This Dark Night

"My God, my God. . .

Why have you loosened Me from You?

Why are You far from yeshua-ing [saving] Me?

Do You not hear the words of My roaring?"

The man of God sings the ancient words

In that moment the cup is drunk

and slammed down,

outer garments stripped,

the table turned. . .

. . .darkness descends. 

A child's inconsolable cry goes up

in fear, sobs shaking breath—

The whip cracks and the cry intensifies,

The nails pound through our ears:

Clank! Clank! Clink!

It is all happening so fast

I can't think—

And still the child weeps,

his tears run down my cheeks. . .

. . . I, too, am a child this dark night.

Where is Time?

Where is time?
Does it live on the bottom of a well,

the bristly back of an elephant,

or under furry-soft moss along a fallen tree?

Does it crouch in the crevices of caves,

under the eaves of fairy cottages,

or over the smile of the man-in-the-moon?

Where is time?

Is it tucked deep in the heart,

with old memories of lost love,

and ambitions that have crumbled?

Is it hidden in the mind,

trapped in formulae and fancies,

buried under long-unused ideas?

Where is time?

Does it flit, forever beyond our fingers

outstretched, fleet as the wings 

of an owl or the feet of a fawn?

Is it running like swift spring streams,

chortling at us from just over the next rise,

or peering down from the treetops?

Where is time?

Does it hide in an hourglass 

or stuck between calendar pages,

awaiting freedom by the flick of a hand?

Is it waiting to pounce upon us,

springing on our vulnerable souls

to carry us away at the end of days?

Where is time?

Living in the hollows of longing 

and in the halls and homes of dear friends—

in children's laughter and delighted hearts.

It hangs on the tip of the crescent moon,

dripping over us in flickering shade

and sweet scents of summer hay fields.

Where is time?

Deep in the wells of our belovéd's eyes,

blue, yet flecked with one rusty speck

and over-full of sorrow and kindness.

It dwells in worlds pressed between 

the pages of books, and in the notes

of a bird's song, evensong, all song.

Where is time?

In the pockets of jackets worn on 

autumn hikes, full of leaves and pine cones—

and in brimming cups of fragrant tea.

It crowds in cookie crumbs shared

with family and friends, and spills

over our tongue, savouring memories.

Where is time?

Settled in the silence of a misty forest or

with a comfortable friend, and in the cries

of gulls and the sweep of crow's wings.

Under every dew-encrusted blade of grass,

crowning headstones, rippling in sandstone

and in the shore's ever-lapping waves. . .

Where, oh where, is time?

K. G. M.

His tide went out

with the rising of the Hunter's moon

in all its fullness and hunger,

that early July morn

For days and weeks

his body ebbed away, bit by bit 

until his gaunt frame

sighed its final exhale

The sound of that breath,

though faint, much the same

as YHWH's very name—

a final note of coming hope

Good Friday Musings

 

To lay down my life

in a moment is one thing—

I think I could do that

for Jesus or protecting others...

 

But to lay down my life

day in and day out,

to say no to sweet kisses,

to strong arms and loving acceptance...

...surely not!

 And yet...that is the call

more than the first—

To lay down my life again and again,

to open my hands to loss

and find it gain

To lay down my life

and the longings of my heart—

I cannot—not on my own;

Pry open my grasping hand,

my Fierce and Kind Redeemer

Place Your hand in mine,

that I may grasp firmly

the stinging nettle of sacrifice

and be raised to new and eternal Life. 

 

 

The Waiting is Also the Gift

 

This is a poem that I can't write yet,

I find that I don't know this truth—

I only know that it rings true

with all its resonance inside of me

All I know now is the melancholy

of holy waiting—the ache of longing...

Longing to belong to someone,

someone who is mine like no one else

I want to ring all the bells

inside someone else's soul—

to give them my soul and body

for always. I want them to stay...

My biggest fear is that someone

would know me—all of me—

and then leave, taking my soul

and breaking my heart to death

Will I ever learn that

the waiting is also the gift

Or will I simply feel

like it is always the hardest part?

Will I ever get to fully give

someone else my open heart

and have them care for it? Will they stay

when who I am should scare them away?

