The Echoes of Failure

My failures hang from
My frame in rags
Blowing like tatters
On the wind
As I fall to the ground
My house of cards
Imploding in slow motion
Taking endless seconds
For complete collapse.

A knife stab to the
Central vein a cut
Across the throat
I saw the picture as
You lay in a pool of blood
Fallen victim of
Demon hate so alive
In our poor world.

In this complete annihilation
Hope buried yet again
The desert drying all
Bones watered by tears
I light a candle taper
Watch it burn down
Into the sand
This taper traveled from
Our mother's last dwelling
In Ephesus.
The loneliness of my
Failures to disappear into the
Thinness of air
Your spirit now free
To taste all
The fruit of your labors.

In memory of Bishop Luigi Padovese ofm cap  R.I.P.

The Tiny Wings of Remembrance

May is the month of Mary
When the hummingbirds return
Arriving in our garden after
Their long journey
Come north
Some to stay to build their nests
These amazing little travelers
Energetic acrobats of the air.

I've learned to ready their feeders
Now that the cherry tree they loved
Is only memory
They scold me if I forget
Stricken my own heart
To find the feeder empty
When the nights
Can still turn bitter cold.

I love the sound of
Their buzzing
Metallic and noisey
Fierce competitors
Territories fought for
Sometimes I think
The country hummingbirds
Seem more friendly
Memories of lazy summer
Sharings on the east shore
Gatherings of the little birds
Without battle drums
But I wasn't there in spring.

Spring is intensely green
Life bursting forth these
Feathered bombers
Dive at me as I garden
Glad they don't have teeth
Or giant stingers.
Yesterday a rusty colored
Curious member of
Their family
Sat on a post close by
Eyed me
Friend or foe, flower or
Competition?
At least they can at times
Be still
I sense their friendship.

The last visit with my father
In his tiny care room
He rested quietly content with
Visioning his waiting elders
From beyond the veil
While I sat close by and
Watched a show about
The hummingbird
Its habitat under pressure
In the solemn measure
When life is in a balance.

It was my final good-bye
Quietly taken before
My father slipped away
In the unusual heat of
June's feast of the Sacred Heart.
I still remember
A large yellow butterfly
Flew by the funeral church steps
As I sat in the hearse waiting
And it was there at the graveyard
Fluttering by the tombs
And in the cool of the lakeside
Where later the mourners gathered.


Each time I see one of
These small winged creatures
Flying through my eye lines
There is always a
Tugging at my heart
Making me stop to
Nurse my remembrance.

Shipwreck

There are dangerous shoals
Lurking in the waters
The shipwreck of souls
Who make bad choices
That leave them
Broken on the rocks of
Their own willfulness.

It is a sad sight
This wreckage of families
The bitterness of
Abandonment
The mental illness of
Trapped minds.

How we all bear such souls
Often with chains of misery
Or sadness drowning
Hope floating only
With the mercy of God's goodness
Source of grace and saving
In this broken world.

Homage to Mary Magdalene

When you met
Our Blessed Mother
Her beauty must have
Brought you to your knees
Stripped bare like a tree
Blown by ruthless winter winds
To rise again
Your worldly appearances
No longer left intact
Those devils that fill
Our human frames
Sent packing by
Tears of repentance
Washing the feet of holiness.

You were surely the black
Sheep of your family
A deadly trap for
Foolish ways
Facing into your public
Humiliation overcome with love
Pouring ointment where
Indifference and neglect
Looked the other way
The tension between you
And the traitor who
Held the purse strings
Palpable down through time
As you felt the
Angry tides coming
For Him you loved.

At the foot of the
Most frightful event
In history
Forged in a fire I
Can only be a pauper's share
You took your place
In the new beginning
With Mary and the
Beloved young man
There at the foot of
Salvation.

It was your privilege
Sent into the garden that early morn
Carrying spices in your sorrow
Salve for the wounds of
Death now gone from the tomb
Stolen from your eyes
Unable to recognize the form
Gracing the garden
Only your ears caught the truth
His voice
Resounding glorified
As you in homage kissed
The pierced feet
Afraid to lose Him
Once again
But He would stay awhile
He said, no need to
Be afraid.

Your reputation down
Through the ages
Lies buried in mystery
Your last years spent in prayer
Nursing the tiny shoot
Planted with such loving cost
In time
With the beloved young man
You bid farewell
Unto heaven's gate she whose
Beauty first stayed your
Searching soul
Sustaining you always within her
Tenderness
Gone forward into glory
Her son's Spirit the fiery life now
Burning in your beating heart.

The Ferryman

Along a passage way of
Flowing river pressed by the valleys
I grew up with images and sounds
Passing below my window
My bird's eye view
Watched the slow descent
Boom laden tugs through
Narrows in the distance
Drawing close and always
Heading west heavy with burden.

On a daily schedule
The rumble of the trains
Reverberating from across
The opposite shore
Hurrying in both directions slowly
The boxcars rocking
The squeal of brakes on winding
Tracks with horns blasting
Late into the night
Vibrating across the waters
Rocked gently to sleep.

I was thus taught
My vocation like the ancient
Greeks, the mariners of old
With their ferryman that
Rowed the dead across
The river Styx
To enter through the narrow
Gates of judgment Death.

Humble was the learning
Such task given in the silence
A school of images burned
Deep in memory as tracks
Of servitude, steel lines
Across my soul
The boxcars ever full of
Needy dead some still alive
The boom growing larger
As I toil with souls within
My soul towards the eternal shore.

Family

It is interesting
This reality called family
Filled with individuals
From different planets
Sitting down to
The same breakfast table
Day after day.

Time presses us
Together
As we go our separate ways
Trained by our circumstance
The youngest
Many years behind
It was my fate
To stay at home
My sentence for being
Too young
As busy with their lives
My siblings grew.

How could I complain
To be left behind with such
A beautiful mother
But cry I did
Indignant again and again
Did it make my bones grow strong
These tears
That taught me
With my place
To be content.

Pause

The fallen leaves of
My words on water
Floating merrily
Bubbling on top
Spring fed streams
Chortling 
Caught in the currents
Into a back eddy
Bobbing content
Against the river bank
The words I write will
Pause.

Thankfulness for
All the kind words
The encouragement
To the poet with promise
When next the Muse
Bothers me
I will with
Arm twisted out of my corner
Send a few poems
For you to read
When the time is right.

This back eddy
Could last awhile
Always to be
Unpredictable
In release
These traveling leaves
From a poet's heart
In search of the river's
Depth.