Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Eternity Will Be



Stroking the fur of one cat, while
Restraining the paw of the kitten.
My cat’s eyes look into my own
Mirrors of his soul.  I am to him, The One.
The kitten, new as dawn, soft and unafraid, unlearned of the thorns of this life.
He is a bit arrogant, trusting in the air beneath him, the seeming solidity of Things.

My heart breaks, knowing the future of life is death, slow-coming.
We are all so brilliant in our beginnings, so sure in the strength of each decided step.
Before we are warned weakness comes, what we once traversed with joy, we now tread in sorrow, slow and stumbling.
It is the curse of Adam, of sin, of mistake, of error pursued before thought.
Growing old outside but not in.  Inside we are new, pink and blinking.
Inside we are alive and vibrant, waiting for a kinder existence in which to be.
But outside, oh outside, we groan as once-suppleness becomes stupid stumbling, clumsy.
My silk string of hope is in the Lord.  Lord of eternity where there is no weakness, no sadness, no failure.
The invisible string of His promise to me.  He will allow me to walk, no – stride in that new home.
That new place, so like all the places our souls have ever loved, have ever yearned for.  For me it is mountains, verdant with hazy summer growth.  For me it is youth, feet running over green earth, ever up to the heights, where my eyes gaze upon all the blessings…..wild strawberries amongst the grass, the view of Catskill heights in the distance, sitting atop a deserted fire station.

All that I have loved, bird and beast, have shared in this newness of flesh, the renewal of life in Him. 
And I will see glory, but quiet and soft. 
And I will be there amongst the free, amongst the golden, so glad to serve, to observe, to silently soar aloft and feel the warm air beneath my wings.

He has promised.  He has loved and paid it all so I can be free.


A Poem For The Times



Our Time

My heart is torn
Between the deep rutted tracks in the soil of my father’s time
And the yearning reaching ahead of my time becoming the present, becoming my daughter’s time, and then leaving her, too, behind.
Time, time and a half a time
It all winds around together, swirling like a color wheel with the lines removed;
Blue sliding into green into yellow cum orange then red, ethereal purple, ultraviolet, end of the spectrum.
So much difference between 1919 and 1956.  The aftertaste of unthinkable death, the horizon blighted with a sharp black edge into the 40’s.  The days of my father’s wide eyed youth, his acclimation to the bucking earth he rode on and thought he ruled.
1939 was the end.  No, really, 1914 was the end.  Of certainties, attitudes that were Right, the Codes of Life.  1918 was feeling one’s hand reach into the blackness of the empty room ahead, while the other hand held onto memories of light from before the deluge.
That other hand held tight right up to 1960, give or take, and then let go, forever set adrift.
Echoes of old centuries, ancient certainties, straight gazes between eyes, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Now free floating in a blank undefined universe, unframed pictures oozing out edges. 
No anchor, no anchor.  Circling the drain of time.
Yet-In spite of-Instead of-Below our vision….the Truth is….the Truth Is.
Anchor.  Light.  Bond of strength.  Blood knowledge between us.  He has….
Everything Under Control
In the midst of madness, gray chaos, unfathomable sadness, wild boar madness, clawed and bloody violence.
Inside the tiny bird fluttering to the ground, flying a thousand miles and more for God’s reasons alone, alight upon a ship in the vast night of the ocean, panting for breath, taking a break from eternal flight.
Tiny on the rail, wet with the writhing sea, arising aflight again to the south, to warmth and sun.
Among us who strive, weary and winding, stumbling on the faint hint of path amongst the debris. 
He Is.  He  Has.  Us.  All. 
To The End.