If waiting is all there is

Lord, help me to know it as gift.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

I wrote this in March 2022. Though quite a few things have shifted in my life since then, I still feel like this is a poem I can't write yet.  —JB

Turning Tables

 
In this season of bright sadness
a voice in the dark says:

"Go. There is nothing left

for you here," all is madness

We go. In silence we slide

out into the night,

round moon slicing the sky

above, its sadness bright

The table is turned,

the wine swallowed burned

its way down inside

now part of us, blood of Christ

Christ, bloody and torn

turns universe-tables,

Son of Man crowned with thorns

endures epithets, labels of scorn

Dark sun shades that day

we remember as this weekend

crawls on toward the ember

of new fire, night turning grey

Ashes of sadness form a nest

for Heaven's Fire to rest

before He leaps upward

in life—excelling mythic-bird

There is nothing left

here in the tomb—death bereft

of corpse and terrible sting,

Life holds in hand the final victory

The Fullest Extent of Love 

exited the grave on His own two feet,

turning the sadness of sorrow sweet. . .

Ash Wednesday IV

Ash and oil

mix in paint

across my forehead

A cross my

forehead boldly bears

stares at me

from the mirror

Dust of death

to wipe away

like life—brief

Unlike the bread,

the strong wine,

both now part

of my body

much like I'm

part of His

Life from death

Life swallowing up

sin's spectre grey

painting a cross

for Life Himself

to die upon. . .

Yet He holds

so much life

death is undone

like ash become

palm once again

___

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

In. . .

In all of my inadequacy

I stand,

Eyes cast down,

chin quavering,

salt trails glistening

In all of my paucity

of soul I come,

Weak-willed,

straining to have what I want

and to do what You want

In all of my scarcity

of mind

that streaks my days

with fear and grasping,

I hide from the world

In all of my insufficiency

I kneel,

with downcast eyes

and open hands,

letting go my weak will

Lift up your heads

ye mighty gates!

Be opened,

ye ancient doors!

The King of Glory enters in!

In all of His sufficiency

He stands;

In all of His humility 

He comes,

Emmanuel, God enfleshed

In the fullness of time

He brings love,

filling empty hands

and hearts and minds—

including mine

In my empty

He enters, a seed in the

dark womb, burgeoning 

life, growing light—

the Eternal Dayspring

In the first light of day

He is the spark

divine, disgorging the rich,

feeding goodness to the

starving, my soul included

In Him my soul, too,

rejoices—

In my lonely places,

In the unbearable waiting,

He enters in. . .

Name-Friend

Bloody hands drip crimson

with ache and regret,

I broke the very thing

I tried so hard to protect

Flood after salty flood

cannot wash away

this guilt and all my shame,

these shards opening a vein

Dripping drops of love

that should be treasured,

yet now are spattered

about, given unmeasured

But whoever measured love?

Who taught it to go by rule?

Who said it wasn't messy?

No one—no one but a fool

A different fool am I,

who aches for doing right

and crushing joy

in the heart of a broken boy

Ash Wilderness

No ashes smudged my brow,
no fellow pilgrims gathered 'round,
no bread was pressed into my hand,

there was no wine for parchéd tongue

no taste of Christ's body or His blood

Instead, white flakes upon my crown

Ash-like, they blanketed the ground,

My empty home was filled

with candle glow and a beating heart

a chamber of blood for the body of Christ

Empty space became hallowed

my knees pressed in, head bowed;

Desolate darkness filled with little flames,

the silent void invaded by a chant

breaking forth from the Body of Christ

In this season of sadness bright

the valleys become hollows to catch light,

the negatives show up outlined clear—

Our Lent has been a year-long affair

sustained with only the Body of Christ

We who see the edges of dark

find the contrast stark 

between Advent's rising Sun and its setting,

where we befriend lament and night,

swallowing deep the body of Christ

'No ashes' leaves an empty space

where I learn to receive a crown of grace

for expectations unmet and things lost—

And a single heart is not alone

when it is part of the Body of Christ

Hollowed hands are a channel of

opportunity to be offered in love,

to be raised in repentance, 

and lifted in worship, open to be

the physical signs of Christ's body. . .

Tears

The candles are crying waxen tears

        from their unseeing eyes—

Their little frames have 

        no hearts to break

no wound to bleed like mine

My own grief pools red and hot,

        or cools upon my cheek,

my waxen heart cannot feel

        unless it is this emptiness—

My loneliness none dares to break

Candles burn bright and

         candles burn low—

Grief and loneliness don't fill me

         they hollow out my feeling,

stealing life, their appetites grow

What can fill grief and sorrow,

          loneliness and death?

