A Believer's Journal

Fie on you craven chieftains
Who send young folk to war
Your fevered dreams and ignorant schemes
Mock the wisdom that held before
Your silvery tongues keep wagging
As you unleash the awful roar
Of myriad murdering missiles
Leaving hell only wanting more.

Fie on you flattered fools
Your choices rash and imperious
Heedless of law and gleefully smug
Your motives murky and odious
The bodies of graybeards and gay little girls
Lie shattered amid the detritus
The world you thrust into turmoil untold
Our common fate precarious.

Fie on you belligerent bullies
Boastful and bloated and vain
May history judge you rightly
Though now its lessons you disdain
The bitter cost in bodies and blood
And trust we’ll toil to regain
Is borne with unflagging hope
That one day we’ll shed this bane.

It coalesces on the glistening icicle,
halved ovoid
tiny and translucent
but formed of myriad melting molecules
more in number than the stars in the sky

It clings tenuously to the slender stalactite
resisting gravity’s irresistible pull
gently pulsating
as it slides millimeter by millimeter
down the shimmering ice

It pauses at the sparkling spear’s tip
gathering its now swelling self
waning winter
suspended tantalizingly
before falling through the still frigid air

It falls and is gone
disappeared into the trampled snow
that single drop of water
dazzling in its rapturous descent
now unseen but ever remembered

sing
let all that lives in your heart break forth
sing joy and sorrow and yearning
sing hope and horror and believing
sing love and loss and longing
sing triumph and tragedy and trusting
just sing

sing
let all that lives in your heart break forth
let your song paint with clarion colors
let your song dance with shimmering swirls
let your song persuade with spellbinding speech
let your song delight with mellifluous music
just sing

sing
let all that lives in your heart break forth
so that creation will not be left empty and void
so that truth will not be left unspoken
so that divides will not be left uncrossed
so that God will not be left unpraised
just sing

November winds flail slender grey branches
glittering umber leaves tenaciously hanging on
arms of the hoary birch swirling
in a frenetic autumn dance

November winds roil turgid blue green waters
flecked foam frolicking down the bay
rhythmic eruptions of brilliant white
under a steel-grey sky

November winds drive the ebbing tide
battering sun-bleached boulders unflinching
as surging splashes of splendiferous spray
caress their sea-worn shoulders

November winds rouse my listless spirit
shouting the glories of an untameable world
wild and wonderful beautiful and holy
still and ever my home

smash crash shatter crinkle
o glorious sound
plate glass
exploding splintering scattering
into seven thousand
sparkling shards

it came from my foot
the doer of the deed
beloved soccer ball
hexagonal panels black and white
launched in a graceful arc
off the scrubby green grass

it was a beautiful boot
consummate corner kick
soaring from sidewalk’s edge
past the cherry tree and
his stretched out arms
into the doomed window

he was there of course
my sao paulo buddy
constant companion
doing our best
to best each other
in math or football

Mrs. Kocsis
called him “Dick”
called me “Tater”
telling us that one day
we would rule the world
or. at least, her sixth-grade classroom

it was our fathers
who brought us together
grad students they in
psychology and microbiology
planting their families
in married students’ housing

bound by love
of the beautiful game
of quadratic equations and binomials
we bridged divides of
language and culture
the very best of friends

so we were there
that fateful afternoon
sharing the joy
if not the shame
(that was all mine)
of that most magnificent kick

(After watching two adults and a child walking down the spit of sand off the Deer Isle Causeway exposed by the receding tide)

Take my hand
as we walk the sandy strand
left behind by ebbing tide
tickling toes with mussel shells
while licking the salt off our lips
wholly enveloped in the unspeakable wonder
of this holy moment

Take my hand
as we stand transfixed
beneath the moonless sky
silently counting the countless stars
while casting our spirits into the night
utterly gobsmacked by the trackless void
of an overwhelming emptiness

Take my hand
as we sit enraptured
attent the twirling dancer
improbably poised on pointed toe
her hand making heart-rending entreaty
transported therewith to a rapturous haven
of ineffable grace

Take my hand
as we come to the table
praying our thanks and desires
bearing the burden of unabated dismay
over multiplied evils and calumnies
holding fast to the solitary hope
of an unwavering faith

Take my hand
as I lie in my bed
shadows slowly subsuming
remembering an awe-filled existence
all of it vouchsafed to you
wanting nothing now but the touch
of your tender hand

O Cassandra, Cassandra
You speak only the truth
But no one believes you
Preferring instead the
Balm of our ignorance

Unheeding your warnings
Only sycophants esteeming
We turn a blind eye while
Clinging to the lie
That flatters

The sky is falling the
Little chicken said
But what if it were true
Falling sky
Rising ocean

We paint our prophets as
Little chickens whose
Strident squawking so
Rudely intrudes on
Contented lives

Our soothsayers we judge as
Silly women spouting
Nonsense while good sense
Cries out as if in the wilderness
Unheard

O Cassandra, Cassandra
You speak only the truth
But no one believes you
Preferring instead the
Balm of our ignorance

cloud roiled sky
turquoise ocean
a trio of cormorants
silhouetted against the horizon

proud heads raised
on bent black necks
serenely surveying
their watery kingdom

inscrutable imperturbable
standing tall on rugged rock
their pose not fleeting
but a cipher of eternity