I.

Unraveling through everything
a road, a journal, a pathway
cutting through the thorn-
bush of clouded pasts,

intersecting my heart -

This is where everything began:
crowding cacophonous like
a hundred songs of birds
nestling home at dusk

roosting come memories:

II.

Had I not run barefooted here
those many years ago; had I
not cultivated that sodden
impetuousity here:

riding motorcycles in rain;

Haunting the blood throbbing
in my veins; what if I had done
something about those
flushed glances

set to missed heartbeats?

III.

Deer lurk in the shadows of grey
leaves: shadowy creatures stalk
on the high branches where
peace reigns among mists;

Ending in a clearance,

that rugged patch in the wood,
where an eternal storyteller
signs off: a form ripples
reflected on the secret lake

I see grace reflected.

Lone bower of hope in my desert life, spread bare
like pathos, against verdant wood, in this dripping rain,
prayer raised to the grey skies, like a late evening
streak of light holding out brave against engulfing pain:
Lone well in the deep forest, in fogging-wet winds,
refuge of abandoned stalks, music of waning seasons,
this waltz of love plays out amid the melancholy
ends of my choices, joy-stream of the drying fountain
when the chorus of crickets drowns the rhythm of rain.

There in that crevice, in that corner
buried in horror and humiliation:

a broken resolve, a frozen dream;

waiting in resurrection, guiding
us on, that still small voice
in the wilderness of the heart
that just never gets smothered.

There is a risen Lord in all of us, waiting
waiting to tide over, waiting to cross over;

Yes He finds us, when unsteady

faith is rocking in a hundred storms,
walking on the waters. Yes
the sea of Galilee is indeed here;
When in awe we sit by the doors

of that right reverend,
or that elevated achiever,

He allows our tears to wash his feet,

our hair to dry them up
and pours His simple love out;
He revives the dead in us; Yes,
He is death revived,

the resurrected Truth in us, the
eternal Hope of an unfamished fragrance.

Smouldering pain of ancient harboured, in the heart inflamed
of a passion, amassed whole of suffering earth nestled in your breast,
came alive in her who mastered the seven realms, whose
aspiration ardent brought down in that simpleton, grace that
poured forth like a pitcher upturned on this world enamoured of death.

Ah, that simpleton who never could fathom caprice that condones
commerce in the very heart of the temple of justice, the virtue and sin
the learned uphold that cannot see in the neighbour's fall,
ones own, or how if the father that birthed the world is divine,
his children be brutes or kin of daemons that deserve stoning to death?

O Magdala, Magdala, your daughter weeps today!

A drop of blood dries the sands today, heavens weep in the tears
silent of she who stands by the cross today, even abandoned by those
for whom he gave so much; In the still dark night grace walked
the stormy water; and Lazarus returns from wherefore who knows;
A husbandsman reads and answers doubts in minds of learned pharisees.

For every whiplash cast was cast on the earth wide. Every insult
taunted the winds draping your arms. That girdle of thorns, mother,
was placed indeed on your mourning heart. When the cross
ascended slicing the firmament, heavens were mute to your pain,
lama sabachtani, sabachtani, grieves the earth unto the empty, parted skies.

O Magdala, Magdala, your daughter weeps today!

There is a passion that rends the skies
dark of pain, to thunder forth
in this suffering world;

Grace that rains and brings forth
an oasis of refuge in this
world weak of flesh;

The spirit rises weighed on the cross
by the suffering inflicted in place
of Barabbases, thousands.

In the dunes of the desert, a call echoes:
husbandsman, tinkerman, everyman,

Never mind the pharisees;
The spirit to the letter is moon
to the mirage.

Weighed down by the burden of life,
you who have been told you deserve
nothing more than the dirt of the earth
you sinner, you sufferer,

A passion calls forth to you. So difficult
indeed is to see the father, aye,
lawmongers, enough for us to see
this humble son of a carpenter here;

O you crushed
under the wagon wheels of time
taste that love by which you are
before Abraham was.
Come, be pillars
in the mansion of your father;

Tiller toiling away in the sweat of life,
you on whose shoulders walk
the sweet-talking liars
who yet enthroned say
you are worth
only more taxation,

You can part waters. You are a miracle.
You drive away ghosts. You can
call the dead to life. Yet you are
love and see no difference
in Mary from Mary,

a secret ocean at the shore of an oasis
to drink of, until we are here
as He is in heaven.

Heaven for us to see and live here
not some unknowable hereafter.

Pro-

Photo-frame on the wall,
beautifully adorned.
Empty.

Snap your hero in.

-logue

Never mind their foibles;
Every fault is just a small weakness
when found in the otherwise great.

Dying to deify,
we are itching to sanctify;

Castigation unabashed,
but, for the struggling everyman.

What if we will never find
another son of a carpenter
who will die preaching love?

Epi-*

In a world starved of messiahs
ready always to worship ever
but be, never,

iconoclasts are icons;

Sentimental impossibilities
in the language of hope
aye, fete-worthy acceptables.

There is a song that skins remember.
A line that resounds in silences.
A form the heart revisits
in fervid recollections.

That you must not speak,
that you must not speak.

Silences can ****.
No need to ask Crusoe.

Stars that explode in suicide:
From aeons of tortuous silences,
from distant companions,
silently cold.

Yes, our silences talk. Sorry, this
was not how it was supposed to be.
Strains of there we go again.

Gulfs of empty spaces between
silent vales, that birth the
mourning winds.

Murmurs leap out like dolphins
out of our silences.

Waiting to hear each other. Past
the dirge at the grave of my errors.