Icarus

I am not quite sure you have been right about

everything.

About most things—I will give you that—

But all of them? I would shake my head, then,

And look at you with open eyes.

Will you to see yourself clearer than that.

Look for mirrors sharper than that

and pray for defiance of augury

and knowledge there is grace

            for the fall of every sparrow.

Even those such as Icarus. 

Triplicate

i.

I dreamed the long flight home,
saw that yours was the thought which made me smile,
drank the ocean air like elixir.
Stumbled words, laughed,
ached with threnody.

ii.

If only my arms were as strong as yours!
My solidity would then be unquestioned,
recursive rings tracing my lines.
Then the sunlight could sheet down my sides unfettered,
I could drink air,
and breathe song.

iii.

Who would have thought them sweet?
Those, those words
could bound flesh, thoughts, hope, pain?
Which one of them knew answers? and to
Which question? oh this love
both less and more, more
than I have ever known-


-R.F.B.

120 volt threnody

Escape these saturated colors and leap
(footlong and headloose)
into grey smoking waterfalls
and the white light of past generations,
stilling the electric nerve
and relentless neon pulse of uncertainty.

-Or, just dress that way on social media.
It might be easier, such insulation;
after all, the sepia world never did look like that.


-R.F.B

on Holiness

Summer in the midwest is my favorite time. The world is so alive, then, the wind tosses the trees and brings the rain, it sends them away and the sun sets and the world turns golden. It gets me to thinking of holiness, of the Spirit running with whispering feet over the fields bringing fruitfulness and life. And I find that such beauty, in nature, singing calls me into some of the holiest moments I have known.

And so, my question.

Perhaps yours has nothing to do with beauty, or everything to do with it. It doesn't really matter. You could write it poetry or prose, about the darkness of 5am or the brilliance of a summer sunset, but my question is this:
what has been one of the holiest moments of your life?

~j.l.s.

on Hummingbirds and Signs

     Aliza and I ended up on the same poem prompt through conversation. After about fifteen minutes with the same prompt, here's what we came up with.

Sat Still Long Enough

I think I saw you(the hummingbird sat still)long enough
to see that
there are branches to sit on
also branches
also sitting.

So please lead me along with an augury that doesn't rely on myself
(I'll fly south with my eyes wide open the entire way).

I'll make my nest in a field
still
enough

to house swallows,
also snakes,
also myself.

And You.

-a.g.s.

Augury and Oracles

I never expected signs

did not need them

I learned independence in the dark

and assurance in solitude

never doubting, firm as a rock

how extravagant then, that you

in the afternoon light

would wreck me with augury

and with the tiniest of birds

I should be overwhelmed.

that a thousand winging thrills

and a flash of ruby red

should over and again be

the feathered providence

      of tender grace. 

~j.l.s.

In which I am posing a question in the form of a prayer

You, Christ, use things to fill me up; the sound of bells distant and golden sunshine illuminating the green trees, a hummingbird, a conversation, piano music spreading over the hall. Are they your way of filling and sustaining me? Ought I not to be satisfied in you alone? Should those external things seem so to fill me and be drips of the waterfall where I hold my cup? Are they your way of showing me your quiet and overflowing beauty in abundant measure, the brimming-ness of your character? Or is it just me delighting and wondering in the creation rather than the Creator to whom I owe all affection, devotion, adoration, delight, praise and attention?

Am I right to see such moments as a filling up; giving thanks to you for them as your provision? Or do I mistake them for more than simply the ordinary?

~

How do you know when you have gotten stuck on the beauty of the creation and failed to ascend to worshiping the beauty of its Creator?

go out

there may be eighty seven

ragged souls in this loud room

how many known?

Not even one

not even completely

Look at their faces

caught unawares

at rest

hopeful or weary

peaceful or pain-full

it’s in the eyes,

gleams like fire caught flickering

rosy dawn shimmering

wild storm flashes

high-tossing waves.

Can I dare to look and see?

go outside the limp shape

that is my own soul and try

to see the shape of another?

Australia

Faces tanned and angled
by the fingertips of the land
dragged across bright eyes
and thin-curved lips-
the red rich dirt
the fertility of the earth
has settled into the soul of these people,
themselves soujourners
in this land which flows
with gold and honey.

-r.b.

The Studio

"Oxford had really represented to us two things so intertwined that we did not clearly distinguish them. One was the apostolic faith in its fullness, as represented by C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. The other was high civilisation, sweet reason, and the life of the mind, which was no less represented by Lewis and Williams as well as many others. Religiously, we longed for the lively life in Christ, but we did not fully see that we were equally longing for the lively life of the mind - the delights of conversation at once serious and gay, which is, whatever its subject, Christ or poetry or history, the ultimately civilised thing. When we spoke of the lively life in Christ, we meant keenness, to be sure, but we also meant the subtle discourse on the meanings of Christ's way that is, in fact, only possible among highly articulate and civilised Christians."
                       ~Sheldon Vanauken, from A Severe Mercy

It Is Not In Mourning

It is not in mourning that I cease to be
counted as blessed. It is not in the blackness(for at least night has stars) but in grayness &
fogs.
Do not pity me so, friend, in my wailing.

When I have forgotten (to notice the trees is when) you've lost me.
When I care no more for the aching horizon it is when
I can no longer smell the potted plants, just outside.

Because now, it takes everything within me to slip these words through my bones
like a refugee slipping through prison bars
and it takes me. It takes all of me just to say

It is not in mourning that I cease to be.

-a-