Turkey Brood
Pulling out the winding drive
I see the movement on my left
on a knee of a hill covered in pines
a brood of a dozen wild turkeys
Mom and Dad
out in the morning shade
foraging among the needles;
as I slow, they scatter
faster, into flight across the road
just as a Beemer brakes, stops,
driver leaning forward
arms crossed atop the steering wheel
looking up at the flurry of fledgling feathers,
sharing the wonder
of being engulfed.
13 Jun 2008
Fog
I imagine flying out of the fog,
up "above the weather" as pilots are keen to say.
The first time my brother saw the fog
rolling over the hills from the Pacific;
he called it the finger of death,
paying homage to DeMille's imagining
the tenth plague;
and speaking of plagues,
I recall my grandmother asking
in Bible-teacher style,
"Can you name the plagues?"
That's a bit foggy
in my brain,
having moved south
with the seven deadly sins
and St. Anselm's proofs.
In church I'd wonder
Whether everything would
be clearer as I got older
as if the fog of wonder
would lift and the fishing lines
running from heaven would tighten.
But sitting here in this cab
winding its way on the back roads
to Heathrow at rush hour,
the only way I can tell the sun has risen
is by the gray glow that makes
the fog seem luminous.
16 Jan 2009
Flat rocks
We are walking on the flat rocks
of a gurgling stream
cascading down the broken
sheets of shale and slate;
the youngest finds a small fossil bone
then the oldest sees what looks like coral
this wonder that pursues remnants of the past
as if they are new births of discovery;
today my daughter and hers
baked an old German peach kuchen,
that arose from a conversation I had forgotten
"what cakes did your mother make?
which were your favorites?"
the history of tastes called up a morsel at a time;
this was an early birthday
and the thread that ran from mother
to partner to daughter
pulled taut for a moment where the flat rocks yielded
to the stream that ran over fossils
and found its earth about our toes
and hearts.
8 Apr 2013
Hiking with my granddaughters in a park in Ohio.
Eclipse
This day of omens
brought out everyone
to the fields, squares and beaches,
to where the horizon and its sky
filled our eyes like panorama photos;
we were ready to see
with our magic glasses and cardboard contraptions,
even colanders--
anything with a narrowing opening,
a blocking of all that would intrude on our retinas,
to a singular vision,
this silhouette
of one orb crossing another--
all that we do to see something we understand
comes only once or twice across our years
and we are ready,
with awe and a sense that this time is one to pay more attention
than any other.
Such are the gifts of epiphanies
that say "look, something is happening here,"
far greater than one disc
passing another
on a white reflected page;
for one held breath,
all we know has aligned.
Will we know
or will it pass us by
as heavenly dreams are
wont to do?
Will we see the total triumph of life
in its darkest moment,
stare at the absence of light,
embrace the death that comes
as surely as the planets turn about
this waning sun?
28 Aug 2017
Eclipse II
This day of omens
brought out everyone
to the fields, squares and beaches,
to where the horizon and its sky
filled our eyes like panorama photos;
we were ready to see
with our magic glasses and cardboard contraptions,
even colanders--
anything with a narrowing opening,
a blocking of all that would intrude on our retinas,
to a singular vision,
this silhouette
of one orb crossing another--
all that we do to see something we understand
comes only once or twice across our years
and we are ready,
with awe and a sense
that this time is one to pay more attention
than any other.
23 Dec 2017
This revision of the Aug. 2017 edition, became the poem for our Christmas video card, 2017.
Great Blue
A great blue heron
is periscoping
atop the neighbor’s fence
getting a good look
at each of the yards
within its grasp,
while I am hidden
behind the glare
of the sunroom windows;
we put out some mixed seed
last night
but it’s not moving
and the heron is especially
watchful of the moving;
I read they are birds of opportunity
but prefer the small fish
or frog
or the slow mouse;
when it swallows,
that neck stretches for the sky
but all I have are tidbits on the ground.
1 Jan 19
Rewritten 7-Aug-23 to correct from Egret to Heron! At our back window, Anna Maria Island, Holmes Beach, FL
Figure 8 - Great Blue Heron – Holmes Beach, FL, Dec. 31, 2018, Photo by EGHapp.
Revival
“He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.
He revives my soul’ –Psalm 23:2-3a
We go to the backyard
after the sun sets
and lie face-up
on freshly mown green grass.
The stars
on a Swiss night
are sharp,
poignant.
There is no twinkle here.
It is mid-August
and we are waiting for the first
Perseid meteor,
a so-called shooting star
making its mark on the vast heavens
that arch above us.
