Rebirth
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments
The stone tablets were
Laid bare on the hot desert floor,
Heat radiating off them
Unmercifully, their inscriptions
Indelible but their verses
Too radioactive for fingers
To trace and explore…
Their Commandments were
Simple, but the words
Interpreted so harsh, first
Given on the holy heights of a
Mountain, but carried
Back down into the valley
Where its gorge emptied into the
Yawning well of a parched fountain…
So rigorous the stone tablets
Seemed, so unyielding in
Their demands, so heavy to
Carry, so burdensome
On shoulders already
Stooped by the land…but
Then a new translation
Came along, the intent of the
Commandments still to be fully
Met, but the hardness
Of the tablets softened by a
Yoke of Love to help
Them to be lifted…as if
The Balm of Gilead was applied
Retroactively to when the
Tablets were first cast, and
Was now mixing with the Potter’s
Original ingredients – the
Yeast of the Cornerstone to
Secure them fast…
The Moment
As if on command,
An angel flapped her wings,
As if on command, another angel
Clapped his hands, and so
Light spread shadow-by-shadow
Across the dry valley, and
Wisdom shone where had stood
Desert sands…such a
Revelation, a revelation of
Almighty, moving might,
Given to ears that heard it,
Given to eyes which saw its form…
And given also when was thought,
“Is this real or is this not?!”
New Wine
Click for meditationRegarding "New Wine"
In the Gospels, Jesus
Teaches His followers about
A transformative and revolutionary
Way to renew their spiritual
Lives — to “love thy neighbor as thyself,”
And in so doing to gently satisfy
The letter of the Law.
Jesus taught a liberating
Theology of how to
Live a good life, and when
Questioned He told the
Famous parable about the
Good Samaritan, to clarify the
Meaning of the word, “neighbor,” i.e.,
Anyone we encounter along
The pathway of life.
Jesus said that to accept
This new teaching would be to
Take on His “yoke,” which He
Metaphorically visualized
As a burden “light.”
All we had to do was to
Relate to our neighbors as if
They were a manifestation
Of ourselves, and to treat them
The very same way we
Would like to be treated.
And thus, the Gospels outline
A soothing yoke to be put
Upon the fragile shoulders
Of humanity – just like
Newly fallen snow kissing the
Faces of pansies in an
Easter Week planter,
Beauty upon beauty, Love
Upon love, Divinity upon divinity,
And Creation upon creation.
Leo Carroll
June 29, 2020
New Wine
And so was heard,
“The yoke I give you is easy, and
The load I will put upon
You is light,” and across the
Waters and continents
Blew the Word, and at that
Moment the pansies
Knew by the new-fallen
Snow they would not be hurt…
And so they confidently looked up –
Easter petals lain up’n by an
Overnight, fresh snow –
Beauty gently placed
Up’n beauty, Love up’n love,
Divinity up’n divinity, and
Snowflakes up’n pansies from
Heav’n to earth bestowed.
New Wineskins
After the snow
Came the beauty, but I never
Expected it would be in
The form of words…But rather just
The honor of fulfilling duty,
But not the Balm of Gilead to
Assuage the hurt…
Blue Poppy
Click for meditationRegarding "Blue Poppy"
O’ how almighty science
And religion have grappled with the
Creation story of how we have
Come to be…but still the universe remains so
Unexplainable, so unimaginable, for
Our mere minds to grasp or comprehend
Or amongst ourselves agree…
I wonder about this, have daydreamed of it while lying in
A field of milkweed pod in Maine, or staring out
At some incoming tide on Plum Island
While blew a wild February spray,
And always my thoughts return to
What Is the real truth…? Some people say the
Universe is explained in the esoteric
Equations of mathematics, while others claim
The answer lies simply in the faith of
The world’s major religions, their ancient
Tenets long-entrenched in our minds by
Rote learning and fiat…But every
Once in a while I see something in
Nature which is as rational as any higher
Explanation…And thus spoke to me a
Pennsylvania blue poppy, caught in the act of
An explosion of Beauty, and whispering
With the authority of an ever-expanding bloom —
Hopefully mercifully on its way to my
Perception of somewhere…
Leo Carroll
May 9, 2020
In perfect Beauty,
As if giving birth from the womb in
The Creator’s amniotic choice of heavenly-blue,
An effusion of stardust is caught
Beginning its eternal journey
To the undefined reaches of
Somewhere, shot from the muzzle
Of a blue poppy and giving an
Alter-story to the Creation
Saga in Genesis, and also portraying the
Big Bang as more gentle than the
Sterile hardness of mathematics,
But more like the softness found in the
Underbelly of nature, as seen
In the silent authority of a flower
Speaking without fear.
