For Lori Jane, 1963-2013. We will miss your light.
At the end of the big dipper is the North Star.
It has a name.
Like she who has a name,
who shone brightly but
whose light has gone dim,
if only until we name the others.
Author: robertalanrife
I have spent the better part of my life as a professional musician. Primarily, that has meant the fun and challenging world of church music. Most recently, I have transitioned out of my role as worship and music director for Yakima Covenant Church, Yakima, Washington to global service in Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm a singer-songwriter, liturgist, poet, and writer. I love words. I love to read them. I love to write them. Most of all, I love the many intersections, like a sacramental tapestry, of life, liturgy, literature, the arts, and spiritual formation...oh, and I love haggis.
Daydreams – poetry from the periphery II
Edges
Sometimes, when sleep doesn’t come
and dark steals light from day,
my eyes can open
to see the light
visible
only
then.
Photo: www.cyclingisgoodforyou.blogspot.com
The sound of pavement
There’s a sound my bike would make
after a summer rain –
a contemplative
hyperbole
for what lies
beneath
me.
___
Rose-colored
Rose-colored glasses don’t lie
just because what they see
has already gone
in ways our eyes
and our hearts
differ
on.
___
Fuzzy wallpaper
I run my hands along it,
feel its textured pattern:
fuzzy wallpaper,
hung in my home
providing
hours of
fun.
Photo: www.scientificamerican.com
Lessons from the bathtub
I’ve been in the tub for hours.
My fingers look like prunes,
skin mountain ranges,
meandering;
a picture
of my
days.
A final petal
Wait just a little longer before
pulling the final petals from this flower.
She cannot hear your deliberations
of love or not while decapitating
something so fragile.
Let this one, solitary beauty remain
broken, decimated.
But alive.
Daydreams – poetry from the periphery
Picture: www.alliance-packaging.blogspot.com
Her lips
She has given me access
to all her lovely parts.
Most captivating
to me, by far
are her lips,
red and,
poised.
Afterward
They stretch out tender bodies,
limp and warm after sex.
Resting peacefully,
they find themselves
in stillness
and, in
love.
When we could see
When we could see the farthest,
our mouths were open wide.
Our silent words sang –
our hearts, aglow
with wonder.
Come, and
see.
When life makes you pause
The universe is perfect,
when all we know is love.
The best of our lives
is gratitude:
to wonder
with new
eyes.
Photo: www.crystalgraphics.com
Dangling feet
The simplest pleasures we’ve known
are those without contempt
for light and goodness
personified.
Dangling feet
make sense
here.
A farewell to day
Sleep will come from now till then,
and as it does, the nymphs of memory
in sash-ed drapings of delight
will abide to remove the wells of worried weight
from the dead of drowsy day.
And, for you and your beloved companions,
all shall be well.
Picture: www.lullabysleep.com
The truest capitalism
In the unedited capital of nature’s governance
we hold each other’s hands,
if only to pay it forward until
the next sunrise.
Love’s richest investments pay the dearest dowries
to those who hold the keys to each other’s completion.
So, in the interest of keeping what was never ours
we deposit our richest treasures
in the vault most sacred to us –
each other.
Prayer of one who is lost
Hello…anyone,
can I call you God? or god? or what?
I am sick. My soul is sick and I am crushed.
Are you there? If you are, are you good?
Are you to be trusted?
Are you the one I should be looking for or do I wait
for someone else? something else? somewhere else?
How much does guilt, shame, blame
fortify this place of thick, impenetrable walls?
Am I wise or even smart to hope when all I see is
blackness; sorrow draped in the sickly posture of dreams forgotten,
of light full shaded?
Do not speak to me of Job like the others.
He is a fairy-tale, a mockery to me,
a dream of dust and ancient woes
far removed from this Halloween of hellish delight.
He does not speak anymore and,
unlike his, my book has an ending yet undecided,
murky, unmoving like a lake long dead.
Perhaps no ending will come at all?
Perhaps there is no book?
Picturesque dreams no longer peek into sleep otherwise uninterrupted.
A mind instead, in broken time, refuses better context,
mocking lost memories of what I once thought was life.
When a heart bitterly refuses whatever comfort felt like,
to what do I cling? Is this to be my rebellion? My condemnation?
Am I headed for hell because of these questions?
Because, frankly,
the questions are hell enough.
For what it’s worth,
help me through one more day, this day,
if indeed there still is such a thing.
No more to feed the crows
When our chest, house of the heart
is laid open, nakedly shredded,
ribs cracked apart, the carrion birds
of our darkest realities
peck and stab, tearing chunks
of yesterdays, also laid bare
from the bloodied flesh of
our morose todays.
We cannot see a sky,
whether grey or blue,
when the crows come
to eat our dreams and
blacken the horizon of our hopes.
But, even a small child,
whose heart has yet to be broken
can run with heedless joy,
through the foul flock,
scattering the scavengers that lust
after a mouthful of yesterday’s bad news.
To find this one is no more
to feed the crows.
Picture: www.opednews.com
Thoughts from the beach…
I once wrote these words in commemoration of a magical time with my wife on the Oregon coast. I repost to commemorate the same, 10 years later, for an even more magical time on the Washington coast.
Thoughts from the beach…
To commemorate a beach walk with my wife.
May 12, 2003
1
Beauty. Random squalor in effortless
Wave deposits her treasure
In our efforts to build that which
Hand could never grasp we trade
Quintessential. Queer. Quiet for
Quantifiable. Quick. Casual.
Oh, such grand wordless words-
Wonder, World-watched prayers
Waiting…waiting.
That which is unseen – now
I see.
2
Wind-soaked beach-stained
Dark; darker still where waves
Kiss the sand of my imagination.
Flat boards float on round earth
Plays with my finitude and finer still,
Fills my earthen breath with
Deeper wind.
3
Dare she flits on so light a wing,
Fading into vastness, blue
The sky and water, one.
Where one defines what much cannot
In so many syllables contain
The vast smallness of it all.
She meets herself again on the way back up
Dedicated to one of the dearest, most wonderful people I know and one I am blessed to call friend. You know who you are.
Derided, undefended and desperate she speaks
from silent depths where wonder stopped long ago,
replaced by a dry and lonely wind, parched and shrill.
Here she sees her own ghost asking questions
with answers long forgotten.
Now? Should? What if? Why? When?
Courtiers, rapiers, cads and posers
all seek her hand, her gentle touch
of light ascending, moon arising, darkness waning
but offer nothing in return but the cold assurance
of a promiseless land, a garden of stone, a song without notes.
But dawn brings only a nighttime warmth
to her daytime soul, her wounds heedless of their sources.
And on the cold and brittle staircase of their empty desolation
she floats and twirls, rising above her cistern of boggy solace
to the phoenix above, having paved her way
with the ashes of her heart’s demise.
And she meets herself again, as if for the first time,
on the way back up.
innerwoven 