P o e t r y

weak from dreaming

First off I'd just like to say 'thank you' to everyone who has been responding to the various poems recently.  It really is nice to receive any feedback and it's even better to receive compliments, though I'm sure the "constructive criticism" will come (we just don't know each other too well yet).  So, thanks again, and I hope to see some of you tonight at the Arts Show.

This next poem is a simple love poem written for someone I simply love.

     Weak from dreaming:
I'm still weak from dreaming of you.
I'm still drowning in the joy you bring.
I'm still needy in this time and place.
Thoughts cling, caress and shape my mind.
I'm in the dark without a slumbering thought of you.
I'm still drowsy from dreaming of you.
I'll be amazed when I can touch your face.
Let me look into your eyes and dream.  (for Lindsey)

God’s Front Porch

When I begin

To pray

Or to read the Bible

I take a breath,

And then I settle down and begin to relax.

Just like I am walking

Up to God’s front porch.

“Come,” God says.

“Sit a while.

Let’s share the evening.

What’s happening in your life?

Really, deep down how are you doing?

Now, how are those people you love?

Where are they hurting?

Where are you hurt?

Tell me more.”

And after God lets me talk myself out…

Then, and only then,

Am I ready to listen,

And the rest of our prayer time begins.

Crossroads

Never have been. . .

hamstrung, redrum and the heartless rangers descending time cease to sell the same as they go flying by.

To dream and die in cold, cold San Diego; to live, love and lie in the salty ocean air

and the iambic meter of wind   crash, wave   dash and dive to here or there.

Forgetful forget-me-not's grow in the late sandy tidal time.

Crossroads; empty words and I'm dying and meeting and dreaming where the rhythm drives.

Red before the season, caught before my days and descending slow.

Rending places unknown and unsung and. . .

might not ever be.

Broken Glass

Broken glass. 

A danger to all who walk upon it.  Cutting the unsuspecting.

Waves wash the shore.

Tumbling.

Polishing.

Rounding.

Slowly changing

Bits of broken glass

Into pretty baubles.

Now safe to pick up. 

To hold in your hand. 

A gift from the ocean.

Life, too, washes against us.

Somedays breaking us apart.

Fracturing lives.

Making us painful people.

Able to hurt even those we love.

But brush against the Father. 

His gentle, but necessary polishing.

Slowly rounds and changes.

Until we become

Gentle,

Beautiful.

Gifts to all we meet.

God’s Footprints

When you have eyes

That see beyond the everyday,

You sometimes see God’s footprints

Walking around situations that

Touch people.

Pain and death and sickness and slander

Are easier to pass through

when you do not walk alone.

When you don’t have this vision,

You just see evil things done by evil people with no hope in sight.

Make each moment sing

Make each moment sing and leave me here for another measure.

Let the wind trip the leaves and send fear scattering from 'midst these swollen branches.

Make each moment sing and fly away soaring into another dawn.

Swim the depth of waters or hide me in the swelling tide.

Make each moment sing and bring me near for I'm far away

far from home and roaming alone along some distant highway.

Make each moment sing and let the days fly with joyful wings of birds or angels.

Cut me clear and open my ears that I might hear each moment sung to me.

Two Weeks into Seminary

Two Weeks into Seminary

Joy and fear...

         Energy and exhaustion...

                        Worthiness and feeling so utterly unworthy,

That I can never become useful to God.

It's a good thing that "I" don't have

         to... do... any... thing….

                        Just endure and obey,

                                    Allowing God to "trim" me into

                                                The person he wants to serve him.

For Sam Eden who inspired this poem.

Katha Endress

9-17-2002

Allegory

I have double died in streams of flight and fancy. I have dreamt beyond hope and specter of my hidden self. Never to dance beyond beams of scattered light. Never to yield without my own death it seems. I'll live hidden and never free. I'll live between myself and You and fail to see the truth just at my back Chasing shadows; frayed and dark, dancing like a spook in blurry half-sense. This cave, this "more than death and less than dying". Will I go on chasing what I can't see? Will You pry my eyes to heaven, will You thrust the sword too deep let my belly spill as I gasp and then awaken to know the death of me within and without You. Or will I sleep in grace and finally know rest and truth and joy?

Sore

A sketching I found from 2001...

clicking on the image will pop-up a larger version
This image was inspired from a photo in one of my sociology books. The photo was just too good to forget about.

What does this image say about the Grace God Gives?

Managing Time

Take time,
Give time,
Count the time; ticking.

Have time on your hands,
Guilty as a thief,
Caught with hands in the cookie jar.

I gave you my hour,
I gave you my day,
How dare you try to give it back!

The moments only slip past your fingers,
Don't Squeeze too tight,
Or you'll never see it!

Is it Geometric?
Block schedule; week long?
Organic; fluid; linear; streaming unobstructed.

Flowing,
Unwittingly eroded by inevitable passing,
Take heed or loose time,
Take heart or loose mine,
Take part and hold tight.

The future past by; still coming straight at me.
Presenting the present yet looking forward,
watching my feet,
"Chin up, son,"
I may miss life.