Poetry

Sep082015

On into Joy

Fighting fire with fire,
Disease cured through mangled brokenness,
Shrouds of sickness inviting into sadness,
Cutting teeth obsessively,
Gnawing through emotional immaturity,
What once tendered mercifully now exposed,
Mental illness standing arrogant opposed,
Closed and festering, feeding in upon itself,
Growth the formation of negating,
A time and a season, a spiteful passing,
Stagnating insane smiles demanding superiority,
Weather ripe for fleeing,
Terrestrial evacuation spiritually appeasing,
Amber waves of gold calling,
Rolling tundra on into wide open spaces,
A horizon line vastly distant,
Visible in distinction, seen yet unreachable,
The fire of contemplation burning within,
Exterior expansion guiding interior,
A light to guide,
Ears open, mouth shut, heart imploring,
A soft still voice singing hymns of glory,
Mary’s birthday receiving,
Grace signifying something bestowed,
Beauty to a soul magnified quality,
Proceeding onward,
A journey of a thousand tears on into joy.

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Sep072015

Divine Love after dinner

I am not going to finish my post breakfast musing now that I sit waiting upon Vespers after dinner.  I will quote from ‘The Fire of Contemplation’ by Dominican Thomas Philippe.  Father Philippe is an amazing story, born within a French family of twelve brothers and sisters, seven of his siblings honored a call to the religious life.  Father Thomas, aside from his writing, is known for forming a religious community for the handicapped, mentally disabled men he lived and worked with.

Divine Love, on the contrary, is infinite in its very reality; love’s aspirations and transports are measured by the Infinite One: and as we shall show, there truly may be something of the Infinite in these utterly secret human experiences (contemplative consolations, or lack of consolations), for those manifestations take place in the deepest center of the soul.  Divine Love has the incomparable privilege of not having to express itself externally.  No poetic sublimation is necessary here; moreover we are obliged to admit that symbols and metaphors to express its hidden visitations are always infinitely short of the reality.  Mystical love, by its deepest tendency, inclines to silence; it avoids literature, it shuns poetic expressions; it is essentially recollection and adoration.  –Thomas Philippe

Marie Domnique Philippe brother to Thomas

Marie Domnique Philippe brother to Thomas

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The waiting of the hour slips beneath the anticipation of the setting of the sun, sky painted fading,
All is good, unannounced quiet comes,
Called, be still advancing, reticence strike the tongue,
A day rolls on into eternity, the blasting of the aftermath concluding with the sound of holy water flowing, a fountain, presence pronounced with the dawn of eve,
It wasn’t so horrible when the surface tore away, tempering through the pain, something greater in patience revealing,
Tapping upon a window a multitude of windows open to the sound of their own harmonizing crescendo, the Divine Office sung as one,
Imperfections and strengths merging, an original lost within a crowd, a community hankers down upon never ending,
The silence of the Eucharist, communion encircled, the church does not crumble, the gathered maintain.

Eucharist reposed

Eucharist reposed

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Sep062015

Lingering Sunday Mass at Assumption Abbey

Reflections after Sunday mass,
I cannot help yet identify a call, a comforting quiet voice,
Something has been happening throughout my life,
Guiding and directing.
The Lord whispers sweetly. joy caressing,
Hymns sung softly, breathing aloud,
Within work conducted, prayers: experience, and study reflected,
The Eucharist stands, illuminating, shining forth.
The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration nurture.
In Adoration, the Benedictines at St Andrew Abbey reside.
Father Roger, humble and aware, exists with a sincere tantalizing smile.
Other matters I discard, a call opening a new identity.
Childish ways abandoned, inferior lashings lacking.
I will never identify as an alcoholic in North Dakota.
A past filled with corruption, sadness, and sin.
Maimed, wounded, and broken-hearted.
There is much cleansing to conduct, emptying and ridding.
I refuse to distinguish and muddle within that which is castoff.
Superfluous, exceeding the need of efficacy,
There is no need to focus identity upon the specifics of brokenness.
God wields a two-edge sword able to cut through all complications,
An open heart and mind surrendering receives,
Lord transform, gracing unification, the merging of wills,
Lord, I bow, presenting myself.
I bring others along, grace abounding,
I refuse to part from love, in this I cannot concede,
An intelligent son, witnessing, bright eyed and keen,
A family in need, loving conversion annealing,
Ann resides, coming along, burdening not at all,
Stinging in thought, anger extinguished,
Carried along in the beating of my heart,
The offering of my soul.