Bottle Rock
Click for meditationRegarding "Bottle Rock"
In the frenetic world we live,
It is almost impossible to
Take a timeout to catch a breath…
To recalibrate…to reset, to
Just breathe and not worry about
What comes next…There is,
However, a wonderful place in the
Woods of Maine. It is bare-boned in
Appearance, but is a spot of
Stabilizing, spiritual reassurance.
It is located near a quicksand
Swamp and within a stone’s
Throw of centuries-old, colonial-era
Rock walls. And, all of this
Enclosed by thick woods…It is
An ancient, glacial boulder
Which one day an ice
Sheet got tired of pushing!
And there it still sits, and
On the day of this poem was
Covered in snow, but in other years
Was where I sat with a friend
To talk but mostly just to feel the
Silence…and on one day was
Rewarded when a snow owl
Alighted and watched us
Quench our thirst with a beer,
And then solemnly bury the two
Bottles ‘neath leaves where
We could revisit them every year.
As it says in the Creation story in the
Book of Genesis, “God saw
That it was good,” and so it still
Is in Morrill, Maine, where a simple
Boulder provides an enduring
Backdrop for remembrance and
Resurrection and friendship.
And it stands where for
Millennia it has stood,
Where a glacier got tired
And Yahweh said, “This is good.”
Leo Carroll
January 14, 2020
Blank stares the old rock,
Plain in its face but wizened and hoary
In its thought, secluded, not
Far from a quicksand swamp, but a
Safe haven, simple in looks, and
Faithful, too, dependably strong against
What the world would throw,
Always there, an anchor against
Cascading, overwhelming change,
A place where two sets of
Shoulders could sit and lean and
To the rock not have to explain, and
Where a snow owl in agreement
Was once seen to alight, and
Witness a toast being raised and
Then two bottles beneath leaves
Being laid, where year after year they
Could be revisited and
Resurrected…
Summer Daydreaming
Click for meditationRegarding "Summer Daydreaming"
I love that little Maine
Beach where I found myself sitting
Last week! Every year it
Becomes my safe harbor to
Daydream, wonder, and reflect. No more
Than a quarter mile in length,
It points seaward into
The Gulf of Maine.
Cold the water is! Brrrr!
Healing! Rejuvenating!
And it seems that
Every year as I sit upon
That beach, a fog bank will
Regularly roll in, and a sailboat
Will come into view tacking
In and out of my sight.
I have a relationship
With that sailboat which is
Complicated to define.
It has so many different
Meanings to me, and each one
Is synonymous with
Various themes at work
In my life. One of the
Most important of these
Themes is the loosing of
An almost continual, merciful,
Thought-stream of verse
And stanza, which will
Slip in and out of my
Consciousness like that
Which tacks in an out of a
Marvelous coastal
Maine fogbank, and
Where on my last day
Sitting — it will disappear
Until next year…
Leo Carroll
August 20, 2019
Found
Like a sailboat my voice
Wafts, tacking into the wind, and
Then blithely disappears into the fog’s womb,
Where it soon re-emerges again…
It seems as if my speech has
Been released by the muse on
Behalf of merciful God, and verse and
Stanza have been loosed by
Healing spittle upon a
Tongue’s tied knot.
Sailing
It is as if
On that sailboat I found
My voice, and in and out of the fog tacked
Verse and stanza which
Had waited to be released for
Eons without choice.
“Heave into sight,” shouted
The First Mate, and from the crow’s nest
Then hollered down, “Nary a fear
Is in view, just whitecaps
And blue sky in natural union
Abounding.”