"Humble beginnings"

I rise to welcome the local star

Religiously

When I am at the beach

As if it might not boil through the blue sea's horizon 

And make a new day

Without me,

Although it has done that for longer than I can envision

Just fine.

Today, the orange peeks out 

From its hiding place beneath the earth

Through a Venetian blind haze

That trims slices from the molten god

Revealing no easy round

But a shape-changer 

Driving swiftly from the wave edge

Toward some unmarked but well-worn zenith.

It writes secrets in an ancient, unknowable language

On the calm and welcoming water's face

First in the orange-red of a steep Japanese garden bridge

Lending its arch over a stone creek.

Then, imperceptibly, it bakes golden-yellow

And seems to speak anew.

Finally, white-hot characters sparkle their harsh yet vague

Message I cannot decipher 

Or even stand to look upon for long -- 

Mysteries that warm me

As I watch their sacred dance

And wait in wonder 

For a word

Standing on the cool sand

In worship. 

Beach

While the sun is still low
Only promising in its great orange eye, lined with the morning’s wet and feathery clouds,
The white, dry unblinking baking to come,
I walk and gather shells along the wet margin
Where the sea smacks the land.
The cool of the foam rolls up my wandering,
Covering my steps before I move on.
The sand gathers in hair on my lower leg and  between my toes.
I love the smooth silky feel of my skin after the washing of the sand and the salt-mineraled deep.  
It does not appear to be a pod so much as a longer parade --
The dolphin playing and feeding just past the sandbar all together
Spitting the blue-green glowing sea from their white-pink blowholes
And swallowing the fresh, cool air, to dive,
Their beautiful  half circles knitting together water and sky
Punctuated by the rare but grand leap above
That allows me to see their sleek bodies
As my breath leaps with them in surprise.
Before so much blessing and curse
A fortnight of years or more ago
I gathered the biggest, perfect ones.
I was good at this.
Entire whelks with royal purple decoration,
Moon snails with pink spirals as big as a fist,
Clam shells to cover a whole breast to then uncover
Or to fashion as plates for the family dinner on the deck
With a chilled bottle of beer and laughter.
Today, I do not see much large and whole.
There is one small silver one, but it is not for me --
So clean and complete.
Life’s glory dwells in this worm-holed brown chip striped with gray, worn ridges
That sings passion and death,
Harmonizes perseverance with holy apathy,
Yearns for the beat of my inner breast to hope what it can and abandon the rest.
There are dreams still
Broken and sharp-edged
Hard and true.
I exhale the hurt and sadness of the years
But not the honest, earned toughness of what remains.
I inhale the fresh cool air, to dive,
To knit heaven in this wounded flesh.  

The Uneven

Even the holy seems to come out uneven.
At the close of communion, there is extra;
Not exactly God's abundance, but more than enough.
Bread ripped into fingertip bites;
Jesus leftover.
And I must take some of the blood also
To wash down the dry and crumbling body
And still speak out to the crowd.
It takes some Jesus to swallow Jesus;
More in the mouth to digest the sacrifice.
But not too much
Since the blood makes me light-headed
And sleepy.
So some of the wine remains to be poured into the ground.
And the earth communes also.
Who communes and consumes?
Who is fed?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Even the uneven is feast.

Here's a few more pictures to meditate on from the stained glass at Christ Church. See the post for March 13 for more a poem to help oil your spiritual wheels.

I led a short, quiet Lenten retreat this past Saturday called "Light in Lent." We looked at the light in the beautiful stained glass windows in Christ Church, Smithfield. Below is a poem about my experience with the light and the glass.

Stained glass.

Playful brokenness.

Impure glory.

Windows that do not allow us to see out

But call us within and beyond.

The reds in Jesus' robe don't match,

But drape in beauty.

The cobalt blue background around the pillars

Is so bold that the pillars themselves recede in weakness.

So many painted eyes looking, searching you,

As though you were a window too.

So many feet and toes to remind us of our humanness

And glory in our bodies.

The emerald leaves over there seem to move

On a distant breeze not of this world

Or with divine breath.

Light speaks, sings a symphony.

Word glows with emanating power.

Truth lies

Mysterious

In the communion

Of the broken

Glass.