What we can count on:
(what wonder poetry is as you get older)

Surely, the poems are still
near, as they always were;
but back then it was all
or nothing, and you barely survived that. Now they turn up
quietly in dreams-a girl’s wrist turning in moonlight
at another corner cafe. Or,
a hawk flying low watching in care today, or even just a walk
where a sudden flower shows
it’s inner life in clear daylight, shuddering wonder awake again.
But still, the poems
are always lurching, or maybe now more like leaning, here
daily waiting for us to tend,
and turn the page again-to turn with them and listen well
until both of us are spoken.
No scroll, word or name is ever lost down here, much less a bird, squirrel or flower, a single word heard well, is a tower (some just now
take longer to come clear; our ears grow dim over years!)
Even when hiding in ancient jars
we can no longer see, the words which are ours are
waiting to be unearthed
by only we. This poetry
has entrusted itself to us!
It’s simpler to know wonder now-
That, we can count on.
//
(the Father just enjoys us, even when we suck at walking!)
The Father just watches us in wonder, to see what steps we’ll take next. That loving gaze becomes our forever home.
Just as we watch our kids in wonder, until they know and walk into their names. So, we
by beholding can parent one another’s souls towards naming.
//
What if your gift in life
was to see people well
in their days, when no one else saw them, to gaze
them awake in Love.
To care glance at them
making them visible to themselves and others.
To clear the haze with beholding…to open the real ears
and eyes, to let their names
walk out into the light of day.
To say yes to the backstage self
of our days, until we
all recall our true names
in that gaze.
//
When God says Stop!

Sometimes, but it’s rare, God
says, don’t listen anymore, just
go love some stranger, until you hear Love again. Don’t express
this chorus you constantly hear, already begun-the one the dead have come to be singing
with the living. Angels don’t always even know where they are
when serving. Serving itself
lifts their wings into action, reminds them of Wind and Flame.
Still, usually He asks me
to stop and write the poem of it all, even as it’s happening, until i love everything more-ie,
more as He does.
//
each day,i pray:
Who do you want to love through me today Lord?
If it happens to be you,
then pray i get out of the way
enough to download the song
correctly
towards you today friend.
//
I am a confluence-where things
flow together-
one who lives in flux
like a flume through a narrow gorge, i displace as water does…and
His influx creates the flux, i am.
the watermark i leave in you,
will be my sign, or mark of poetry
pointing backwards
towards its Source…
nothing will be erased ever
for our names are already
flowing forth in these broken lines forever.