I am holey,
not holy.
At best an imperfect vessel
bearing light and darkness
sometimes winning
but real good at sinning.

I wonder whether
the best I can do
is hope for a rendezvous
to touch and suffer together
in a place we linger where
we breathe common air
fresh and vital and bracing.
Maybe I’ll always be racing
from the desert
into your arms
to exchange our passion
to abide,
me all holey
and you a mountain stream
flowing with melted snow,
me trying to capture
some of that clear water
that will leak slow
back into the flow.
But there we will be
us in good and bad weather
but in love and together.

Justice, justice
You lay sweetly upon our souls
this morning
after the turmoil.
I wish you were not so rare a visitor.

Being here in this creative moment
shows me the power
residing inside of me
if I but pause in silence
or on the wings of soft music
and abide in this space
for just a little while.
Sigh.

A bank of fog
lays snugly upon the river
like a soft white halo
kissing the morning hello.

So few times this month
have I wandered into your soul.
I know you are waiting for me.
I know your heart yearns for my arrival
but I am too lost
in this world
until I come to this quiet place
and sit peacefully here
and wait for your still small voice.
Only then do I discover  
the grand canyon
where your great soul echoes and humbly abides
waiting patiently for me inside.

Oh how I miss these moments in you
the times I come here far too few.
When I’m out and about drifting
as if it mattered,
my mind off-target and scattered
lights here and there in nothing
in smoke and dust
randomly finding a sprig of life
spotting in shadows a beam of light
and if I am lucky
that faint spark wakes
and reminds me I was made for you
you – a glint inside my breast
a piece of the universe compressed
an atom ready to be split
ready to explode
to expand
and soar.

I got to wondering today
if I am an old dog
who can’t be taught new tricks
if that windmill going round and round
catching the wind between the blades
is really who I am,
if the universe surges
into the spaces still left in me,
if it is trying to wake the music
yet alive inside
in the curves of my heart,
if the blood pulsing there refuses to go down
in one grave path
and insists on a symphony of swerve
an inclination in a new direction.
If that breeze is really grace
then maybe I am being reborn
a puppy full of life
eager to be all the dog it can be.

I hear the wind
whipping through the freshly-leafed elm
its long sonorous undulating chord
is as light as sunbeams
as alive as the spring saps
rushing wildly up the redbud and pear
eager to burst out of their limbs
into green glory.