A Safe Refuge

At sixteen the world
Is still a new place
While young to leave home
Many have begun their vocation
Indeed, it was a year
To learn the gifts given
For eager I had set off
A new school, in a new town
An extension of summer camp
With new friend's met
A chance given to be at a
School run by my faith.

Without regrets, oh, callow youth
I dusted off my hometown roots
Sailing into adventure wide-eyed
Safe in my journey, not looking back.
But in three weeks time
The reality of my change
Hit my youthful optimism
My feet slipping and unable to feel
The rug of familiar ties.

So to the church I fled
One night, plotted carefully
Aided by my room mate
I brought my sleeping bag
Tucked it under the side tabernacle altar
And hid beneath until the church
Was to be locked for the night.
I could see the priest
Genuflect in front of me
His eyes not directed downward
Preoccupied in thought
As I held my breath
And then he was gone and I
With the Lord above me
Was all alone.

Ah, the silence broken at last
By an outpouring of youthful tears
The aisles paced in the safety of solitude
As I wondered out loud
At my hastily chosen fate
My newly made friends
Had busy lives
It was I who had the task at hand
To find my way
Sustained with prayers from home.

At last I was calm
Tired from the struggle
To sort my confusing thoughts
I sang as I sat on the altar stairs
Not unlike the times of old
When music raised questions
Before the Lord.
Then weary I crept to
My bed upon the floor
My heart emptied and still
And there I slept until
Awoken at six when a vigil
Candle glass exploded.

It's true that dawn
Brings hope
Stiff and sore but content
I listened for the elderly
Caretaker to finish his morning prayers
I carefully appeared in a pew
Aware that his eyes were suspicious
At the hair unkempt and the noiseless entrance
But I kept my head down
Ready for my coming year.

It was in this church
Almost forty years later
Face down on the floor
Our new shepherd
Received his ordination
The Church sending forth
Future's hope into the world and
Safe refuge for Her own.

The Heat of Summer

When the sun
Bears down on the earth
To bring the bustle and noise of the world
To slow motion and to rest
It is the lazy
Tsch, tsch, of the tall sprinklers
At work in the hay fields
That speak to me of summer and the
Oppressive heat where the lone
Loud chorus of grasshoppers sing intently
In the tall grass and sweet smelling
Alfalfa soon to be mowed and
Left lying in hillside sun 
To dry in rows, then haystacks
Stored in the barn's loft
For the winter's feed.

In irony, I, who was born
On one of the hottest of summer days
Was usually reduced
To a blubbering  puddle of tears
Unable to bear the heat that usually
Marked my passing years in time.
In the aftermath of my meltdowns
The acacia spread its
Branches in kindness
To shade me from the sweltering rays
Where I could sit and listen
To the sounds of summer's song.

Or sometimes on the covered front porch
I would gently swing in the little hammock
Watching the late afternoon sun
Dance in the Virginia creeper leaves
And  then we would be friends again
The sun and I.

The Liturgical Ghetto

Here in the heart
The home of God's house
Lies in ruins,
A ghetto filled with
The filth of indifference,
God now forgotten
As man glorifies himself.

It is a fearsome place.
No longer the refuge found
When I was young,
And my rosary was a train
To wile the time that weighed
Heavy to a young child.
Peace was always to be found in
God given silence that spoke
To my little soul.

The music in this church
No longer whispers
Heavenly anticipation.
Hades shouts its melodies
To beat and harass us.
I would avoid this place of torment
Except that He is here.
I hang on in hope
That the clamoring world will be sent
Outside once more.

Here in this liturgical ghetto
There is a stench and darkness in the air
Loathsome creatures that scurry
The rats are in charge of the ship,
Who like jailers
Would beat us without mercy
With their egos and vile interpretations.
I pray for hope,
That this sad time will
Pass before I do.

From the Edge of Mystery

Life has a lonliness in
Choices to be made
And it is we who chose
Within the uncertain
Reality in mystery veiled
As I stand on the
Edge of time passing
And pray for courage
To endure the changes
Inevitable in future guise.

It has taken time to learn
That hope does not have expectations
But a trust
In the goodness of the
Divine will stirring
The currents of life that
Find hidden places
To dwell in fullness.

Here on the edge I hover as if on
A sheer rock face
Shaped by the ages
Belonging to this world's past
Where grows the nodding plants
Gathering moisture
Falling from the mists now
Shrouding the river from sight
The clouds moving with urgency
Towards a valley filled with
The grace, as yet, to me unknown.

In the June Air

The breezes off the river
June filled scents intense
On the moist air filled with
Wild roses in gentle pink bloom
Their feet wet in the rising waters
Now swelling against the river's bank
With waves that sounding lap
Moving all shapes of the
Driftwood riding on changing
Times in the spring run off.

I hear the whispers in the trees
From leaves dancing in the
Arms of the wind
And suddenly I am
Young again in the fragrance of
Wild roses
Floating on the breezes
Filling my silence with
Scented sweetness
Uniting me with
The maternal soul I once stood quietly with
In the nourishing of all life
Shimmering like the sun
Across the surface of
Memory.

Paradise

The iron bars on the gates
To the Paradise filled with beauty
Locked against these poor
Mortal ways
The flaming swords
Angels fiercely wield
Against the pitiful plans
This grass we are.

Five wounds
Blood flowing from
Became the key
The gates swing wide
The price being paid
And tiptoe I through
To hide inside
The lifeless form
Nailed to the tree of
Mystery.

I saw death
Slink away to hide
Its weary form
Thrown down beneath
Your Love overflowing
Drowning my sins
In a red sea
I cross unto a desert
One day to bloom
In flowered times
To sing in praise
Always.

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.