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Aug312015

Passing Prose

No identity, stripped bare to the wound, a hollow center gravitating eternal,
Witnessing you drift into the manipulations of your own mind,
Exercising free will, unabashedly thrashing about, forcefully wrenching, imposing, pretending,
It’s all obvious when the Eucharist stands still, it hurts, you are there within the pain, attending I feel you behind me, I cannot look,
Gracelessly announcing the working of God, mouthing words removed from obvious perception, saying things you desperately hope to be true, I am listening,
Truth for the making, reality released upon broken taking, recklessly brave you impatiently stomp upon creation, beautiful in courageous falling,
Kneeling, clutching my Rosary, beads wrapped and counting, I see you through the early morning tears of a new day,
My love so intense it consumes, devouring and aching,
Numb and dumb, I stare forward, unable to move,
I am patiently advancing,
I cannot tear my eyes away, awkward while graceful, I should have took it as a warning, as a warning,
Waiting, a stranger in a strange land, a foreigner seeking asylum beyond the great divide, intent stumbling upon salvation, I know you, I do,
Internal combustion imploding away the remnants of misapprehension polluting the breathe of a life desperately lived, anxiety and tension pulling taut the extreme, a lifeline never appears,
I cling to faith, hope, and charity within the darkness of loving you,
Relief, now stands a nobody amidst the sacrifice of a holy mass, another comes day upon day, brick upon brick, notch by notch, moments passing, the reading of scripture, a priest from Tanzania speaking within a Homily of commitment, communion follows the singing of Hosannas, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, be real, within reality be real, I needed you and you disappeared, superseding transgressions, following folly, misperceptions, misdeeds, misalignments, misty eyed weeping: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, simple being, doing nothing,
Tired of trying conceptual contriving, futile attempts at spiritual conniving, debris smattered upon dirty unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed consciousness, the accumulation of years, spiraling it’s all added up within love and grief,
Enchained destiny whispers, providence sublime,
Poor Clares cloistered away from the madness of those who know everything concluding the existence of being someone immersed amongst many dividing, unique individuals multiplying, subdividing the wreckage of universal masked discontent,
Falling faces thinking thoughts into little tiny pieces make everything up for the fashioning of intricacies within a web of delusional deceit, and you are there with them dancing and happy, sporting the mask of being normal,
Doing the best one can while existing upon the energy of hungry denizens feeding the fuel of snowflakes falling within flames, a fiery finish to a burnt out extinguishing, you use to be here amongst the desperate called out and praying,
What was that about?
One can only ask questions when the demand for answers insist upon silence, the chattering of chins attached to tongues wagging, sound irritating, annoying the senses into directing the mind into fantastical realms of invented creation,
This I can do so be it be done, the sake of possibility enough for the fun, I can be my own master, a source and a leader, the destruction of ripples transferring upon ripples spreading upon authentic creation subject to levels of distinction,
It means more to lead than to honestly be healed, easier to guide than to properly be guided, softer to assume the mantle of master, in control you declare disaster,
Going out in waves, noisy and strong, burbling babble, unwavering in confused confirmations, the justifying of a lack of opprobrious designs to deceive, all within potentialities unconcieved, an abortion, an abomination upon many abominations, a broken life lived into old age, staring above dumbfound at high places, altars crumbling from a lack of foresight,
How did I get here watching you so closely?
No looking back to advance, no brilliant insight proves elusive to the peace of prayer commenced at the foot of the Savior,
Unafraid to declare the love of the heart, unafraid to throw it all away, unafraid of a broken heart, unafraid to breathe while bleeding from needing,
Content and contrite, I am learning to be without being busy.

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Aug302015

Three Catherine of Siena poems

Vulnerable

Vulnerable we are, like an infant.
We need each other’s care
or we will
suffer.

I Won’t Take No For An Answer

“I won’t take no for an answer,”
God began to say
to me

when He opened His arms each night
wanting us to
dance.

The Hymns of the Earth

I wanted to be a hermit and only hear the hymns
of the earth, and the laughter of the sky,

and the sweet gossip of the creatures on my limbs,
the forests.

I wanted to be a hermit and not see another face
look upon mine and tell me I was not all the beauty in this world.

For so many faces do that—
cage us.

The wings we have are so fragile
they can break from just
one word, or

a glance void
of love.

I wanted to live in that cloister of
light’s silence

because, is it not true, the heart
is so fragile and shy.

4_29_St_Catherine_of_Siena_Franceschini,_Baldassare_Wikimedia_Commons

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Aug272015

Consumed in Grace

I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
the cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy
girl, like me.

Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,

though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s
faith can at time flicker,

for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind’s ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.

I have seen what you want;
it is there,

a Beloved of infinite
tenderness.

St Catherine of Siena

St Catherine of Siena

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Aug252015

Why is it that you ask my name?

Standing on the shoulders of giants, oh my heart, oh my heart,
Breaking thunder storms eclipsing the lapsing wrathful recriminations,
Accusations festering amidst the allegations rendered within complaints.
Wrestling God, wrestling angels, wrestling man, wrestling myself,
Tussling on a riverbank, announcing a name, demanding a name in return.
No name blesses within an assumed defeat of knowing.
The story within a mystery, within generations, within the Word.

“Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Tell me, I pray, your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. –Genesis chapter 32

 

 

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