The Fairest Rose (A hymn)

The fairest rose is that which blooms
Upon the sacred tree
The sweetest fruit comes from the field
Of far-off Calvary
For he who made the sun to shine
And caused the days to turn
Gave his own life blood for his love
And our redemption earn.

Each thorn that pierced his homely brow
He wore it just for me
Each lash upon his back he bore
To set my spirit free.
That bitter wine upon his lips
Was all the comfort he
Was offered then to ease his pain
Of his his humanity

But there he broke the chains of sin
By his atoning loss
He broke the gates of hell and death
Made glory of the cross
No devil fierce or sin so foul
Could stand before its glare
Yet we who blind and helpless are
Behold it shining there.

Before Sleep

 

I breathe you in and out

Taking in your scent,

Taking you soft in my hand.

 

I hold you as a holy thing

Between my arms and legs

Feeling you breathe.
Feeling your life pulse

 

And there,

Under the blanket of darkness.

Is unspoken truth

Is quiet beauty

 

In the distance

A train goes by

the soft chattering of the rails

and the soulful whistle call

 

And we wonder

Without mentioning it

About the other bedrooms

And the other lovers listening

 

And we wonder

Without mentioning it

If they are so far from us

As our solitude imagines.

 

Under the low moan

We lie together

Drinking in the dark

Taking in the silence

Riding together in our minds

The train into the night.

 

Natural Selection

A turtle rises
From the rippled river
He creeps slowly
On the muddy bank
Crawling and scratching
With dinosaur toes
Crawling and scratching
By its right to reproduce
Crawling and scratching
As his father's father did
Crawling and scratching
Up this same river bank--
With a long line of turtles
Back beyond memory
To the first turtle born
In the motherland of muck
In the universe of spring

D C Monument

Somewhere off the sidewalk
On the mall, there is a monument
A white slab of stone
With searching columns overhead
And a marble dome above
And on the dome, these words:
“The Great War to Save Civilization.”

No one much goes by there
Bands once held summer concerts
But now they are disbanded
Sinewy trees stretch to the sky above
Where people walk their dogs
And children run in circles
And beneath their mossy sides
And few if any stop to read and ask
Which war? Which civilization?

Men died for it, that we know.
Men lay down in the mud and mixed
Their blood in the thirsty ground
Mothers lost their children, children lost fathers
In that war, and now we ask:
Which war? Which civilization?

When did a war save civilization?
When did the most uncivilized thing
That demented creatures ever devised
Ever bring a civilization?

Where are the monuments to those
Who lived in peace and died in peace
Who did not use a gun or bomb
But suffered long and labored hard
To build that civilization?

Those men died, too.
But the proud boys in their shiny helmets
Who march in the fools’ parade called war
They get all the credit
For saving civilization

We honor them, as we should.
But honor with them those who spent
Their lives and spent their days
To build that civilization

honor those men who lived full days
at work, and built this monument
So in our time trees can grow
And people may walk their dogs
And children run in circles in the sun
And live in peace—that is civilization.

Rest Stop

A curl of a lake rests in the valley
Where the cars come rushing by
Displays a permanence unknown
In the metal boxes of the road

The cry of the hawk, the cicada hum
The burr balls of the sweet gum
The witchy branches of the pine
The smell of honeysuckle on the air

This is America, this is the world
Not the rushing metal dream
But the gray speckle of the oak bark
And the eyes of the hidden creatures.

Grace Notes

And can it be
That you really love me?

Can this be true
Even if I don't love you?

Though I may hide
Do you still want inside?

Will you converse
Even when my words are terse?

And can it be
That you really do love me?

Natural Selection

A turtle rises
From the rippled lake
And creeps slowly
On the muddy bank
Crawling and scratching
With dinosaur toes
Wallowing in muck
Crawling and scratching
By its right to reproduce
To bring tiny turtles
Into cruel existence
As his father
And his father's father did
Crawling and scratching
Up this same bank--
A line of turtles
Back beyond memory
To the first turtle born
In this motherland of muck
In this universe of spring

Highway Children

(note: for years I have tried to find the words to express what it means to live in America in the Twenty-first century, as if I were looking at our world from the outside. This is my latest effort. I hope it speaks.)

A thousand years from now,
They will come with spades
And dig our bones
And sift for what is left of us
And call us the highway people.

And they will say
That we were married to highway
As the Sumerians to Euphrates
Or the Hindi to the Ganges,
Or The Egyptians to the black snake Nile.

Forever pilgrims
Forever restless. forever strangers
Rushing in our metal boxes
Rushing nowhere going nowhere
Forever moving forever alone.