It is a long wait
our voices still,
gazing left and right,
then “There!”
a fleeting presence
that warms
our souls
hungering for
for the touch of awe.
Mon., Apr. 4, 2022
The Roar
Standing next to Horseshoe Falls,
looking over the rail
at the enormity
of the screaming flow
over the edge,
I am filled with awe.
As a young boy
in a Fort Worth church,
as the tornado
tore past the glass walls,
branches and liquid fog
took the horizon,
the roaring wind
drowned out the preacher
and we were frozen
in fear.
Here at the gambling mecca
of the southwest
there is no quiet corner,
the constant yelling, bells,
Muzak take away
any movement,
thinking,
and that’s the point
isn’t it?
9 Jun 2022
Horseshoe Falls II
“Search for the Lord and his strength;
continually seek his face.” –Ps. 20105:4
“See the falls from the Canadian side,”
we are told by friends
who have been there.
“You can get up close.”
Standing there are all
the senses in awe.
The enormity of grasp
or lack of grasp
of the weight of the creation falling;
it is a wonder we can hold on
to the railing and not be swept away.
The rainbow rises in the mist below
and we are reminded.
30 Mar 2023
The Loons Call
For Ann Moore
The loons call to me—
haunting—
the wind moves
through tall stark trunks
of mystery pines
and brings a fragment
that draws me back
to a place
where I weep
for what is not here.
16 Aug 2006
I read this poem and the one titled “Ann” at Ann Moore’s memorial service at the Church of the Redeemer in Toronto, Feb. 3, 2024. This earlier poem is recalled in the later one, among the "Saints", below, with the crying loons.
__________________________________________________________________
3. Places
There are some places that take us out of ourselves. When we walk through the door of a cathedral, or stand before one of the world’s wonders and are rendered speechless. Is it any wonder that Moses covered his face before the burning bush?[12]
At Grace Cathedral
(when the doors were opened)
The gray concrete majesty
of the great cathedral on the hill
dwarfed the pilgrims
who climbed the steep walkways
that lined the cable-whistled streets
climbing Ararat to see
if the Ark still rested
on its craggy moor.
The white-haired cleric
leaned forward from his perch
with voice bounding from every
arch and columned trunk
"the work of God," he said,
"is to love the hell out of us"
--a life long work no doubt.
Yet in this hallowed hall
of terrifying pomp and feared misstep
one wondered whether He was
here to scare the hell out
of us as well.
But when the trio of men
standing to my right
unabashedly embraced
with echoes in their eyes,
it was clear
the doors of grace were opened,
its hand wrapped around this
single pew and touched the grey
tweed shoulder of the pilgrim,
and said to those who held,
no standing on this mount
save standing arm in arm.
4 Dec 1994
Little Yosemite
I ask where the trailhead is;
she says, “across the bridge”
and adds the disappointment:
“There's not much water.”
I hike the canyon view
along the ridge, past the cows
grazing on the gold grass
that is California; descending
to the dry river bed—
quartz-laced blue boulders
the size of railroad cars
derailed;
the wind pours over leaves
with an echo of the rapids
not here this time of year;
I stand among them diminished
in my awe,
sentinel the rage of years that washed
over each sharp edge until
sculpture smooth
and let the sun and wind wash me
as if in the Jordan;
I raise my hands
on the other side of drowning.
14 Nov 2008
Hiking in Sunol Ohame State Park, CA
Snoqualmie
The rumble rolls down the path
as a crier at the door;
evoking the expectation
before entering into a cathedral,
eyes lifting to the vault
of a stone ceiling,
the light streaming through stained glass;
I feel the depth of place
before the words come,
the inadequate wide-eyed lens
of the Nikon that chirps back and forth
settling on a focal length
for which a single blink
registers majesty
and has none of it.
So I feel at the end of the board-planked
river trail, that turns
and opens the curtain of trees
with a flick of a wrist of wind,
the mist from the cathedral full of water
that empties over this lofty drop
again and again,
piercing the river below with a
thunderous thrust of power,
awe felt first in the rattling
of the sounds against my ribs,
pushing against me,
laboring my breath
with the weight of a truth
so profound I am crushed
beneath its weight,
then swept
up and carried,
borne to the throne room
of the Apocalypse
of Eden
to give account
of what I saw.
