Here
Here is the place of order
made by daily labor.
Against bright sky, the house,
limned by spruce and larch,
grown old in weathered caring,
stands white. Beyond its shadow,
the garden lies down in rows
stretched fondly on the earth.
Forsythia and honeysuckle,
lilac, lily, and blueberry
hedge define commitment’s
reach. Within its bounds
dwarf apples promise cider
mulling on the winter stove
and we, faithful, bound
flesh to flesh, learn
in brokenness the changes
love works in fertile soil.
In the Garden the Word Becomes Flesh
One afternoon, the old man reading
beneath the larch is joined by a child.
He almost fails to notice,
she comes so silently,
barefoot through the grass.
She is holding a book. She sits,
opens it without speaking.
Blue jays shrill, scold, pitch hard consonants
from the sun-blue berries
that are sugar on the empty tongue.
Hydrangeas lean in the wind
gesturing eloquently
to the buddleia;
their voices say other
than the jays’, carry farther,
endure in the brightness.
The old man remains quiet.
The child remains mute. The larch thrives
in the mulch of their silence,
turns gold in time.
I dream of grace. The tongue that might have praised,
that might have sung forgiveness equal to
the sum of all the mercy God shot through
Creation when his stone-sealed Son blazed
awake, the light to light betrayal’s dark
design, is swollen black in the hole that was
a mouth; my brother, Judas, hanged the ark
of his redemption. Still, I dream of grace.
I dream I take him from his tree, and lift
him up to life. Should one betrayal cost
a soul—eternity demand such thrift
of grace the lost remain forever lost—
how then my three denials be forgiven?
Christ, Savior, buy your chosen back for Eden.
Daughter
I don’t remember. I was twelve, not yet
aware of how a parent dies before
a child’s bewilderment. I lay beset
by fever, lost to life. I will not bore
you reconstructing how they called my name
and wept. They were perhaps more deeply stricken
than some, my father’s leadership a claim
on God’s beneficence. I’ve forgotten—
I don’t remember anger. What stays
with me is waking to voices about
my bed, one voice clear in the haze
of wonder, and Father’s joyous shout.
So long ago now! I live bound by that surprise,
and long to hear again that voice “Daughter, arise."
Waiting for Rain I Remember Three Old Poets Who Wandered the Slopes of Flat Mountain in My Youth
In the afternoon wind the leaves turn
their pale undersides to the sky thickening
with clouds. It will rain by evening.
I walk slowly, easing my way
with the old stick that has let me
softly down many mountains.
Nothing pressing, free in the plenty
of time, I find my mind drifting
to thoughts of three old poets
who were bread and wine,
a sweet communion to my youth.
Each is gone, and I am old.
The first raised me from failure,
the second set me free,
the third gave me a snowy owl
and left a rifle in his will.
It never came.
The first discovered winter
a vast white emptiness, and cursed
the hope that bound us from the start.
He threatened pills but mercy
struck him by surprise.
The second disappeared without a word.
The third learned chaos,
raged against the loss of name
and place and died uneasy
week by week then day by day
before the hour of forgiveness
covered him in sand.
I give thanks for my old stick,
its polished knob and thorny spikes.
It bends a bit under weight
but it holds me up
as I bear these three through the wind-tossed
afternoon. I’ll carry them awhile—
as far as heaven in my prayers.
Walking the Circuit around the Cornfield I Walk Every Day, I Glimpse the Nature of Creation and Submit to Joy
Beneath the intermittent buzz of cars
spinning down the two-lane,
of trucks rumbling home,
the constancy of water falling to the river
lives, a rocky song rising
over the silent corn.
In summer air the tassels are still.
Gnats swirl in the sharp light,
a constellation of dark amazements
turning about a moving center.
Though all creation groans,
the movement of the leaves
in the tallest cottonwoods
betrays the presence
of the wind:
the love that calls each moment forth
desires gnats and corn
and walkers blessed with ears and eyes.
Late Night: Thinking of William Carlos Williams, I Remember the Red Wheelbarrow and the Old Statue of St. Francis in the Shed
What does it matter, if I say
this or that—revise my poems,
wheel rocks from the river
to line the dry stream
through the garden,
pull weeds?
I come and go;
It’s all the same—
one yielding.
When I mow the lawn,
I pause to urge small toads
from the mower’s path.
When I’m awakened by the screech owl’s
falling call, I lean out the window,
listen, answer, if necessary
with words.
http://imagejournal.org/page/artist-of-the-month/john-leax
Here is the place of order
made by daily labor.
