Category Archives: Poems

The Light and the Challenge

In the blazing heat
the trees and grasses golden;
they are candleflame and firelight.

In the shimmering cold
the frogs and crickets amplify;
they are thunderclap and echo.

In the winding cave
the dripstone spikes lengthen
into mountain and valley

where the heat blinds and the cold paralyzes,
the climb and the cliff wear and scatter,
abandonment and fright surround;

I can not see, and yet I know
the living light that radiates within,
illuminates the cracks and begs me to begin.

“Any man who follows me will not be walking in the dark: he will have the light of life, says the Lord.” (John 8:12; Universalis)

The Immeasurable

My days are measured in stacks of clothes and dishes,
morning passing into night through plates of food and containers of water.
I remember yesterday in the deliciousness of re-warmed stew;
I see the future in little pajama-shirts I will never fold again.

My children’s days are measured in the cards they will play
and the apple crisp they will enjoy – what they will get to do before bedtime –
not often in what they have done, rarely in what they are doing.
Questions:  “When it’s time…?”  Declarations:  “When I’m older….”

My God’s days are measured in gifts of love,
sacrifices of sleep, of time, of self.
Beyond even the certainty of sunrise,
he packs together, shakes down, overflows.