Standing still to move forward

is like looking at someone

with your eyes closed.

Moving forward by standing still

is like closing your eyes

when another draws near.

Standing still with desire

of moving forward,

is like opening your eyes

to see someone, perhaps

for the first time.

To have moved forward enough

to stand still is to find yourself

once more looking at another –

and seeing.

She has walked these roads before,

these swollen pasturelands of life lived lush.

She still sees footprints from the last pass

through grass like cotton under calloused feet.

 

This time around she’ll not forget

to breathe, to sigh and, with the overflow

of air-filled moments sing the songs

even of the crows, nasty and loud, but present.

 

Severed, now, from her the times freshly gone

where dislocated streams interlocked their

watered journeys, cutting banks to spell

healing words, seen only from above.

 

The crows’ din, songs gruff, bloated and stifling

are replaced by her solitary voice,

wavering with quavers birthed in silence,

the symphony of her own breath.

 

Image: www.flickr.com

This is my first poem in a while. I’ve been concentrating on writing other things. However, once a poet always a poet. It was time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Alan Rife, August 21, 2013

 

Serial storm, these wayward winds,

perilous dives to depths unknown.

Beggar’d skies betokening calm

but not till shore is abandoned.

 

Cauldron of unforgiving deep,

belches up a moaning sky, deaf

to cries of drowning sinners, dark,

unstarr’d the evening’s damp despair.

 

Burrow down with hands, grace-giving;

pluck this heartless heart, unflinching.

Sear with love my love, unloving.

Change with yours, my life, unliving.

 

Settled, now, this pilgrim, wand’ring,

still before an endless highway.

Footsteps fall beside, behind me,

always leading, never pushing.

 

In this open field of journey,

we must, naked, find our freedom.

Drawn are we like thirsty beggars

to this cup, the drink of heaven.

 

Sometimes late we find our purpose,

see ever dimly God’s design.

But for mercy we might never

know the breadth of this, our comfort.

 

Picture: www.livingwithlibby.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter now this moon,

parading past the shades

wearing only dusky intentions.

Her cloudy slip billows past her knees

and brazenly reveals her starlit muse –

gift for these words.

*

One-eyed heavenly wink,

a gesture of good-will,

brightness of day gone by,

she bares her breast

to let the night suckle its way

once more to day.

*

Her pale, pocked face has no rivals

but spills herself out as offering:

love that looks for mood,

art that looks for food,

bedsheets that turn to brood,

all for the gift of a song.

Picture: www.layoutsparks.com

What dark, forbidden thoughts

lie hidden, cringing in corners

left purposely unexplored, where only

the unbidden foes and uninvited guests

can plant their flags of remorse.

Pull back the shades but for a moment

and the nighttime pupils tear open

gasping again for shadows, but alive

once more to the potential of life-giving light.

What chaste and tender memories

are held at the bottoms of jam jars,

pie trays, rabbit cages and junk drawers.

Here, where time and dust allow

the mind to shade and dim what once

was bright, certain, immediate,

the mind can do its best work

of cinching a forever then

to a thirsty now.

This guest poem is by English teacher and good friend, Terry Cooper. We share life, art, worship, families and fellowship together and it is an honor knowing him. I hope this touches you as it did me.

17 Minutes of Blasphemy                                                                                                 

July 15, 2008

 

This morning I am the center of the universe.

I sit in a wicker chair

In the center of the front patio

Which is at the 50 yard line of our front yard.

The sun is rising to the right, and if I

Stay, will set on my left.

All the windows of the house behind me are shuttered—Blinds pulled

Closed like heavy eyelids. It’s just me out here.

A sprinkler, some aspen, birch,

A few maples (after all we are not that far from Canada),

An old white mare in a pasture across the lane,

And the sky.

Today it’s a sampler:  there are the cliché white puffs that make paintings and children’s books, wallpaper, and some clever ceilings;  there are the long feathers of some bird I’d rather not see; there are streaks, heavy celestial cobwebs; there are tiny white check marks that become more populous until they become a flock of birds who become some dinosaur spine; for contrast, there are dark gray puffs, some of which tumble in front of the sun—minions to his glory; a new trick to the north—the dark clouds combined with the blue  backdrop have created shadows of the sun’s rays making the inexorable, arrogant razor lines that emanate, dark, as if, in that part of the sky, the identical twins–light and dark–had agreed to switch places; and, now, directly in front of me, a series of streaks emanate as if the sky were a pond and someone dropped a stone up into it, and instead of circular ripples, some feathery-hair-like lines mark the equal and opposite reaction dead center in my line of vision.  I can tell that God is ready to take back His throne.  I wasn’t very good at it anyway.  I didn’t answer any prayers, send any plagues, or rescue anyone from a life of sin,

But for a few minutes, I came close

If only by inches

To feeling complete, justified, centered.