THE CORDWAINER

I buff your boots with wax and tears,
rub the leather with preserving oils
and prayer,
with care for durability and fit;
not a machine,
my life goes into it,
a leather casket
shaped like your foot.

Days are bent nails,
sweepings on the floor,
my efforts last forty years
and then are forgotten.

Who remembers the consummate
shoemaker for his craft?
he must twice bless the world
to be remembered once.

Like this leather, let me be
trimmed, stitched,
stressed and stretched,
waxed and polished,
to be made fitting for my task.


And A Pencil


Hardly had I slid open
a long unused drawer
when a white moth fluttered
forth like a soul
flying home.

Emptiness filled this sliding
wooden casket,
save simply a journal,
with fragments of unfinished
poetry,
a few sketches,
and a pencil.


The River

There is a river running
through my history
with heavy flanks
of galloping horses.

Today yellow sunshine climbs happily down
from spruce tree tips
plays sap green on grass along the banks.

My river runs redemptive silver
and free sky blue,
birds sing scarlet and golden,
the baby of God is snuggled safe
in my Bethlehem,
though soldiers knock on every door
with orders to kill
all the children.

A PETITION IN THREE PARTS

I
Lift Us Up

In stillness of borrowed breath,
among aromatic cedar,
you make us your offspring.

Yet at midnight,
under the Bethlehem star,
on the tip of your scepter,
we are staggered by your power,
but not destroyed.

You bless those who bless us,
curse those who curse.

You bring us to our knees
in painful reminders of mortality.

You hear our penitent prayers,
collect our anguished tears.

In mercy, the grace
of your unfailing love.
lift us up to walk with you
again.



II
Last Wild Storm

Gripping desperately, as if your hand,
in this last wild storm of the world,
torn by a wind, the beating
of raptor’s wings in a tornado
of silent screaming terror,

I see swirling about me
the detritus of fear
that leads to the hanging tree,
dragging friends and family,
a fear that encloses dumbly in a tomb.

Who bites the hand of love
who pulls down his house
upon his head,
striking out, accusing falsely,
spitting curses on love’s flame,
unravels in the vortex
of panic’s fell syllables
lets slip the talisman of trust.

You have spoken,
I believe.

Grip strong my reaching hand
of faltering faith, O shining One,
from above this wild storm!

III
The Answer

To the one who prayed,
whose tears fell,
whose small bag is packed,
who may need to answer a call
from another realm
at a moment’s notice,
from sound asleep,
to carry or be carried.

I am your Shepherd,
you shall lack no good thing,
all your sins I freely forgive,

I will always be with you
from this new journey,
even to the end of the age.

I will comfort and support you,
lead you beside still waters,
feed you in green pastures,

you shall fear no evil,
though you walk through dark valleys
shadowed with death,
for I am with you,
I will never forsake you,
I will bring you,
and you shall dwell
in my house forever.

LIGHTNING

lightning slashes night sky
from east to west
no announcements
no warnings but the darkening clouds
no committees, no criers in the streets
some are sleeping and others agape
at the fiery silent slash
word of swift judgement
at that moment in that blue light
the church steeple split
from top to bottom
the brass sounding one last time
cloven in twain falling
every face streaming in the rain
lifted skyward at the flash
the clean and the unclean
and then the thunder
collapsing the lung
like a fisted punch
and rising a gasp a wail
a jubilant hallelujah!

BUDDING ROD

You are the rod that budded,
brought new tongues,
new authority,
new power,
child-birthing a nation.

a dead stick bore fruit
life rose like magma
in its hollow wooden cells
flaming tongues of leaves
coals of ripe almonds
your name was carved into it
you had the favor, the anointing,
of virgin born,
You, a lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world.

a fish swallowed your life
more than digestible
three days later spit it out
on a beach near wooden Nineva
You rode forth
upon the white stallion
of your own salty sea-wet words
and commanded salvation.

Emptied of that buoyant life
Jonah the prophet pouted in self pity
under a shady vine on a hill
demanding a ring side seat
for gloating in the deserved destruction,
but the vine died under his condemning
cloud, did not bud,
did not bear fruit,
became dead wood.

Nineva budded.

NOTES OF WORDS

with cup stains,
coffee or wine,
small scatters
with silences between
where meanings hide,
while a rock band tunes and warms,
enlisting a wild drummer to cover
the second rooster crow in frenzy,
the denial only the waitress heard,

then turning to watch
a live stage show,
accept a plate of counterfeit,
a glass of bubbling ale,

while back of the hall,
behind the lights,
a quiet murder by crucifixion, then
three days later a storied resurrection,
witnesses keeping scattered notes
buried under pages
by scholars,
or cups of coffee,
or bread and wine,
hence the stains,
copies passing hand to hand.

THE UNCHOOSING

Shimmering, voices bringing words of life.

Shining, agates rolled wet
on shores of margin.

Wisdom, polished endlessly
in sands before time,
lying at your feet.

Echoing, prayers five centuries old
in a foreign language,
floating on ocean winds,
prayed for you, the descendent.

Faithful, the god who answered them.

Chains, once forged in sacrificing love,
never broken.

BETWEEN THE MEDIEVAL

Before sunrise this morning,
a rutting trumpet with a smoky snarl,
the scramble of bars closing,
dying darkness screamed,
groaned in the mountains,
aroused a storm that heaved waves
of tangled raging on the lake,
echoes foam-sliced, wave-blown,
crises-crests,

yet with dawn comes peace be still
of quiet water!

a liquid mirror surrounds my craft
of wood and gut,
horsehair bows sing songs
many centuries away from their beginnings.

Winds and waves grow still.

With rising sun, a harpsichord,
a polished wooden violin,
an orchestra of them,
with cello and viola de gamba,
a sound made before electrons
and their sixty cycle hum
unleashed themselves upon the world,
before the trumpet rutted,
came this hush of quiet water,
the landscape everyone’s cathedral,
jeweled descent of dragonfly
against peaceful mountains,
every breath the song
of simple rising prayer,
music of sun on splashing trout
seen dancing on the water.