“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

Crying for wrongs that can never be right
      or for those who have left you alone,
Counting your trespasses, weeping, contrite,
      when the news of the day makes you groan.

Sorrow for evil, lamenting injustice,
     bemoaning the state of mankind,
Earnestly troubled, concerned and nonplussed
     at the mess we are leaving behind.

You are the fortunate, all you who mourn;
     oh, yes, you are the blesséd who grieve.
Though you are stricken, distressed and forlorn,
     Yet your Comforter’s here to relieve.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Because you understood your lack,
Your deficit of soul,
You held aloft your empty sack
To Heaven’s welfare dole.

Though others said, “I have no need,
I’m rich forevermore.”
--(Not knowing that their state, indeed
Was wretched, blind, and poor)--

You looked within your heart, perceived
Your insufficiency,
And Heaven’s Kingdom you received
To end your poverty.

“The sum is greater than its parts,” or so the saying goes.
And now the two of us see proof of that as each one grows,
Distinct but similar in code, the perfect mix and match
Of you and me but with a little extra in each batch.

You gave your chromosomes, all twenty-three, and I gave mine:
That nose like yours, those eyes like mine, his humor, her hairline.
The two became one, yes it’s true, that one plus one is one,
But each of us gave more than us to daughter and to son.

For isn’t that your Uncle Bob we hear in boyish joke,
My grandma’s fingers on the keys our daughter can evoke?
A cousin’s art, your father’s songs, Aunt Margaret’s detail--
We see and hear and sense them all; our children tell their tale.

But still there’s more; it’s not heredity alone they bear,
Not just genetic predetermination that they share.
For parts of them go further than we trace from you or me,
Those aspects that can’t find a match in recent history.

Original in talent, passion, attitude, and mien,
Each child is now a prototype the world has never seen,
Once Breath from Heaven animated life within each cell.
Their DNA and heritage were just an earthly shell.

Remember when we held them, small, in wonder and in awe
That mortal hands could hold eternal souls, so new, so raw?
We knew then as we know it now, the honor of our place
Our sum, as parents, greater than our parts, by far, by grace.

Leaven, Part One


Transfigured from within, though I don’t know
The moment when the sponge infused the dough.
It must have happened, though, because I see
The end result, as different as can be
From flattened lump I mixed not long ago.

Exposure to the yeast began, first slow
‘Til I divided and commenced to throw
And knead each piece, and then to watch all three
Transfigured from within.

Was it the pounding, shaping, every blow
I worked into each batch that made it grow?
Or was it just the presence or degree
Of leaven in my pastry that was key
To making lifeless mass now overflow--
Transfigured from within.


Leaven, Part Two


Transfigured from within, this lump of clay
But not because I made myself obey.
Instead, the difference that I see outside
Came when that kingdom started to reside
Inside my soul, as I believed the Way.

I cannot tell you minute, hour, or day
When leaven from Above suffused to stay.
I only know that I’ve been modified,
Transfigured from within.

Was it the pounding pain that made me pray?
The kneading, shaping, Holy interplay?
Or was it just the presence, amplified,
Of Word expanding where my old man died?
This loaf, when proofed, those workings will display:
Transfigured from within.

How silent that arena, unlit space,
The waters swirling, boundless, without form.
Each shapeless mass still waiting for its face,
Suspended life, the calm before the storm.
When suddenly a Voice above was heard--
To animate the void with just His Word.

That Word made Matter, Space, Duration, Light,
And yet we knew within that substance dwelt
Immortal Wisdom, barely veiled from sight
Right there, encountered, tasted, heard, and felt.
A Holy God made manifest to all
By shrouding Glory in an earthly shawl.

Eternity embodied, set in time,
Enclosed in carbon, dust, in flesh and blood,
Each consonant now striking measured chime
To halt the vowel, staunch its endless flood.
God’s amaranthine thought seized by the host
Of endings and beginnings, least and most.

Long after that first Word wound up the clock
Long after grand Infinity was bound
In casing corporeal, God took stock,
And once again, from Heaven came a Sound:
Another Word to demonstrate His love,
The Son: incarnate Wisdom from above.

Thus age-old Truth, once cloaked in mystery
--Creation’s fixed ontology, well-known--
Could teach the Father’s plan for history
Within a mortal frame just like our own.
A Translator to speak so we could hear--
The Word, told in our mother-tongue, now clear.

Today that story’s told in pages worn,
The message free for those with ears to hear,
Of both the times Infinitude was born,
Once in our cosmos, once our human peer.
And I have held that Word within my hand,
And read, and learned, and come to understand.

The pattern on the underside confused
By snarl and tangle, jumbled, twisting knot.
Its warp and woof constructed without thought
It seems: the flawless linen now infused
With spots of wreckage--perfect weave abused.
“A waste of thread,” I cry, upset, distraught,
And try to pluck the mess now sewn in taut,
Then see the Eye that watches me, amused--
Whose Hand now turns the underside to light.
Amazed, I view a matchless, pristine shawl,
Embroidered dosser, interlaced with shine
That stirs me as I contemplate the sight
Of faultless weft, undamaged after all.
Eternity alone discerns design.

Pilate asked Him, “What is truth?” when Jesus stood on trial,
Bearing witness of the Truth to all who heard His voice.
Though philosophy rejected it, stood in denial,
Still, the Way, the Truth, the Life allowed mankind its choice.

“What is truth?” though, sounds urbane, superior to law.
Hermeneutics of humility smooths out the field.
I seem more sophisticated, cultured, not bourgeois,
If it’s all a mystery, still hidden, unrevealed.

So I claim, “There are no absolutes; it’s relative,”
Disregarding that my statement’s antithetical.
My assertion controverts itself (though tentative),
By proclaiming proclamations “theoretical.”

Next I try, “Who really knows what truth is, after all?”
All my friends agree with me; they wisely nod, concur.
Confident in doubt, with inconsistency banal,
Logic cast aside, to diametrics they demur.

How about “There is no right or wrong; it’s in your head!”
Satisfying concept until I’m the one abused.
Then my default is to judge the wrongdoer instead,
Never asking, “Why impose my ‘truth’ on the accused?”

“Well,” I claim, “I make my own reality; it’s true.”
If you counter me on that, I’ll argue all the way.
Think about it, though, because just how can I undo
True belief with skepticism; how will doubt have sway ?

Really, if I don’t have Truth, I don’t have anything.
Two plus two must equal four, or all the rest is void.
If we have no premise to employ linguistic string,
Then our discourse has no point; we’re barely humanoid.

Truth’s the binding to our book, the glue that holds secure
Logic, Reason, plain Consistency, our common ground,
Making possible each conversation to be sure,
Infrastructure of our culture, verity profound.

Then . . .
Let the relativist hush, he has no argument.
Making absolutist claims without the Truth is mad.
Only schizophrenics would attempt to circumvent
Rationale with their subjective unbelieving fad.

Maybe Truth’s “behind the times,” unstylish, square, uncool,
Maybe if I cling to it they’ll call me “Simpleton.”
All I know is Truth, derided, under ridicule
Still is True, and I’ll be its “minority of one.”

Yes, I’ll make that choice to speak the Truth against the tide.
Orwell’s “revolutionary act,” though I’m alone,
Pilate asked Him, “What is truth?” and history replied, . . . that
Truth, though spurned, remains civilization’s Cornerstone.