Their hunger growls and I diminish,

          their ache digs deep

to ravage my every breath—

Breath! Spirit of God poured out

           like melting wax—

Unlike water in the wilderness

           the Spirit is not swallowed—

He fills and heals each crack

Cracks in my soul that run

            deep and hungry ache,

He finds the bottom and

            fills the deep wells

making a pool of Beauty—a lake

A lake of salty tears

            that now reflects

the Light, the stars, the silver moon—

            and bathes the travellers' weary feet,

a gift, a healing they did not expect.

I Shall but Love Thee Better after Death. . .

Dear Aaron,

Why do I still write to you? The last note I received from you was seven years ago next month. Seven. Years. And of those seven years, you have been gone two years, four months, and two days. 

I suppose I write for the reason I always did. . .you are my beloved friend. Reading your letters has taught me much, both then and now as I re-read them. And I always felt like writing to you in particular brought my thoughts together in ways that didn't happen with anyone else. Oh, I wasn't brilliant or particularly deep, but when I put pen to paper for you, it was like all the synapses snapped, all the thoughts aligned, all the pieces came together into a full picture. Writing to you made my world bigger, my thoughts clearer...it made me a deeper, richer person than I was. That has never happened in such a way with any other correspondent-friend. 

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

Perhaps it sounds a little selfish, but I think the heart of Miss Browning's above lines is this: you are such an inspiring person that those who are given the gift of truly knowing you can't help but become better because of you. 

She's right, you know. So many times I have mourned the loss of your friendship, and then the loss of your life—and in that, I've mourned the loss of part of myself. Some part of myself was diminished when you shut me out of your life—and that part of me died with you, Aaron. I grieve that the world is a poorer place without you, you generous soul. I grieve that your family keenly feels your absence. And I grieve the loss of beauty, cheer, and depth I once had when we were so regularly in touch. 

There have been persons in my life who seemed to call out the worst in me; I did not like myself when I was around them. My family and friends didn't like who I was when such persons were in my life. But you weren't like that. You called my mind and heart to soar upward; to look toward God's Beauty, reflected in nature and poetry and music. You inspired (breathed life into) me to want to read more, think more, live more, experience more. I love the part of me that you brought out. I mourn that part of myself, now buried with you. And I eagerly await the renewal and resurrection of that part of me in the New Kingdom. It will be refined and redeemed... To know you again, not as we did, but in a much fuller way, will bring out a facet in me (and you!) that we only had a glimpse of during the years we were friends.

I can only pray that my own friendship, such as it was, inspired you and made your life somehow better, friend. And I pray that in the New Kingdom we will continually draw out the good in one another, calling one another "Further up, and further in!"

As I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's gentle lines again, I realised why I still write to you, Aaron. I still write to you because I still love you. I will always love you. I love who you were. I love who you inspired and encouraged me to be. And I can't wait to get to learn to love you anew in the Kingdom Coming. It will be a different love there—a love pure and untainted by selfishness or any fallen thing. Loving you in the Kingdom will be something glorious that our earthly friendship could only catch a glimmer of.

I love you, friend. I love much of what you love. I love your sincerity and earnestness. I love your love for Beauty. I love your silliness and exuberance (from ringing bells to quoting poetry on tables and playing guitar until people hollered at you). I love your generosity. I love your unquenchable thirst for wonder and for knowledge. I just love YOU. And I miss you. Oh, friend, I miss you. So. Much.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Darkling Thrush

Photo by Ankhesenamun on Unsplash

I leant upon a coppice gate

          When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

           The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

         Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

                      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

— Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

Can you see it? A barren field, grey skies, lowering clouds, and scraggly weeds whipping in the wind. The year is closing, and for Thomas Hardy, the nineteenth century was closing; buried in crypt like a corpse. Everything looked bleak, grey, gnarled, and worn out. 

Though much of 2020 was fairly normal for me at a daily life level, it was not without its pall. A dear family friend taken in death—the mother of my best friends growing up. No Holy Week and Easter Sunday gathered together with fellow believers. Nine months of not being able to worship side-by-side with other believers. The death of Mike Adams. The bleak reality that there is no longer free speech in America. The sudden removal of one of our delivery drivers, someone who had been on our route for years. Normal-person-sickness cancelling our Christmas plans with extended family and friends. 

