Tag Archives: Stars

All the World

If chapters never ended,
And covers never closed,
If the ones who filled your hours
Were the souls alone you chose,
And no one owned each other,
You eagerly filled the day
Sharing the exuberance of children
In the purity of play
If vitality held stay amongst the stars,
And we had all the world and time
To sway together against the storms,
We’d forgive each other all our crimes
So as not to lose an eternity
Of our hand clasped in the other’s
We’d love in innocent passion
Like two strangers meeting as brothers.
We’d write each other poetry
To adore our nobler traits.
We’d love without suspicion,
In fidelity that will not abdicate.
We would defend each other
Like children in a garden
Where the threat is not the predator,
But the heart that must not harden.

I love them all this way,
Like a child who cannot understand
The demands adults will bring,
The castles made of sand
People buy with all their hours,
So there’s none left to play within,
Or why no one’s left to play with me
When they all forsake the garden

To walk amid the men.

I sit outside, alone, under the stars
Writing poetry of all the beautiful things
I think they all are,
Or will be when they get their wings.


Workmanship

How I’ve peered into Your creation-
Those smaller than a speck
Ecosystems, those vibrations
Too tiny for the eye to inspect-
And it’s good.
You’ve worked structure and detail
Far beyond what we could:
What our structures entail.

How I’ve glimpsed the grand-
Out beyond our farthest sight
Beyond our ability to understand
To chart the boundaries of night
And it’s good, too:
A majestic symphony
Lifting praise to You
In undulating harmony.

Here I am between the two-
Can I sparkle? Do I shine?
I was formed by You
In secret places, by design.
Galaxies inside of me,
And also years of carnage
Unlike celestial bodies,
I am formed in Your image.

Help me be the masterpiece
You intend me to be.
I don’t belong to anyone else-
I don’t even belong to me.
Complete Your work:
Protect what You desire,
And bring it into being
For You are an all-consuming fire

And I am Yours.

“There is not an atom of the universe in which you cannot see some brilliant sparks at least of His glory.”
John Calvin


Waiting

How long I’ve desired
Something timeless
Love watching me sleep,
Something to keep
When the mundane crimes
Accuse me.

Hard breaths, and long,
I’ve sent out my sonar
My words echo so far
Reflecting off future stars
Coming back home
Alone.

And I know hope, the answer
She’s a veiled street-dancer
And peddles for free
Wares redemptive to me,
But the music runs long,
A song I can’t remember

How to sing.


Under the Bridge

How often I threw myself in tears
On the breast of the Chesapeake bay,
Exchanging my saltwater for fresh
The ever impassioned castaway

But the tide always brought me home again
Even when I had other designs,
Those waters washed me clean again
Time after time after time.

I never showed that side to you;
We always bowed to the other.
You recognized the weak in me:
The perfect mate and mother.

You quoted Kinder, Küche, Kirche,
As you prepared to take my life,
But my docility stood a constructed facade
As I refused to be your wife.

But you came by your oppression honestly
So I never wished you harm.
There was, underneath your tyranny,
Rays of childlike charm.

In what you loved, you showed delight
With a smile spread ear to ear,
And I mostly enjoyed our merry dance
Until you pulled too near.

Alone, I must have found you,
And alone is ever excising
But I’ve heard of all your accomplishments;
Your star seemed ever rising.

You loved our virgin state
For the dignity of her past,
And the grandeur of her beauty.
You were ever holding fast.

You’ve thrown yourself off a bridge,
Dying as every falling star.
I cannot stand in judgment,
Remembering where my own bridges are

And knowing what it takes to stand
On the edge of all you’ve ever known
The courage it takes to make goodbyes
And courage, you’ve always shown.

I will not ask you why, or say you are laid waste,
But I will honor you, old friend.
I only wish you had come home
To make your final end

Where the water flows in kindness,
And may have cradled you to her breast
To lift your head, to wash you clean,
To bring you home to rest.


You Again

So stuck on me
And all I am
Is the static between stations,
White noise vibrations
The matrix between cells,
The void that fell
Between occupied spaces,
Lost and lacking graces,

But for Your face turned to see me.

I make nothing
I offer nothing, I am nothing
But what I’ve always been,
A tiny bundle of blood and sin,
Crying out in the field I’m thrown,
No suckling, no home
Until You cradled me near
You – all I love, and crave, and fear

And betray, and hold dear.

I’m tossed under the night sky
And every burning star
Is a light left on for me,
To guide me home, to see
You still care
Not that I’m impaired,
But that I’m still Yours
You – setting my course

And sustaining the force of my momentum.


Stargrazing

 

I pluck the star from swirling deeps

The burn, the flameless fire creeps

like an epitaph unsung

across my lips, along my tongue

Scouring, devouring, I swallow it

down my gullet to my hollow bits

There, the swimming fever roils,

my pulse screams in my ears and boils

all the quiet, saner thoughts to death

With light and fire on my breath

I exhale and beg for rest, beg for time,

to digest the star I ate as mine

And when these tremors still, all slaked,

when I am well, when I awake,

I will gaze back to the sky

and wonder which star next to try.