Category Archives: Poetry

Out The Window Of The Montreat Church

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Stained glass windows – milky –
Open on old-timey hinges,
Mingling hallowed and hillside air;
Still, this air is sacred,
Sanctified by the day and the Word preached on it.

How many elbows have touched on this smooth pew’s armrest?
How many worshippers sitting still and thoughtful,
Up against the mica-rock wall,
One ear to the messenger, and one to baby voices;
A sailor dress and smocked yellow ducks in the church yard?

How many Sabbath eyes looking inward
Have also looked out that lovely rectangle
At mountain?
At rock stack, at stem, at glint and sloped green glory,
And found messenger and mountain fellow choristers?

How many work-clad bodies come to the mountain
And to this stone sanctuary
From hot valleys,
Seeking water,
And finding it, like all who came before.

God is on mountains.
I have known this.

~

          07072016132934-2 (dragged)                07072016132934-2 (dragged) 1
Adrienne and Eliza, Montreat, NC, Summer 1996

Thorn And Rose

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DSCN5531Like thorn and rose,
I learn that I need
More mercy than I’ll ever understand,
And that in the very learning
I am gifted all the mercy I’ll ever need;

The same lips in the same prayer can say
“I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving,”
And
“I am poor and needy;
Hasten to help me, O God,
Do not delay!”

The heart must hold Him as pattern
But first as One and Only.

And the paradox of thorn and rose
Is set in this one life
Overseen by our one God
And there is only one thing to do
With what seems like two things.

One them.

One them like God incarnate.
One them as two beams made one cross.
One them as thorn became crown, shame became glory.
One them as justice and mercy kissed
In one red flow.

One them beyond confusion or doubt,
Until every thorn is gauzed by petal,
Until it is a song.