Gone are villages,
Gone are towns, Gone are cities
Where we lived in just one place.
Knew its contours and connections
Knew it as a home, now it is nothing
No more than an exit on the highway.

Gone are the places
Gone is the country where we were free
As trees along the roadside are free.
Free to draw our succor from the ground
Free to be a part of something greater.

Going, going gone we are
Now we are just tumbleweeds,
blowing along the highway
Obeying the orders of steel and stone
Under the protection of steel and stone

We are the children
The children of the forever highway
Drunk with freedom, restless and alone
Thirsting for novelty, for constant change
But nothing changes, Nothing is new
What is here is the same as what is there.

So we live and die
Along the concrete river
Where we live and are not seen
Where we die an are not remembered
Nothing is remembered
On the highway of forever.

A telephone line
Hosts a solitary raven
Watching the cars go by
Watches and waits
Watches and waits
As the traffic goes on forever.

purple Iris

Purple irises
Stand on green stalks
On the hillside
By the grey road

I see them as I pass by
At forty-five
Miles per hour
They rub off
Leaving a purple smudge
On the day.

Geneology

I am part of all that came before me

I have been a farmer and a fiddler and trader
I have been a pirate, a soldier, a sailor
I have been a salesman, a preacher, a housewife
I have been a widow, a father, and a son
I have fought the king, the Yankee, the Nazi
I have loved and lost and loved again.

And I am a part
Of the line of men,
Gray as mist, coming forward
Stretched beyond the horizon
Out to the stars
Out to where eternity ends
Back to where life begins

I am part of all who came before me
And they are part of me

Country Graveyard, Easter Morning

Think of mouldy bones beneath the earth, and what it takes to raise them.
Think of hearts dissolved to paste, of fingers disconnnected
Think of minds reduced to nothing-- reformed, resurrected.
Think of tongues restored to praise aloud, and sightless eyes to marvel.

Death is the jackal that paces far, feasting where he wishes
on the powerful and great, on the weak and humble
on the valorous and saintly, on the ones who stumble
The jackal's fangs are broken now, his gory meal is ended.

Row upon row forgotten souls, lying in their coffins
Memories of ancient times, ghosts of former passion
Made and unmade out of dust, fashioned and unfashioned
They wait for the last full revelie, at the end of battles.

Think of standing by an empty tomb, and what it took to open
Broken sealing stone nearby, graveclothes strewn about
A strange light shines within the earth, and overhead a shout
The end of one dominion comes, the beginning of another.

Running the Beach

Running the beach in the morning
Running barefoot over wet sand,
Leaving my footprints behind me
The legacy of sand and sea
Risen afresh from the waters
Out of the ocean, out of the eternal waves.

Running alone by the great sea
Watching the red fire lifting
Ponderously slow it arises
Watching the sky-doors open
The business of day is beginning
Out of the ocean, out of the eternal waves

And the day is coming
And my legs are aching
And my breath comes bursting
And my lungs are filling
As my head is clearing
And my pulse is quickening
And the gulls are soaring
And the fire is boiling
And my soul is lifting
Out of the ocean, out of the eternal waves.

A Murder of Crows

A murder of crows

Black birds in a cream colored sky
Black birds hovering over bare branches
Bare branches slanting upward
In a scream, in a spear-filled sky,

Black birds bear the omens
Black crows tell the tale
That should never be told
That should forever be conceales

And the crows are mindless
Of the terror they bring
Or the sounding they make
That makes all courage die.

Sand Painting

Sitting sideways on stone
He pushed a single pebble into place
With tip a bamboo reed a rose red grain
And the pattern was complete
The picture whole ,breathtaking splendor
Finished to the last errant grain.
After eighteen years since he began
When his knees did not hurt so much
When the chill of stone was not so much
Eighteen years, eighteen hours every day
Looking at swollen knuckles on a hand
so cramped he could barely hold the reed.
In his robe unsuited for the cold
With his eyes unaccustomed to the day
From his years of squinting he looked up
At last he saw it, the thing which he had made
Admiring the perfection of the thing
Stretched across the floor, and it was good
And then, perfection being achieved
He took his broom and swept it away
Lest someone try to preserve it.
For all we do is mortal
And perfection not a thing accomplished
But the thrill of a moment of perfection.

A walk in the country

Cows on a hillside
Chewing on grasses
On a bee-buzzing day
Go to my head
Like opium

A barn leaning
like a rider's red hat
In a circle of oak trees
Makes me crazy giddy
with graces

Then there is silence
Silence in the wind
The wind speaks silence to the woods
As the woods speak silence to the wind

Nothing I'll ever say
Or sing or dance
or build or dream
Will carry the heart so high
As a single
outspent day.