Javelin Words

I would my poems
Be like javelins hurled
Up beyond this clouded vale
As monks in ancient times
Solitary in the desert
Sent short prayers into the skies
Vigilant against the numbing attacks
The dark underworld
And the heaviness of mortality.

Artists are accused of melancholy
I recognize the label
While protesting that clouds can
Lie heavy on the mountains too
Blessed are they who mourn
The Master spoke to the crowds one day.

If I do not bend beneath
Time's overwhelming wait
How can I be
Like stars that shine brightly
Across the heavenly orb.

I would my poems
Be a song of praise
Silence
The musical setting
Memory
The faint cry
A life lived in awareness
A spirit that can dance
And a heart that understands
Words that are forever the
Messengers with winged thrust.

There Comes a February Day

The cloud cover of our valley
Gray and low in
Dark winter months
Suddenly is invaded
Bright sun sky with blue
Everywhere above
And the sad winter remnants
Illuminated
The earth looking forlorn
In brown dirt garbage
Frozen in night time chill
Ice on the mud puddles
Cracked by children now old
The delight still young
The satisfying sound rippling.

There is a happiness in the air
Creatures all emerging into sunlight
Blinking in unaccustomed brightness
Chatting with old friends
Even unknown strangers
Greeted with friendly nods
Then
In the quiet of the shore
Comes a tinkling sound
The waves hitting thin ice
Against the shore rockiness
Ethereal in sound
Bewitching to the ears
The ice breaking in shards
Glass like into silence
Breaking like sometimes
My heart is wont to do.

Reversals

When I was young
My life was filled with play
A body flexible and strong
Bending to the shape
Imagination found in far off lands
But inside this youthful casing
An inflexible rod-like view of life
Expectation with how things should be
Peopled with the simple
Solutions only inexperience
Insists reality must comprise.

Now that many years
Have passed through my time
I cannot bend so easily without
Stiffness taking liberty with joints
Inside my mind
The stern rod of expectations
Has given way to softer thoughts
Formed by the drying winds
Remorse and failure
Trampled by the endless foibles
Inhabiting these common shores
People met along this way
Force me to hidden truths that
Make me see beyond these
Constraints of time
Love has softened my hard edges
Made my critical eye less sharp.

Irene once said
No one believes in Jesus anymore,
I am forced to think
Do they know He believes in them?