Against bright sky, the house,
limned by spruce and larch,
grown old in weathered caring,
stands white. Beyond its shadow,
the garden lies down in rows
stretched fondly on the earth.
Forsythia and honeysuckle,
lilac, lily, and blueberry
hedge define commitment’s
reach. Within its bounds
dwarf apples promise cider
mulling on the winter stove
and we, faithful, bound
flesh to flesh, learn
in brokenness the changes
love works in fertile soil.
In the Garden the Word Becomes Flesh
One afternoon, the old man reading
beneath the larch is joined by a child.
He almost fails to notice,
she comes so silently,
barefoot through the grass.
She is holding a book. She sits,
opens it without speaking.
Blue jays shrill, scold, pitch hard consonants
from the sun-blue berries
that are sugar on the empty tongue.
Hydrangeas lean in the wind
gesturing eloquently
to the buddleia;
their voices say other
than the jays’, carry farther,
endure in the brightness.
The old man remains quiet.
The child remains mute. The larch thrives
in the mulch of their silence,
turns gold in time.
I dream of grace. The tongue that might have praised,
that might have sung forgiveness equal to
the sum of all the mercy God shot through
Creation when his stone-sealed Son blazed
awake, the light to light betrayal’s dark
design, is swollen black in the hole that was
a mouth; my brother, Judas, hanged the ark
of his redemption. Still, I dream of grace.
I dream I take him from his tree, and lift
him up to life. Should one betrayal cost
a soul—eternity demand such thrift
of grace the lost remain forever lost—
how then my three denials be forgiven?
Christ, Savior, buy your chosen back for Eden.
Daughter
I don’t remember. I was twelve, not yet
aware of how a parent dies before
a child’s bewilderment. I lay beset
by fever, lost to life. I will not bore
you reconstructing how they called my name
and wept. They were perhaps more deeply stricken
than some, my father’s leadership a claim
on God’s beneficence. I’ve forgotten—
I don’t remember anger. What stays
with me is waking to voices about
my bed, one voice clear in the haze
of wonder, and Father’s joyous shout.
So long ago now! I live bound by that surprise,
and long to hear again that voice “Daughter, arise."
Waiting for Rain I Remember Three Old Poets Who Wandered the Slopes of Flat Mountain in My Youth
In the afternoon wind the leaves turn
their pale undersides to the sky thickening
with clouds. It will rain by evening.
I walk slowly, easing my way
with the old stick that has let me
softly down many mountains.
Nothing pressing, free in the plenty
of time, I find my mind drifting
to thoughts of three old poets
who were bread and wine,
a sweet communion to my youth.
Each is gone, and I am old.
The first raised me from failure,
the second set me free,
the third gave me a snowy owl
and left a rifle in his will.
It never came.
The first discovered winter
a vast white emptiness, and cursed
the hope that bound us from the start.
He threatened pills but mercy
struck him by surprise.
The second disappeared without a word.
The third learned chaos,
raged against the loss of name
and place and died uneasy
week by week then day by day
before the hour of forgiveness
covered him in sand.
I give thanks for my old stick,
its polished knob and thorny spikes.
It bends a bit under weight
but it holds me up
as I bear these three through the wind-tossed
afternoon. I’ll carry them awhile—
as far as heaven in my prayers.
Walking the Circuit around the Cornfield I Walk Every Day, I Glimpse the Nature of Creation and Submit to Joy
Beneath the intermittent buzz of cars
spinning down the two-lane,
of trucks rumbling home,
the constancy of water falling to the river
lives, a rocky song rising
over the silent corn.
In summer air the tassels are still.
Gnats swirl in the sharp light,
a constellation of dark amazements
turning about a moving center.
Though all creation groans,
the movement of the leaves
in the tallest cottonwoods
betrays the presence
of the wind:
the love that calls each moment forth
desires gnats and corn
and walkers blessed with ears and eyes.
Late Night: Thinking of William Carlos Williams, I Remember the Red Wheelbarrow and the Old Statue of St. Francis in the Shed
What does it matter, if I say
this or that—revise my poems,
wheel rocks from the river
to line the dry stream
through the garden,
pull weeds?
I come and go;
It’s all the same—
one yielding.
When I mow the lawn,
I pause to urge small toads
from the mower’s path.
When I’m awakened by the screech owl’s
falling call, I lean out the window,
listen, answer, if necessary
with words.
http://imagejournal.org/page/artist-of-the-month/john-leax
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