One Begotten

Once I saw nesting
like fine woven glass
low on a pine bough
in a cradle of green

a tiny perfection,
unique as each man,
a crystalline symmetry
formed by the hand

of a masterful artist
whose invisible brush
had seemingly swept
with a mystical gust

and a magical breath
clear across the blue lake
whose mellifluous heart
formed each lonesome snowflake.

A Measure

The pine wood boards were washed in egg-shell white.
Soon they would rise to brighten bedroom walls
of lavender. Green ferns would nestle tight
in faded terra-cottas bought in malls
from Barcelona's RAMBLA. Old World clay
we bought ten years before melds with our home,
small tokens fashioned for these shelves. "The way
that life should be", I say. A taste of Rome

or wisps of Spain now spread themselves around
our place in Florida. They comfort me
with memories I would never wish to trade
or chase away. That is the way I've found
to measure a thing's value worthily,
and know to keep or toss back in the sea.

first published in the Chimaera - Summer '08

Mood Rings

I'm tethered in the moment to a mood,
its shadow cast beyond penumbral light,
a bract of purple-green on blackish blue.
Some guy made rings that measured things with hues
around the time that Armstrong swept the moon
collecting rocks into his gunnysack.

With outstretched hands he gazed toward the earth
now tiny as a marble in its form,
its night lights splaying psychedelic blooms
reminiscent of the time when Hendrix played
his strange guitar strings. Flower-children swayed
and turned in round-a-bouts of scattered gloom.

It's all about escape, each trip we make;
a search for love in war’s long interlude.

Sympathy for God

Imagine that He is
but has no father or mother,
no one to whom He must answer,
yet no one to whom He may inquire.

Imagine that He is spirit
with power to create bodies,
both terrestrial and celestial,
yet cannot be reduced to a body
because He gives life to every body.

Imagine that He is Agape-Love
bound by the essence of ultimate purity,
yet He is opposed
by all sentient beings
who cannot comprehend Him
or understand His true intentions,
nor can His creatures help their lack of understanding
without His help, His love, His grace,
His granting of wisdom
to those who seek wisdom.

Imagine being God
and desiring fellowship with sentient beings
made in His likeness.

We were taught that God needs nothing and no one,
but perhaps He needed us
in order that His joy be made full.

God WAS, and IS
yet did not and does not want to BE alone!

Imagine creating such beings
without creating robots
who can only comprehend their own god-like-ness
by being made subject to sorrow and death.

Imagine that those He subjected to death,
(in order that He could convey the glory of life and righteousness and goodness),
were mostly confused by His dilemma,
or unresponsive, uninterested, unappreciative of the glory of His being
or even worse - thought him cruel or non-existent.

Imagine God wanting to be loved and understood
to the same degree that you and I want
to be loved and understood.

Imagine.

Furvy

I have uncovered
a newly discovered
fact...

Concerning the reason our rugs
never stay in tact:

Our cats are all furverts,
they claw just like perverts;
all things soft or fuzzy they've hacked!

Tears of Sleeping Beauty

"This is but one of several 'versions' of this poem..."

Moths drink the tears from eyes of sleeping birds.
The same is true of certain butterflies.
Sometimes the facts sound much like pretty lies
that poet's choose for loveliness of words.
I've wondered if the strangest things in life
exist just for the sake of poetry,
as if God knew that surely we would be
in desperate need of things that take a knife

to all the sorrow in this veil of death.
Without such wonders we might not endure
this world of pain. In beauty there is grace.
Perhaps for every sadness there's a breath
of love - and in the end all things are pure
as virtues etched in Christ's angelic face.

_________________<3____________________

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10826"
***"Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds"

Summer Scene

I like a veil of leaves on summer grass.
Their absence shows the path where I have mown.
And as I turn to cut another pass,
it feels as though I've hemmed the season's gown.
The golden-brown confetti on my lawn,
kaleidoscopic through the summer haze
is like a printed fabric soon withdrawn
reminiscent of my passing youthful phase.

De Tails

"Don't fret about your prickly thorns,"
said the devil to the rose -
"I'd be quite lost without my horns!"
Such things as these, all heaven knows.

CAT TRICK

I have a disappearing cat
who loves to play in snow.
He doesn't need a magic hat
to carry on his show.

Because, you see, his fur is white
from ear tips down to claw.
He does a trick that's out of sight
until the noon-day thaw.

Lavender Blue Haze

Butterflies in a cage of emotion,
longing to be free, calling out with the notion
that inexistent is the key. - Michel Dargis -1996

Poem temporarily missing, pending publication rejection notice :-)