Slow Rise

Somebody once asked me, “What is
the eternal value of baking bread?”
Where is the longevity of the briefest moment?
What is the profit of a moving breath?

The flavors interwoven like delicate threads
Refreshing the air like white eyelet curtains
We close our eyes, we lift our heads.

Here, now,
Waving in the sun-bathed scent of tall grass
And the pastures murmuring with bovine contentment;
The hills clustered together and sprawling apart,
White puff clouds peeling back like a tea towel
To let in sun heat, letting our souls rise,
Slowly, pulling together the flavors of childhood,
Breathing in the aroma of dreams and hope

Here, now,
We sit together and break bread,
Pulling apart at the oneness, stretching out
Empty hands, and filling hungry spirit bellies
For a taste of salvation, a taste of new life again.

Honest Woman

You cannot make it of me,
Nor I of myself, contort and strain
Against my true nature, my brand.
An honest woman cannot be made,

Only broken, confronted, surrendered,
Only by way of bowing down whole self
Reserving nothing, hiding nothing,
That I might find refuge in the cleft.

Refuge from? Self-destruction,
The dishonesty lurking there
Behind seductive corners, beckoning
To taste and glut and evolve

Into a would-be goddess
Whose distempered appetite
Makes her demands for more, ever more,
Forever dissatisfied, forever dishonest.

My heart unkempt, and perhaps hair, too,
I come not strutting but prostrate,
Heart bowed, soul desperate, hands outstretched
To a king, a savior, the only true Maker of honest things.

Plus Lent*

Lent-time hunger
is stirred and swells up
from spirit famine;
leaves chocolate decadence
on thirsting tongue.

“Slow, slower!” cries the soul,
yearning to feast
on eternity’s cadences
of mystery birthed in cosmic
knowledge, known colloquially as, faith.

*pronounced "ploo lahn”, means “slower” in French.

Orient

They say
that there is no need to orient,
to posture, to approach,
to follow or obey;
to prepare a soul

for that homestretch movement
into light and majesty’s domain.

The sacredness of things, they say,
is outdated and overrated,
thumbed down and ignored.

To truly be is to not try;
to become is to bend
self-will, our greatest demigod
into a posture of ignorance,
an irredeemable sin
in a sinless realm.

But I? I am a seeker,
humble sojourner,
knocker, pleader, bent-knee
crawler, prostrate thinker,
prayer-practitioner, reasoning-user;

faith-sword wielding, a counter-rebel
in a rebel’s world; living on the breath
of One from another realm,
following a sacred, incandescent star
in a starless philosopher’s gloaming darkness;

depth-plunging, truth excavator,
a slum-treading soldier sent
to counteract the ugliness
of popularity’s deceptions;

a righteousness slave
to pound the drums of freedom,
to walk in time, preparing a way
to the hallelujah chorus;

no lone crusader,
but one of many, marshaling
one another, our reverent rhythm warring

to push back the heavy veil,
to bring dawn breaking in
a wartime crescendo,
a battle cry of life and sanctification,
then-

Victory will emerge
in a global resurrection
and a universal song.

Selah.