Incarnation

thought becoming music,
synapses firing symphonically,
mighty swelling winds of be,
wood, flesh and spirit
resonating,

magnetic flux gathering
all roots of desire to itself
then stepping upon any
obscure stage anywhere,
prophesied exactly there,
Bethlehem,

for a thousand years,
stepping forth at what became
the centre of history,

introduced by the Father:
"This is my beloved son,
hear ye him."
a thing the poor and oppressed
are always glad to do.

He said "I do nothing of myself,
but what I see my Father doing,
that I do."

We look around us two thousand
years later for signs of the Father's hand,
opening our eyes,
plucking strings, voices singing,
flutes and violins,
watering the earth with words of redemption,
this we do.

Christmas Day

a low flute plays from somewhere in the misty hills,
a woman sings
five long tones in an unknown tongue
in random sequence,
a solemn hymn,
a haunting,
over and over the melody drifting,
a carol to mystery,
a lullaby,
 the forest sighing remembers
shepherd melodies like this one.

Then as if mistaking silence as solitude,
assuming quiet moments are privacy,
rocks shift comfortably all around me,
shouldering warm blankets of green,
promises under snow
in soft beds of moss.

I hold my breath,
it is Christmas,
all creation seems alive with secrets,
breathing,
as though life itself, an infant,
has been born anew.

Concert Repertoire

A miracle always seems so ordinary,
no trumpets blown,  heraldic announcements,
a plum appears where a blossom was
on a branch that was dead since before
last Christmas,

through black emptiness, a falling star
blazes for an instant through Ursa Major,

on a walk she slips her hand in yours
and gives her life away,

across a green field, a golden horse
grazes, turning grass into muscle and grace,

an eagle soars, a poem is half remembered,
no trumpets,
                                    wind rustles a symphony of leaves.

By Words

We take words,
break them like glass,
take each slicing shard
rim it with copper
fold it by hand
into a channel
cover edges, join them,
weld them with molten lead,

make from this a window
or a vase,
look out through it
at the world,
slabs of trees,
slathers of grassy hills
a precarious clastle
frowning down,
or make from this leaded glass
a vase for a rose

We look out at the world,
or inward at the flower,
the world mended,
flower prisoned broken
in a cage of glass,
copper, lead
tangled metal webs

We take words,
break them like stones,
build a casement
for our mended window,
build an altar
for our mended vase
of broken flower

We break words,
grind them fine for mortor,
build a church for our window,
for the vase, an altar

We take words,
light a fire for a candle,
gather words
of no other use
and kneel,
offer them in thanksgiving
and repentence and praise

perhaps by words
we may find mercy.

Beginning Word

         
Enunciated
melodic line
describe the cosmic
paradigm.

Plumed syllable,
finned furred or feathered
phrase,
dart break-darkness forth,
spirit first,
to measure heart-beats worth.

Light-sword stabs
of conquering flame
by far-flung word
decapitates the shadowed sphinx
that only thinks
with draw-forge,
wind-breathed wire,
that only sings
harmonic star-shot choirs
of song.

Aurora Borealis
over still mountain lake,
wearing midnight stars,
the living light of man
trembles
 to the be of heard,

throbs to wounding
of that sacred head
who swallows in victory
life of dead
by random
in His patterned word,

rising from the black absurd,
bleeding red,
leaves no unworded
budding syllable
still-born,
cast forlorn
on breasted silence,
unsuckled,
unnestled,
unsaid.

Fortelling Told

A river begins
beneath mountain
glaciers and snow,
seeps down
broken, colden,
cracken stone,
gathers deep below,

in music unheard
drop-dripping
into subterrainian pools
in echoing caves,
cascades
from level to level,
sings a private song,
gathers unto itself
as it falls,

grows larger underground
in its own history,
grows,
Intentions
brooding over a broke
drunken valley of children,

unseen,
but by mountain dwellers
along his sacred banks,
prophets who slake thirst
or wash in its flowing

who saw first,
thousands of years ago
reflections,
the unborn Messiah,
Lamb Of God,
slain from before
rock pools formed rivers
on any planet,
under any star,
in the foundations
of the world.