22 May 2009
Gruyere photos
Every dark passage a surprise of light
rising up from the green hill is a spire, is an alp
alps rarely make their point alone
a friend is framed in years of stones
and a lover loves his friends,
art swings from the push of wonder
while angels circle to the cry of their dance
we are captives only to our outlook
and the future frames a shock of autumn trees
snow runs into skies
even the stones shout the rays of sun
and glow with its yellow heat
emblems clothe the tall
and the tall roofs shoulder the walking few
a balcony is an uplifted hand in whose palm I stand a little
the smooth brush of imagination hangs on fuzzy fieldstone walls
and makes strange companions of things found in attics
each alp fills four views
and the wonder of the painters brush lifts the eye
each pilgrim takes in what's before them
and sings the radiance of an abounding soul
a table waits for the meeting the ancestor oversees
roof lines mime the dents of meters
the tallest is a head bowed to something further
children bloom in the heights of our dreams
and grow beyond our reach
the footprints of many rains are worn on a steady demeanor
artists echo the creation of let there be
and float in pastoral whimsy
as elders look on unmoved by fire in their belly
and courtyards ring the playful doors
a sleigh of blue is readied for the snows that come
who watches from these windows at who plays below?
The bell is silent. Finis.
21 Nov 2010
Riding
Riding into an impressive sunset
the western ear-lobes of the Alps
cast in a yellow-pink glow,
listening to the taps of a lingering sun,
Mont Blanc tres blanc
in the sights of a lingering sun;
and all this day-after winter beauty
is not as stunning
as it would be
if you were following
the point of my finger,
I the capture of your eyes,
and the gush of wondering wind
as we say together, "look!"
2 Dec 2010
Bamboo
At night
the tall thin bamboo
sway in the stifling breeze,
waving me back to my room
where the cool breath of AC
fogging the glass
perched on the bridge
of my nose,
taking me back
to a cold eve
on the other side
of the world,
just nights ago
when the bamboo
shivered stiffly
in the blowing snow;
and it is ever a wonder
how something as simple
as a gangly green stalk
takes me back
to somewhere else
that I had forgotten
or lost in the every-day,
that now stands out
and shakes me like
an outstretched hand.
4 Dec 2010
from Kaula Lumpur
On the Train to Genève
Vast tufts of fog
are lifting from the lake,
the morning sun
climbing over the Alps;
we hurtle through one
then another:
one town yawning in yellow,
the next squinting
in the mist;
reading this morning
a short bio of Doctorow,
I wonder how the story
will unfold,
the headlights of this
train lapping up the rails
to Genève,
and I,
facing the rear,
back to the wind
seeing what already
has gone by,
am full of hope.
7 Jan 2011
Green
Looking out at the tree tops
from the upper floor
of the white marble museum
in the thicket of the modern city,
she says,
“I miss the green.”
and I wonder in the midst
of this antiquity
if the exhibit of the garden
is in the darkest halls
of our being
ready to be called to life
in the spoken light.
4 Aug 19
Humming the Prepositions
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, *
the holy habitation of the Most High.” —Ps. 46:5
In the City of God
are the echoes of the womb
whose waters that once bore us
and to which we return.
In the midst of a Michigan winter
we are flying
to a warmer clime
on the water flowing
from the Gulf
under bright sun
beside the shimmering palms
over the sands
Walking in open-toe shoes
humming all the prepositions
that are in me,
is it any wonder
that we call this a slice
of heaven
to which we are called home
7 Mar 2023
Ah, vacation restoreth the soul.
The Big House
Years ago a classmate
wrote a paper that the professor
singled out.
It was about the theology
of early church design,
where a large hole was left
in the roof, so that nothing
would impede the faithful
being caught up in the cloud
of the rapture.
I imagined those who gathered there,
looking up to blue sky in anticipation,
ready for the blast of trumpets
and the shout of angels.
As I walked down the ramp
and through the appointed stadium gate
to my seat, I did not know what
to expect, the roar of the crowd
drawing me in, the bright team colors
that the faithful wore stood out against
the green field. A sea of a hundred thousand
worshippers chanting a fight song
and gesturing the chop that our team
was to make of the enemy.
I was at once a grain of sand
insignificant in wave after wave
of significance,
the voices and the brass band rising up
in this open-air cathedral
that took away the air from my lungs
and with a single “oh”
I understood the ancient ones.
18 Feb 2024
The Big House is Michigan Wolverines stadium, the country's largest.
__________________________________________________________________
4. Saints
If I’ve learned anything from my years it is that God comes incarnate in the moments when we experience a moment of grace, and epiphany from meeting others. While these poems may be grieving, they stand at that edge of life we cannot see across, where we tremble. So we remember.
