Christ and disciples
gaze from the stone tympanum —
Frozen redeemer

In darkness, a church
of carved Baroque stone
catches me walking
unawares and alone.

Two stone hands reach out
from the church outer wall.
A gesture of blessing
or a prayer for us all

in stony carved silence
that echoes the voice
of a God we can’t hear,
who stays quiet — by choice?

Just when we need
to hear they’re right here,
they feel like a veiled cloud
that is more distant than near.

Still these outstretched hands
remind me of this:
Divine’s in the touch
of human hands’ godlike gift.

Week by week, winter
clouds shroud the sun, sullen sky —
Church arch, bridge to light

The darkness of the fog
the flowers withering away
Once so full of live
Now sadness above towers
The Shows not over
Each drop leaves a scar
Soon it’ll look like a bar

It throbs and aches
It makes me remember
The unseen within
The taste of her lips
The wicked love you give
God forgive my heart
isn’t love the law

A bruise a cut a bit of blood
Hits the ground
The coldness escapes
I’ll clean up soon enough
The once blooming rising flower fields
Burn with my admire for Battlefields

Nightly I wake to the tenderness of knowing
I’m made of blood and bones
My very lifeles exilar
nothing more than a useless knife
Helps me out in the eye of the storm during my darkest nights

The pictures above
The memories in mind
I recall the beauty of your smile
Why my heart beats
Out of sync with my will
The darkness crawls in my skin
Its home is my spine
My bones may bleed a nice
place to stay away

Maybe after tonight
An uncertain event
takes my life
my dreams
my kindness
I’ll be sorry for going so soon
“I tried my best” it’s a lie
may I lay and die
without a dark thought in mind

The mason works the living stone
to shape it for its slotted place.
Pale flakes of rock fly as he hones
it to a rough-hewn sandstone face.

With chisel and mallet in granite hands
and flinty grey eyes to plumb the line,
the rock gives way in grains of sand.
He chips and flicks one blow at a time.

His fingers trace each pit and dell
that he’d worked in with his iron tools,
while nostrils fill with chalky smell —
light dust clouds through his workshop move.

As one by one his blocks are laid
by his apprentice at his side
to fill the role for which they’re made:
they’ll be joined in one more arch of pride.

More arches form as months move past
then building up to many a year:
They mark the time of a life well cast,
his mason’s mark left on each stone sheer.

Each arch arises, pointing high
to the master mason of us all,
who carves and fits in his workshop sky —
by shaping, marking us in his wall.

Then piece by piece, the church takes shape
while grains of sand from worked stones fall;
The mason, now old, his final finial makes
as falling sand an hourglass recalls.

And here I stand in centuries hence
to spot the mason’s mark he left behind,
his arches pointing upwards whence
the mason built his final shrine.

A-walking in a cobbled street,
I breathe the brittle winter air,
the crunch of frost beneath my feet.
The early hour’s sunbeams flare.
Arising in the ice-blue sky
three stone church towers stand and wait.
Their spires point to the most high
as morning sunlight splashes paint
across their well-worn windswept face.
These turrets of a sacred keep
stand silent witness, each stone traced
by time’s sharp fingers etching deep:
I hear each crack and crevice sing
a murmured prayer for us to stand
and listen to the brass bells ring
over sunlit frosted land.

Itchy white sweater
A day before December
Bells are ringing,
Ringing, singing
“Hallelujah, Hallelujah”
The people are singing
Commotion and speed walking, don’t be late!
The first day of advent,
2 lowly snowflakes falling
Too early,
And they disintegrate into the cement.
Statues of angles, and Jesus, our savior.
The bells stop ringing
And begins, “Our father who art in heaven..”
My tongue knows what to say
But we are all silent in our sin
Sinning, remorse.
Then, miraculously
He cries
Or maybe it’s a she
A Little baby.
But their cry gives a weight to the words
“Our kingdom come”
Faces turn, including mine, all guilty
While the one crying has nothing on their record.
“Thy will be done”
Their mother is smiling, stressed, shushing her bundle of joy
Who’s singing sweetly for them, for us.
Crying, pouting
Peace in the innocence of her tears
Like those 2 little snowflakes that came alone, brave
Before their harsh, downcast winter storm
“As we forgive those,”
Voices fade
“Who trespass against us”
And light pours upon the sweet child
Loving arms hold her tight, away from everything around.
Time moves fast.
“And lead us not into temptation..”
Their cry becomes desperate, louder
The mother is pleading, “shh, shh, it’s okay.”
And I die inside.
Little baby sneezes
Then pouts, again.
The cry, carrying the problems of all
Every insult,
“But deliver us from evil.”
Every regret.
“Amen.”
Every forced smile and somber moment.
And everything sits down,
All the stars in the sky,
For the poor, poor child.
No worry in those eyes,
I wish she wouldn’t stop crying
For the evil in the world.
My heart cries along with her
And together we are reassured that love exists.
“Hallelujah,
Hallelujah.”

The copper dome
of this domus Dei
provides a home
where I may in silence stay.

Beyond its great doors,
a sea of candles like a hearth.
The cool marble floor
reflects the roof mosaic’s warmth.

In this vast space
my silence softly echoes
and in my vault vibrates
a secret libretto.

In sleet and rain of Edinburgh
a cathedral rises from the deeps.
The salt of sea and old coal blur
veil her face in grey-cast sheets.

On her western pediment
within tympanum carved of stone
sits Christ triumphant and in judgement
where he calls us all to atone.

I stand before him, my head bowed
as I contemplate our shared guilt,
with mea culpas weighing on my brow
for the follies fallen man has built.

And so we’re burning Eden down
with flaming swords that we still wield
as once vast forests shrink and brown
and fallow lie once verdant fields.

Where trees once stood, smokestacks rear
their heads belching fumes up high
and in the deeps, the oceansphere’s
no more a garden for octopi.

For in this our earthly commonweal
that was a gift that’s given free
we prove that purgatory’s real
because we ourselves have made it be.

A whisper came from the carved face
to walk into this stony womb
where colored light and incense trace
a path to overcome the gloom:

Forgiveness for our many faults
comes when we change our ways.
There in this temple’s holy vault
I vow to fight Eden’s decay.

In Edinburgh I found Eden
in a vision of what can be.
For we are by no means beaten
and we can do it, you and me.