They knew
little Bethlehem’s glory,
a virgin with a baby,
they heard cries
of innocents slain,
weeping mothers--
find all this in their ancient poems--

prophets who saw
sacrifice, shame, and salvation,
rejoiced in the resurrection,
entered by faith
the past and future kingdom
with bathers and dwellers,
redeemed of all time,
who drink of these sacred
Christmas waters.

Lake Trilogy

       

                I

Sunlight dances on a path
across the wooded lake
from his place behind the forest hills
beyond the clouds,
to my dusky beach.

it is time for setting,
but strains of rag-time
acoustic guitar seem to reach him,
he lingers as if for reluctant good-byes,
a strictly ordered life,
by curfew he is gone,
yet his footprints
sparkle on the waters still

now golden reflections,
like remembered music sent
from the veiling clouds,
dance the old quadrille
on liquid paths the sun made,
lyrical steps to the music
of Albinoni's bolero played
upon Marc Atkinson's guitar;

four inch breakers roll upon the shore,
curl like big boys before they break
with a little splash,
a tiny sand-piper busy among them.

Now music mellows, as do the waves,
the lake shimmers in glittering tremelo,
shadows deepen,
a loon splashes and cries.

The echoes die away,
a great hush settles
like a warm blanket by candlelight.


                II

This morning a quiet mist
tip-toes in among the hills
around this inland sea.

Languid waves lap the shingle shore,
the water is undisturbed,
but by waking dreams.

Across the water I see low hills,
copses and fields, houses of men
tucked among them.

Piles of grey clouds hang overhead
with suggestions of coming rain,
willowy wind rustles her skirts,
picks up the pace,
wavelets dance in the wake
of her passing,
a family of loons motor by,

I see an ancient world
happy with itself;
the distant houses,
their fields of hay for the cattle,
ferry of commerce crossing
near the horizons arc,
the man with his book on the beach;

Happy or sad, at war or peace
ascendant, descendant,
intentions slicing the waves
or carried by them,
sometimes dancing perhaps,
but never the dance.

           III

waves are grown to crashing now,
rushing to wreck upon the shore,
it is breakfast at camp,
toast and eggs on the windy beach,
grown cold and blustering a bit
a foreshortening of time
under a lowering sky,
but we are warm,
yet, for now in this wilderness,
though time be short,
we are warm.

Annunciation

         
Confluence bleeds
blue electric flame
till soul and spirit
breathe the same
from harvest cutting
Sharons long stemmed rose
to midnight shining
Southern Cross
street lamps line the path
His kingdom came.

Weeds whisper
as they toss
intimations
to the wind
and rattle
dry seed pods
as if promises
from pagan gods.

I heard them rustling sigh
“Our weakest are the first
to die
first to rise again”
in floral descant to what
the dusty weed-straw
chorus said:

“Valley-lily somewhere by
is Balm in Gilead
there is a Balm
in Gilead.”

Christmas The Herald

Every Christmas I ask
“Is this the last one?
have not maggots
and worms of avarice
polished white
the last bone?”

Man always needs a holiday,
a break from work,
the economy can always
use an orgy
of materialistic consumerism,
a fish dried
over a smoky fire,
a shrivelled pickle
in a jar,
a seasoning tradition.

Christ is cut and broken
every Christmas,
a condiment served with cheese
and crackers with wine,

but this speaks only
of corporate memory,
Jesus really was born a man
who lived and died
and rose again,

not really fish dried,
or pickles in a jar,
a real king who shall come
again,
heralded by a real star.

Forest Dream

 I sleep and face a thick forest,
looking into its distance,
the trees close together,
each one slender with a white trunk
thick with leaves in varieties
of rich greens,
the underbrush a thicket
of soft grasses and low bushes,
even scattered flowers.

The trees recede into velvet blackness,
in the crowded distance
all light  is sponged away,
before me a path I trampled myself,
crushing the understory
winding off into secret darkness.

A voice says “This path is neural,
this forest, your mind.”

“You have beaten a way
to forbidden knowledge,
good and evil,
Now pound down a neural
path to me.”

“When the hour of your trial comes,
running your new trail
is all that will save you.”