My Green Lake

My green lake, layered
With blankets of lilies and
Shimmering with birds,
Asks why I launch my
Prayers up toward thin skies
And mourn the silence

Jacob's Children

 

She said it was a shawl of many hues,

Like Joseph’s coat, a gift to be bestowed,

Until between her busy hands emerged

A thing as soft and pure as love can make

When spirits do not do the casting on

And as she teased the needles through the yarn

The green and blue and silver flowed and fused

Down unexpected alleys colors swept

Because we live in disregard of line
The pattern is the pattern we compose

When Joseph wandered off in search of flocks

His brothers watched, and fumed, and then conspired

“Here comes the dreamer” each to other said
So prophecy is done and God revealed

When angels knit, and dreamers go afield

Spring Storm

The rain, like settled sadness,

Beat on the pool for hours

And littered it with branches

And fragments of dead flowers

The pounding palled the rises

And shook the reeds and grass

And shattered the still surface

A dance of broken glass

Although the pond is shallow

It is sufficing deep

To claim a place of silence

Where waters calmly sleep

Three

At the end of a dark night of longing
I saw again: everyone has only three stories
Moving their heart forward

A story of power and justice
Of something done right and against chance

A story of grace and mercy
Of something done for reasons beyond reason

A story of love and compassion
Of something done for another, with another,
By another
Clean of expectations of memory or tribute

Immeasurable, unforgettable,
Relentlessly mocking loneliness,
Selfishness, poverty of spirit,
Giving us today's reason, sufficient,
To push the door open and
To step out
To step out one more day
Into the mystery

Three stories that we live as one:
The Father, Ghost, and Suffering Son