Fences
Some people build fences
to keep others out,
while others build fences
to keep themselves in.
All that can be done is to
gently place a gift
at their gate, and hope
somehow it is seen, as
through pretty, pastel curtains
they discreetly peek…
Luke 6:29-30
("If Someone Takes Your Coat,
Let Him Have Your Shirt as Well")
Why would the soldiers
at the foot of His Cross have wanted
to cast lots for His cloak,*
imprinted with bright-red blood and
sweat and sputum as it was?
It was as if Jesus allowed it,
even at the precipice and point of His
peering over the imminent
cliff of death, that His
one remaining garment be
parted from Him and shared by His
executioners for warmth.
Gethsemane
(“Not My Will but Your Will Be Done”) *
…Alone now,
suffocatingly alone,
squeezing Jesus’ chest but
soon scourging every inch of His back,
Jesus’ temptation at its most
vulnerable peak,
nothing but the sounds of
His disciples asleep,
critically unable their lids to lift
and eyes open to keep,
the penultimate test of His will,
His followers blending
and fading invisibly into the
utter blackness of
the night, becoming part
of the stark silence
of immense isolation
enclothing Him, no more
Voice from the heavens as at the
rapture of the Baptism
on the Jordan, or when
boomed the Majesty of His
Father at the glorious
Transfiguration on
Mount Tabor, just Jesus’
agonized pleas in a
pool of red in the sweat
of His blood, and the
dawning knowledge His Father
had determined there
would be no remitting of the
nails and terrors of
Golgotha’s morning
Cross…
Winter
Winter Prayer
O Lord, please close the
eyes and ears of my soul to mammon’s
every whisper and murmur.
How can I mirror Your perfect image
and likeness, if behind
my own rolled stone lies my
flesh as master?
Winter Writing
And thus, I return to my
writing, after a hiatus in autumn
lasting into winter, a soul
appearing adrift amongst the lost…
but maybe never far gone,
but rather more like Saint Paul –
restored at cold night to my
bridled, waiting horse.
Ode to Jesus
So much of You
is mystery,
so much of You is
Bethlehem stable and
Calvary Cross.
So much of You
is shadow,
so much of You is
Light o’ercoming doubt
of Thomas.