Mother Marie
Seated in a wheel chair
old woman with the trace
of golden hair,
fierce eyes --
carrying the fleece
of the Lamb
in her lap,
the finger of God
in her grip.
She held on to my sleeve
and wouldn't let go,
it kept me from
falling away
in my embarrassment
to flee from her
impulsive, holy way.
She had to bless me
before she died
whether I sought
the balm
or just to get
the awkward moment by.
Oh, She wouldn't save me
till I let her have
the upper hand.
16 Mar 1994
Agnes
Her world was not much larger
than a gingerbread house,
a kitchen bathed in the smell
of baking chocolate cake,
the bloom of buttercream flowers.
Within these four small walls
deep breathing was understandable.
Here the breads of Christmas,
birthday cupcakes, wedding cakes,
cream puffs and petite fours
were crafted by her gentle hands.
Here was the icing of special days,
days that mattered deeply to us all.
Though none of us were ever content
with gingerbread, here we returned
to lick the batter, savor the special
moments with candles, revelry and song.
In this small cradle we were each reborn
breathing deeply the dust of heaven.
17 Sep 1994
Richard
Like all good
story tellers
he told the stories
with a smile,
delighted at
the simple things
that are the vessels
for the deeper places
in the heart.
blessed by
the grace found
in the brighter moments
as the darker places
in our lives,
he would rather
laugh and smile
with the sinners
than wear the airs
of a lofty saint.
here was someone
with whom
you could
sit in a circle,
legs crossed
and head cocked,
with a child's
sense of wonder,
straining to hear
each word
as if life
at that moment
depended on the
nouns and verbs.
and in these stories
it did.
like St. Francis
before him,
he blessed the animals
and preached
as sincerely to
those with soft ears
as those with hard teeth
and claws,
remembering each
one's name
with an interest,
care
as if we were his own.
and so we were.
In this place
we are the flock
resting about
this simple hearth,
this simple table,
in a neighborhood
without roots,
the nomads of
the urban outland,
we are gathered by
this shepherd,
the gentle face
of the creed,
and our belief.
17 Sep 1995
John
I do not remember
seeing him without
the smile,
or hearing more than
a sentence or two
without the punctuation
of a chuckle—
as if the telling
of the most simple
things was a delight.
He was the equal
opportunity provider
of good humor,
in every place
and every time,
so that it was all
too easy
to make the mistake
of not taking him
seriously enough.
And yet the wisdom
was often buried
in the quick
remark.
So it ends up,
He was often
right.
It was a fretful
meeting of the Vestry
one December
when the budget gap
was large,
and Christmas seemed
as if it was delayed
another year.
To the question
of how we
would make ends meet,
he quipped,
with the abruptness
of a gasp,
“Well,
you just have
to have faith!”
—As if faith
wrote checks.
A few months later,
We were humbled
when our
assistant priest
was called to Stowe,
and the budget gap
fell silently
away.
Walking
down the path
with me
he hunches over,
as if bowing to life
larger than himself,
chuckling
at the stiffness
in his joints
with the humor
that reminds us
that humility
is bowing
before majesties
larger than we—
of the joy of life,
the love
of a giving heart,
the faith
in a caring God.
It ends up
you were right
dear John,
its ends up
you were
right.
15 Apr 1997
For John Cooper, a patriarch, and Warden emeritus at St. Francis Church.
Joe
He tells us of the operation
that reattached a retina
from where it had unplugged
at the back of his eye;
there were tiny flashes
of light at the edges,
along the periphery
of what we think is straight sight.
two years of this narrowest of beacons
sirening without the pain
or directness of a sound;
and then all went gray,
the light dimming
as if the power slowly drained
from this sharpest of eyes.
he gained some of it back
from the skilled hand of the surgeon,
but now the architect
of straight lines
cannot tell if the finish of the molding
lines up flush with its mitered turns;
precision slips from his grasp
and the creative mind
tells its lucid stories.
1 Jan 2013
Alice
The nod of the head
as the cross goes by
this recessing with honor
I learned from her
watching on a Sunday morning
in an old white church
sun streaming in the tall side windows
slicing up the room
into photographs of memories;
there were no words said
no caption
just a subtle bow
that spoke more benediction
than the blessing.
Not that she was one of few words
when she was riled by some injustice
and there were many
she’d mutter
to herself,
and if you heard between the lines
and said so
she’d say an emphatic “right!”
It was an early foyer dinner
at someone else’s house
that another new parishioner
leaned over in my direction
in the kitchen holding a glass of wine
“isn’t she wonderful?”
I nodded
as she passed
holding some dish
that needed bringing to the table
in the next room.