Break-ups. Ageing. Cancer. Suicide. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth / Was shrunken hard and dry, / And every spirit upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I." My sister described her normal-person-flu symptoms as leeching the colour from life. "Everything seems grey and un-enjoyable." Being sick is like that, insipid, uninspired, listless, and dull. Christmas felt like that for me, even though I was (blessedly!) with my immediate family. The year 2020 felt like that for many people. Like a corpse outleant o'er all the land, like weeds against a flat, grey sky. Colourless. 

At once a voice arose among

   The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

    Of joy illimited. . .

In the midst of death, decay, and listlessness a song of joy breaks over Hardy. The singer isn't a young bird, a hearty bird, a colourful bird. It is "An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, / In blast-beruffled plume" who has "chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom." We often think of children being resilient or hues of colour in a bleak setting. And they certainly can be... But what I love about this turn in the poem, what made tears streak down my cheeks today, was that this was an aged, frail thrush. There is no freshness, no innocence here. He knows hardship. Yet he full-heartedly flings his very soul out into the gathering gloom.

I don't know what 2021 will bring. But I'm tried of being told it will be dark and fearful. It may be. Given the evidence of how the masses have been led by the media to believe outright lies, how the Left is openly saying they want to put people in "re-education" camps (sound like Hitler pre-WWII to anyone else?), and how Christian companies are being dropped by their credit card services for having normal Christian morals, I don't anticipate that 2021 will be better than 2020. It may be much, much worse. Things I never thought could happen in America have happened, are happening. . . I'm not sugar-coating that or denying what could be.

But. 

      But I want to be like that frail, weather-beaten, aged thrush.

                      I want to fling my soul out into the gloom of the gathering storm.

Not in recklessness, not because I've given up, not because I'm saying "Oh, to Hell with it!" and calling it quits. I am not. I will not. I want to—God help me!—throw my soul out into the great big world and let it be a note of beauty, a moment of colour, a breath of inspiration, and a glimmer of Hope.

If ever there was a moment in my lifetime with "So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound" this is it. I've personally had worse times. But this is bigger than my own griefs. This is a gathering gloom of national, global proportions. And I want to put my finger in the dyke, if only as a brief stopgap, a clear note in the pre-storm silence of "Some blessed Hope, whereof [I know] / [Yet the world is] unaware." I want to sing "In a full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited." And that means, to be clear, that I want my soul to be filled with Beauty and Truth, which both flow from and point to Jesus—the Word without whom nothing that exists would have been at all. There is no limit to the joy which flows from Him. Let there be no limit to His joy "trembling through" me, either.

“...that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

— Mary Ann Evans (aka: George Eliot), Middlemarch                 

Sunrise

Dappling light
Dances across

Clear glass–

The bottle

On my

Window sill.

Golden light

Shakes through

Green leaves

Like fairy-sprites

Swirling into

My kitchen.

Ah light!

O morning!

Arise and

Shine out;

Come and

Be bright!

(2015)

Hearthfires and Hearts Afire

Come in, come in and warm thyself
by the fire of love,
kindled by kindness and
breathing out the incense 
of acceptance

Come, gather 'round
the crackling branches, 
pruned and withered, 
still offering warmth and light
as they fall to ash and truly die

Come toast thy face 
in the warmth of grace and
by the blaze of holiness 
be scoured and cleansed, 
be set to rest

Come out of the wet, the cold, 
the wild wind—to the hearth 
and heart of this home,
wherein Christ dwells in mirth
and tears, in hugs and hands

Come in, come in and sit
thyself beside the fire
of hospitality and glowing embers,
where we laugh and weep
and still remember.

What If. . . ?

What if I weep for you?
You, who can weep no longer,
your eyes fixed on the Author
and Finisher of our faith,
not upon the mounded grave. . .

What if I ache for you?
The ache of separation you don't feel,
you, who are with the Father,
who are here no longer,
yet who dwell in thin places. . .

What if I rejoice for you?
You, who have stepped off
this mortal coil into the Kingdom
coming, to meet in the Kingdom
to come, under Spirit, Father, and Son. . .

What if I reach for you?
Reach out my hand, to empty air
for you, whom I can't touch
until the Kingdom comes, fully
and wholly, Heaven and Earth, together. . .

What if I miss you?
You, who have my heart, still,
though I didn't know it until
too late, when you passed the gate
between here and where I can't be yet. . .

What if I say your name?
Will you come back again,
my dear poet-friend, whom I miss so
fiercely? Will you teach me to see,
show me the ways of the Kingdom coming. . .

What if I love you?
You, bell-ringer, song-singer,
hope-bringer, who quietly gave
all of yourself away—all of your mind
away—all of your life away,
                                             what if. . . ?



