L is for Love

L is for Light,
is for Love,
is for Living;

L is for
Laughing at
Lapses in
Lent!








* * *

Step into the light

Who said
we had to walk this colonnade?
Who lures us through the darkened doorway,
waits to stab us as we pass,
piercing heart with sorrow, yearning;
calls us into darkened shadows
filled with ghosts of sin and failure?

Do not confuse
one "holy father" -- or many holy fathers --
with the One Holy Father
who calls us into light,
who beckons us away from this dark path
with light-filled fingers,
singing through the veins of marble,
arcing overhead
with energetic waves of love.

Spring is coming, my child:
Follow where the light leads
and find me at the center, waiting.


* * *

Abundance, overflowing

This grand gesture of blessing --
a word here,
a silence there;
a smile here,
a tear there;
a visit for this one,
and absence for the other;
a hug for one
and space for another --

Best to give from understanding:
what most honors those we bless?
Know what -- and when -- to sprinkle;
when to step forward,
when to step back...

Best to stay connected to the Source
so the blessing plate stays full;
so you'll know
when to eat and when to throw:
Yours may be the hand,


but the abundance --ah --
the abundance is Divine.



* * *

Swim to the edges

We erect these boundaries,
you and I --
or perhaps they are all mine? --
swim here,
but don't swim there
grow here,
but don't grow there...
Is this really necessary?

Do I really believe
I could keep you out
if you wanted to come in?
And doesn't all growth know
its own time and place:
when to shoot forth in green profusion,
when to die back, gold and fallow?
Did we really think we could control...
Anything?

Let's link arms and swim this edge together,
meandering out to sea.



* * *

Poet as prophet

When did my words slip off the board?
There was a time when I spoke up,
when I knew what I knew,
and I said it.

Something happened;
that rebellious spirit, crushed,
slid slowly off the page
and I took refuge
behind another curtain,
calling out anonymously,
Pay no attention!
Pay no attention!
pulling the rug out
from beneath my own feet
in order to keep a low profile.

But action inevitably follows contemplation,
however we allow our souls to be stifled:
this is the heart of radical grace.




* * *

When spring hesitates

Standing before her closet,
Dressed in winter’s white robe,
Mother Earth asks Father Wind:
“Shall we warm up a bit today?
I'm longing for a little green
to add to my palette…”

He drops an airy kiss on upturned cheek
and murmurs in her ear, “Why not?”
then steps aside to watch, filling the room
with fragrant scent of spring’s cigar.
She shivers into a fetching frock,
autumnal browns fringed gold by warming sun,
pale grass embroidering a fluttery hem.

“Very tasty,” he smiles;
“Perhaps I'll add the scent of rain today –
I love to watch you ripen!”
But then she makes her annual mistake,
and off the groundhog scurries to his den:
"What do you think: does this grass make
my fundament look big?"

Hurt by his appreciative assent,
She doffs the dress and dons her snowy robe,
Storming back to bed in frigid fury.
He blusters; his cigar sends ashes flying, snowflakes on thick carpet:
Six more weeks of winter.




* * *

Second Chance Dance

What curious eco-logic is this,
that what was dead and brown
can spring to life again
unfurling welcome to the warmth?

Take it!
Take this chance to try again,
to wander through
the forest that you missed,
to touch again the lush green curves of youth,
to hear once more the fledgling cries
of adolescent hopes; give voice to poems
extolling love and other dreams
you thought you'd long outgrown.

But watch your step:
old passions mixed with rain and tears
have decomposed:
that slippery mud that feeds new growth
is rarely solid ground.


Stay balanced, centered, on your toes --
And beware of apples
Still too green to pick.


* * *