Do Dogs Go to Heaven?
May 7, 2008 at 8:52 am | In Self, animals, eternal life, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: dogs, eternity
No “happy hunting grounds”
for my dog!
All the dogs of my life
are part of me,
as I am part of God.
Someday we will understand
each other exquisitely!
Winters Remembered
May 6, 2008 at 1:45 pm | In Self, childhood, poems | Leave a CommentTags: childhood memories, free verse
Do you remember?
Being six or seven?
Ice . . . ah, Hurrah!
I’ll run and slide!
Mom says, watch out,
you’ll fall! But I don’t care.
I have to remember now, at sixty-seven
that I really may fall, and often have.
But even then, as I start to slide,
there’s that scintilla of joy.
Poem ?
May 6, 2008 at 12:26 pm | In Self, fantasy, poems | Leave a CommentTags: free verse, personification, poetry writing
My friend wrote a poem
about buying a wooden spoon.
I wrote one about a whisk broom.
A friend – perhaps the “wooden spoon” friend -
told me the best poems are about the
most unlikely things.
Not of moonlight and love.
Maybe of monkey wrenches or
paper clips or dirty windows.
But I’m not sure.
I think one just needs people
or things that can be people.
I want to convince the reader that
even a whisk broom
can love.
On John Donne
May 2, 2008 at 4:52 pm | In Self, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: quotes from John Donne, Sonnet
How can John Donne, long dead, give me today
the words I need to pray? And can’t I see
with my own eyes the “great unnumbered three?”
Surely my love must tell me what to say,
though “my devout fits come and go” the way
his did. And can I not aspire to be,
though earthbound, by my eloquence set free
to “see more in the clouds” by what I pray?
So in those moments when I feel Christ’s hand
and am left breathless by his touch, I start
to look for words of thanks – pious, but grand
and “seeking secrets” to set me apart.
Then would I soar ! But I can only stand
and pray, “Oh, be thou nailed unto my heart.”
Ash Wednesday
April 29, 2008 at 4:03 pm | In Self, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: "sin"ical humor, Sonnet
On Tuesday I put on my sackcloth robe,
reminder of my true unworthiness,
and sit down in the ashes, where I probe
my inmost self with ruthless thoroughness.
Before I throw the ashes on my head
I carefully arrange my sleeves and skirt
to best display my penitence and dread
of judgment, which I know is my desert.
On Wednesday my Lord smiles at all my woe.
“Do you not know,” says he, “what I have done
to save you all this pain? You worry so!
Stand up! I’ll brush you off. Your sins are gone.”
And so his loving touch clears all away
except this ashen cross to mark the day.
The Gift
April 29, 2008 at 10:37 am | In Self, fantasy, poems | Leave a CommentTags: fantasy, free verse, ownership
I bought a small gift, one I truly coveted and
could easily have decided
not to donate to the prize table.
But its winner, knowing, gave it back to me.
I wonder, do I own or am I owned by things?
But when this thing was “mine,”
it wasn’t mine.
It was its own, un-ownable.
A beautiful, graceful whisk broom, long, cylindrical,
with twirling bristles of gold and sepia and not-quite-red
bursting from its tightly bound handle.
Each strand of her full, straw skirt turns slightly in one direction.
She twirls. She enchants. She is her own.
Like all angels.
Living in Leviticus
April 29, 2008 at 8:25 am | In Self, childhood, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: Biblical reference, blank verse
I remember saying to my brother, Don,
“You be the Dad and I will be the Mom”
when we “played house” so many years ago.
Oh, what a perfect family we were,
with no discord, and kids who found that they,
in make-believe, know only what was good.
So when I found these words, I felt again
the rooms of that small house beneath a tree
where we had hung a sheet to make the wall.
Your voice says clearly I need have no fear;
your promise is my talisman of hope:
“You will be my people, I your God.”
The Poet
April 28, 2008 at 4:58 pm | In Self, poems | Leave a CommentTags: humerous, rhymed verse, writing poetry
I’ve tried free verse. I cannot find the way
through my own thoughts without a metered line
to guide me. Why, I ask, can I not say
in freer form what is so easily voiced
in numbered feet? The imagery would show
that this is poetry so readers need not
be at any loss. And yet I’m doomed to go
on counting, rhyming, parsing and I guess
it’s dash, hook, dash, hook, dash I’ll always see
in my mind’s eye – but joined with many greats
like Shakespeare and John Donne who loved, like me,
to hear their iambs in pentameter.
Grace
April 24, 2008 at 9:10 am | In Self, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: Biblical reference, self-knowledge
I built my tower, oh, so carefully.
It wasn’t hard to climb;
a path wound ’round
with such a shallow pitch
I seemed to walk on
the level.
Each step a sin,
each sin so easy
I did not even name it.
As I rose higher,
I saw that all was mine below.
Then suddenly I was struck by a
dizzying confusion. I had no words
for the plans that had been so clear.
I lost the word for joy; was left
with words like power, greed,
avarice, deceit.
I cried out,
“Lord, give me your Word!”
And He did.
Jeremiah
April 24, 2008 at 9:03 am | In Self, poems, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: Biblical reference, humility, self-knowledge
God, pick me up and do as You can do
with this poor clay. I do not ask to be
a fragile, decorated vase, for You
know of what clay You have to work. Make me
the very best of cooking pots; a strong,
unbreakable, unbeautiful but useful pot.
Revise my dreams, for You knew all along
just what was meant for me and what was not.
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