I do. . .
              and I will.

Juxtaposed

Starry stubs of light
pool time in waxen white
flowing from this shadowed season
when sadness should be bright

In darkness tinged with light
we wait the coming time
when God sneaks in like treason
and all will be made right

But this time it's different
The subtle shades of Lent
look more like darkened joy,
like the negative of a print

Everything is going in reverse
all the bright is coming first,
and then darkness rushes in
swallowing the light of the universe

Is there Easter at the end,
or a deeper darkness to wend
through before day rises,
edged in shade as I am unmade?

Invisible Friend

Raw tears
run to clenched jaws
and angry fears...

'This is your own fault,
your foolish choice'
whispers that
nagging voice

'You chose to care,
chose to listen,
now you'll tear.'

Tear into pieces
by unreasonable
expectation,
unseasonable...

Why does it never 
align? My desires
left severed

Just a friend again,
just someone to spill
your thoughts on—
invisible still

You know, I'm so
dissatisfied in the role
of come and go

Tired of being unloved
and unseen,
yet feeling small
and mean

Wishing gladness
to any friend
is not sadness

Or it shouldn't be.
Who have I become?
To be ungenerous
to anyone?

Dry eyes,
turned down, ashamed
of my lies

I've lied to myself,
that I am okay
when I'm not,
not today

And not any other,
without beholding
my Lover

Who may not appear
by my side,
but He will be
my faithful Guide

Truth will not
staunch the blood,
it spills hot

Healing could arrive
in this life,
but I may have to bide
until the Kingdom

I choose to love,
choose to care,
with Help from above

If that makes me
a lonely fool,
choosing to rejoice
rather than being cruel

Then let it be,
my only prayer:
Blesséd, blesséd, blesséd be He.

You Feel It

It's a curious thing, being alive—you feel it.

You feel the aliveness even in decay, in aches and pains.
You know life when the wind whispers in your ear,
and when the sun runs its fingers down your cheek.
And you feel alive when the wind is stiff, tries to tip you off a cliff,
when the sun burns your skin red and stains you with pain.

You feel the aliveness in beauty, in the ecstasy and the ache.
When music courses through your body to the gas pedal,
and when it courses down your face in briny drops.
When the sunset and the stars sing a symphony,
and when the storm clouds rage against your pane.

You feel the aliveness in the fear, propelling and suspending.
When terror races through your veins, pumping your legs,
and when it stings like ice, freezing your flight, your mind.
When you're so close to trepidation you can taste it,
you find that you feel frighteningly alive, alive, alive.

You feel the aliveness in hope, in its shock and comfort.
Someone offers a hug, a kind word, an unexpected gift,
and it jars your heart, opens eyes wide in surprise as they cry.
How can something so soothing still stun your soul?
See—impetuous generosity can change your life.

It's a haunting thing, being alive—you feel it.

This you taught me beyond the grave...

Dear Aaron,

The wind is sweeping through the pines tonight,
rattling my windows, whispering 'round the trees
The sky is weeping rain tonight,
Pouring out its pain upon the needles and the leaves

Always, always these are the nights I want to write
a letter to you, but where would I send it to?
Instead, I find your old letters,
weeping o'er their leaves, seeing your words anew

Tonight you reminded me that Despair makes a
show of his strength—or of our flaws—
Yet all the while he's trembling,
Fearing his bluff is up, but if we pause

And listen to his terms, with bowed heads
and hopeless hearts, saying
"These we will take!"
He confidently assumes we are paying

Paying the price of defeat, when really
we are rallying to fight his prideful will
to the bitter end,
Making the end less bitter on that battle hill

The Dark Lord wages war, precarious,
He doesn't have the upper hand,
But he uses our doubt
against us; yet wavering, we stand

Willing to sacrifice ourselves;
Even when hope has died in our hearts,
We will go down
Fighting against Despair and his darts

And unbelievably the eagles come,
Hope beyond hope—unlooked for—
Holds out a wing
To cover and to carry us once more

But when everything sad doesn't come untrue
under the sunless sky and the lidless eye,
Still we press on
Toward journey's end, by our living Despair dies

This you taught me beyond the grave,
Across the years you reached out to me
In red ink written
Ages ago, when we were younger and free

Free in ways we didn't know and often shunned,
You were wise, I was naive as could be—
Behold, time reveals truth
If only we have the eyes to look and to see