Death in this house

This morning, a chipmunk beneath the kitchen sink

Months before, a mouse at the back door rug

A year ago, his body found on the floor

And before that? I know not; being born and dying happened at home,

So commonplace the endings and beginnings of this vapor life.

Why so much toil and tumult?

When the house has quietly stood for 85 years, unweighted by the suffering plaguing the children of men

Can I release it to the one who holds it all together, 

Holding faith that in the crashing markets and blockaded lands,

He'll never let go.

Even the chipmunks days were marked and spent well in their own glory. 

Couldn't I try to do the same? 

Greeting death as the doorway, not the enemy

To the true rest our sick bodies and stretched minds long for?

You know not when he will come; 

Welcome.  

Estranged

You are strange to me

I want to be familiar

Not strangers.

What is exchanged? 

Current states of mind in bursts of time.

Obligatory compliments;

An overflowing lack.

Quite a curse,

Carrying-on with this unfulfilled long-ing.

Stultified with sadness

Breathless with wind chasing.

Go, girl, to dig your own well 

And may it be well 

with your soul.

For Fears/Mad Lips edition

Everybody wants to [turn]

& Make the most of [sadness]

Everybody wants to [sleep]

& Make the most of [power]

Everybody wants to [fade]

& Make the most of [desire]

Everybody wants to [rule]

& Make the most of [nature]

Everybody wants to [last]

& Make the most of [indecision]

Everybody wants to [believe]

& Make the most of [isolation]

WE ARE

We are 

A date in time, an image-bearer 

from god-dust

We are 

boxes in the garage

ashes in an urn 

We are 

charmed fragments of memory 

carbon copies clinging closely 

We are 

cramped names bereft 

girded loins and fathomless bleak pangs

We are

out of the blue

& into the black 

We are 

blood bonds of ancestor landslides 

turned into lineages 

We are 

gone before a blink

faded grass and mist vanishing 

We are 

rotted out 

burned husk of rust 

We are 

not a failure, my son 

All you want now

when the salt has not yet dried 

on your cheeks 

and you've found a collapse in your chest 

of all your bravery

and hope seems so fragile 

from breaking and mending 

repeatedly 

and all you want 

is to see your enemy

kneeling down

in their garden

harvesting for their grandchildren 

Imagination unto shalom

All we are 
cells of mitochondria
composite of galaxies
resting within infinite
e x p a n s i o n to finite expression

To imagine imagination
fathoming, dreaming, sensing
seeing the invisible
what does not exist
calling into existence

This Creator created
attuned
endowing life
processes, systems
beauty

Perceiving
the delight
of watching a story unfold, characters
who will live out the questions
invited into partnership; shalom

Changed by love

How the winter dormancy wraps

    land in cold blankets, frozen foundations

    leafless trees and hibernating debris

How the spring awakens 

    there is a thawing, a washing 

    seeds and creatures roused into fecundity

How being loved by someone changes you 

    There is an enclosure, a security of boundaries

    Now I don't have to do everything, fled from the rancorous mob 

    Permission that I seldom granted myself 

    "be present and be loved" 

    initiate and respond with deepening wholeness