just today, overnight,
the windows are open again
making way for crisp air
after a summer’s sticky end
long sleeves were shook out
and jeans examined for fit
while plans for soups
and groups
were agreeably sketched in mind
I will try to refuse the mums
at the grocery store
for a couple more weeks
but oh!
those peppy stems
and burning heads
do persist
And sow fields and plant vineyards, And gather a fruitful harvest. – Psalm 107:37
Indeed, the LORD will give what is good, And our land will yield its produce. – Psalm 85:12
the morning rise
a new thing sown
begin an unknown distance
I’m leaping off
the mossy cliff
and hope for slim resistance
though armed and apt
to run the route
and quiet mind mis-travels
the mellow mending
of my soul
is tempted to unravel
the milky way
of anxious thought
is wide as moon is high
but I discard
the disbelief
for ever God is nigh
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. – Isaiah 43:19
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. – Philippians 4:6
image: Susie’s Kindergarten Word of the Day, Monday 8.30.15: HOPES (and Number of the Day: 4) 🙂
how much will you tell me
about your day’s doings
your thoughts,
on their rare train of wit
your original seeings
and their vast contribution
to all that the hours permit
how much will you tell me
of what said the teacher
and friends
with their own minds aglow
will your questions
come searching
from schoolroom to doorstep
or answered by others who know
how much will you tell me
your face phosphorescent
with learning
and musings still prime
will you narrate your minutes
to this audience eager
for your tellings
and thinkings
and time
But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. – Psalm 5:11
images: Susie Blythe & her new kindergarten teacher Mr. Watson; Susie & her mama (me) 🙂
fish fins flap
and slap
against the boat
as simon peter
pulls his net
up and over:
alley-oop!
a slew sublime
of hollow thuds
and sparkling scales
mark the wet
and wondrous
catch.
And when they had brought their ships to land,
they forsook all, and followed him. – Luke 5:11
images: Miraculous Catch of Fish by Roger Garin; The Great Catch by John August Swanson
I am climbing
up thru water
higher high
delivered daughter
sparkling sun
so close to tips
of fingers stretched
and parting lips
the air is near
the sea is thinning
the surface waits
for my beginning
and yet
the shining
bubbled sky
stops before
I’ve breath to cry
and all there is
is blurry light
and changing clouds
and silent sea
as I begin
to sink despite
my shifting hips
and expertise
you’re here
and hands
with grace plunge deep
and lift me up
from trouble’s keep
I cheer and weep
atop the waves
amazed anew
at being saved
inhale indeed
I do the air
sweet oxygen
of father’s care
He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters.
– Psalm 18:16
extras worth posting:
images: Light by Sue Kemnitz; Christian Quotes; shore painting by Jurij Frey
when darkest black
befogs my soul
I perceive your light
your wondrous love
emboldens me
your spirit is my might
attacks, the shadow
with battle blow
plotting lambs astray
but oh my shepherd
your holy staff
illuminates the way
living lord
I stand in thee
against the blitz of woe
your faithfulness
and torch is true
in you I’m not alone
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. – Isaiah 12:2
alive the lamb
and so too us
and that is what we know
beyond the wake
as sea and space
is clear to those who go
but we, the dead
can’t breach the gap
and comprehend His peace
we walk in faith
imagine light
what paradise might be
the scholar’s mind
and artist’s brush
conceive of ever days
of colors new
and age no more
and none the needless pain
but all the kingdoms
we design
are feeble in the dawn
of what is true
the love and view
when last the gap is gone
This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” -Ephesians 5:14
Think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming. -CS Lewis (Collected Letters, to Mary Willis Shelburne, 28 June. 1963)
and since heaven is an irresistible and wondrous imagining, here’s a bit further:
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. -John 14:2-4 (NKJ)
But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it–made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand. -CS Lewis (The Problem of Pain, chapter 10)
and since we were given story to speak to our souls:
Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.
“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands–dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. -CS Lewis (The Last Battle, chapter 16, last paragraphs)
and since, after all, earth is a pretty great place to wait:
.
images: Mahler VIII by Paula Arciniega; home video from Florida family vacation
palm procession
Hosanna sing
a road of robes
for colt and King
the people praise
He’s here! He’s come!
our saving grace
triumphant one
the figless tree
is cursed and dead
the time of temple
is at its end
and we will eat
with Christ, a last
before our treason
comes to pass
for come it does
with blood and bruise
denied and mocked
the King of Jews
and when He dies
on nail and wood
the tapestry
is torn for good
centurion
in witness, awed
proclaims the man
the Son of God
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. Isaiah 53:3-7
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12:3
the guarded grass
beige and pressed
borders uneven sidewalk
hoping for persuasion
that temps are true
the bent blades
peak at our shoes
as we amble by
our pace
only marginally varied
as angled pavement
requires
good grass
get up, be green
the frost is past
the days at last
converge
with expectation
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11
SILVER PENNIES 