And she wasn’t referring to the hosting
but rather all the moments of accepting us
in our frailties
and there were many
grace comes in small gestures
a touch on the back of a hand
a prayer at the window
with the birds flurrying around
a feeder just filled
as we were.
You adopted us as your children
and we adopted you as our Great Aunt,
if ever the word great was understated
it is now Dear Alice
when we each bow with a nod
as you pass by
with a cross in your hand
smiling about some secret
we have still to live out.
30 Sep 2018
Originally titled “Passing,” I wrote this for Alice Smith, our adopted Aunt and fellow Warden at St. Francis Church, and read it at her memorial service.
Ann
I remember
sitting at our table
in La Taverna
for our weekly lunch
and conversation,
there was laughter
and a glass of wine.
You would punctuate
a rejoinder with
“oh Ed”
and a wave of your hand
that landed.
If there was an issue,
you would get determined
and say,
“Well, we’ll see about that!”
When I asked you what
I could do
after Lou had passed,
you told me you missed the
conversation,
so here we were
talking about business
families, loves and church
(and without an order).
We each moved to our cities
and the conversations
and menu
became a distant memory.
I had just sent you
a birthday card
with a lake scene
like the one you told me about
at the summer cottage
where you stayed
with the loons crying
in the distance.
Now it is we who cry
dear Ann
and your life
calls to us
with a generosity of spirit
that I will forever
remember
and miss.
26 Jan 2024
For Ann Moore. See the “Loons Call”, Aug. 2006, above.
__________________________________________________________________
5. Passion
There are moments of passion where the divine breaks in. The mystics understood this. We can also, if we but pay attention.
Passion
it is the candle
to which we're drawn
as the fated nightbug.
the source,
the well
of light,
heat,
flicker on the bedroom wall.
the wax
forms hot little mittens
on your fingertips
when you stroke
the pool beneath the flame;
it numbs the soul
and the story line.
so quickly blown to memory,
yet still to wet
a finger,
and squeeze
the smoking ember,
and hear it sizzle
before it slips away.
31 Jul 1993
Movie, "Damage"
Passion: ending ii
reality returns
as the children all
run to scavenge
in the matchbox drawer,
and light it up again
before dessert is served.
31 Jul 1993, For the movie, "Damage"
As an additional stanza. I prefer the shorter version (As Von Rohe taught us, less is more)
The Edge
there are those
times of passion
when you give
up yourself to
the moment
completely,
when you know
the edge is coming
like the drawn
out delay of
a sneeze --
you are losing
yourself,
disappearing --
wanting and not
for the end,
quickly you fall
head long over
the top
when it all rushes out
as the warm water
flows from the basin
when you've finished
washing your face,
it swirls from
your head through
your open hands,
splashing, circling
the abyss,
with a gasp
it snaps
like a shade
from a window
rolling up again
and again.
13 Sep 1993
Communion
The vestry
gathered about
the meeting table
like disciples at
the last supper,
where the food
and drink were
not the kind
that satisfied
the hunger,
but the
gristly issues
of gays,
aids,
and pulpits.
we chewed
and grimaced
on its taste,
unable to consume
the spread laid out
in its enormity,
we choked on its extremities.
for this meal
was not
the passioned beliefs
of distant matters.
this one lived
at home,
where we worshiped,
where we gathered,
where we ate,
as one;
where he served himself
to each,
and touched us
in our righteousness.
5 Dec 1993
Sparks
I have seen the
face of God
in the
burning passion
of red hearts
smoking with life
as the bush
on the mountain top,
the very brush
the cradle of grace.
When we cry
out in ecstasy
to God in heaven
and die in naked truth
is when I feel
most alive,
real.
With the grace
of an artist’s
finger,
His hand reaches
cross the barrel
ceiling
and touches our oneness
in the dark.
15 May 1994
Golden
It is
the moment
when her eyes
go golden—
light dancing
on the horizon
of each lash,
an arc of
lavender below
this iris
sun—
and I feel
her smile
as a flash
of joy.
That I
am here,
upon my
hands,
rising up
to see this
dash of dawn’s
delight,
is but
a gasp
of awe,
as words
leave—
a snap
of a whip
of wind
in the
windows—
such joy,
when I
can only
mouth
her name.
20 Jul 1997
__________________________________________________________________
6. Art
The first time I saw Michelangelo’s “David”, like the visitors to the Academia, I was speechless, gawking at the statue as we walked slowly around it as if in a trance. Whether sculpture, paintings or photographs, art often gives us pause.
