Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

My son is singing as he packs for college,
and I am silent, listening.  The days
I sang to him, boxed up in all this haulage,
will go with him on his unfolding ways,
forgotten, mostly, in his quest for knowledge,
but buried where the homing instinct stays.

My son is singing songs of old I taught him,
the way a fledgling sings to see the sky
as summer rounds the back stretch into autumn,
so much of joy and freedom in the cry,
so eager to cast off the nest that caught him
and test his wings.  O God, may he fly high!

My son is singing, music ringing brightly
from songs I shared with him or those he found
on his reconnaissance.  The notes fall lightly
as nestling down in air.  These rooms resound
until he packs the car, and I pray nightly
they follow him to his new nesting ground.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

I even now would shield you from all harms;
how could I not, who carried you so long,
the weight of you forever in my arms,
my lips still lilting lullabies of song?

I cannot hold you now or hold you back;
my songs no longer echo in your ears,
although they sound in mine: A constant track
accompanies a world of newfound fears.

Now you are going where I cannot trail
and shouldn’t try.  Be careful, O my sons.
You go where you will fall, where you will fail,
and I can’t pick you up as I did once.

But still my arms are wrapped around the shades,
the memories I lift, caressing you
where you are not.  Though all else fades,
I feel that weight of you at one or two

before you got too big for me to lift.
When you are gone, I sit and hold you yet.
Greater than gold, the mass of you, the gift.
My mind may slip; my arms will not forget.

Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,
he whom I must love but for himself,
for whom I leave the north, east, west, and south
to seek him ever more within myself.

Let the world have all itself—it is enough
for me, this chapel floor to kneel upon.
Such is the ground of ecstasy, of love,
of nights of joy too soon dispelled by dawn.

For there the barren stones with orchards bloom,
and pomegranates from a wooden cross
pile up in all the corners of the room,
with flowers from a springtime beyond loss.

This watchman body sees him not, but I
can see; my soul finds him whom my heart loves.
Only a flash, a moment, a heart’s cry,
then he is gone who filled these pleasant groves.

So I will seek him still, my soul send forth
though here I kneel contented and confined.
I range a scope beyond mere south and north
to seek my love and know that I will find.

Christ Embracing St. Bernard by Francisco Ribalta – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=158223

Bless the cheaters; bless the scammers;
bless the frauds down on their luck.
Bless the thieves and all flim-flammers:
We’re just trying to make a buck.

Bless the con-men and the takers:
Give and gladly we’ll receive.
Bless the blusterers and fakers:
Grant us, maybe, a reprieve.

We are charlatans and shysters
taking you for all you’re worth,
wise as serpents.  Lord, be wiser
or we’ll take the whole damn earth.

We’ll get all that isn’t nailed down,
steal the shirt right off your back,
but we pray you’ll get us bailed out
when the devil’s on our track.

Oh, for there were thieves beside you
when you hung on Calvary;
one believed and one denied you.
We don’t know which ones we’ll be.

We are gamblers; we are bettors,
but we’d rather hedge our bets.
As you said, “Forgive your debtors,”
Lord, forgive us all our debts.

Though our hope’s in dice and card games,
though we daily rob you blind,
do not leave us to the darkness:
Oh, be merciful; be kind.

Let us feast at your great table
like a Vegas-strip buffet.
Lord, be generous—you’re able.
Bring us in and let us stay.  Amen.

But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” 
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.” 
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.” 
—Matthew 15:21-28

We come from east and come from west
as fast or slow as we are able,
for all who come to you are blest,
even the dogs beneath the table.

We come from west and come from east;
we come for healing, come for worship.
Your children sit down at the feast;
we gather begging at your doorstep.

We come from temples, come from gods;
we leave our father’s house and people.
You smash our idols with your rod
and we lie shattered at your feet here.

We come to you from other flocks;
we come because our names are spoken.
You find us fallen among the rocks
and bring us with you, bruised and broken.

We come, and leave all we come from;
we come as exiles, empty-handed,
and still you call and still we come
and know we will not be abandoned.

We come, O Lord, because you heal,
for you alone, O God, are able.
We come here crawling to your meal,
and you will seat us at your table.

Franz Marc: Dog Lying in the Snow, 1910-1911, Städel Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=477944

As man is born of woman
and then is laid in earth,
so Christ in Mary’s womb then
lay waiting for his birth.

The rhythm of her breathing,
the music of her pulse:
He heard the waters seething
and felt her pacing lulls.

The passage of her body
like falling from the stars,
it took from him her heartbeat
to lay him in her arms,

and yet from thence he left her.
Our God’s far-reaching Word,
of comfort so he reft her
that mercy might be heard.

But in the end she held him,
once more the ark of grace:
When death at last had felled him, 
she was his resting place,

and from her arms they took him
to lay him in the tomb.
The earth’s foundation shook, then, 
as promise shattered doom.

Now she who was his shelter,
who held him on her breast,
has entered in his temple:
The ark is laid to rest.

German or Netherlandish 15th Century, Pietà, c. 1450-1500, NGA 3155 – This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the National Gallery of Art. Please see the Gallery’s Open Access Policy., CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74853452

“O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste,”
so Cassian insisted we should pray:
The oft-chewed syllables have lost their taste,
a muted cry in morning’s washed-out gray
as, elbows on my knees, I hang my head
and seek the strength for getting out of bed.

O God, what can I tell you?  I just want—
What more, beyond this roof, these walls, the bed,
full fridge, hot water flowing like a font?
And yet the words come ringing in my head,
“I just want—” and they hang unspoken there,
unfinished as the soul they’re laying bare.

O God, O infinite as my desire,
I am an empty maw that longs to cram
all things inside.  “I just want—”  I’m a liar:
I want it all.  A want is what I am,
and you are give.  I just want, and I find
always another I-just-want behind.

O God, as everlasting as my need,
there was a time this hollow heart was filled:
You set a place and sat me down to feed,
and every I-just-want at last was stilled.
It seems so long ago.  I just want, now,
to get out of this bed.  Please tell me how.

O God, though I am only emptiness,
you still have made the sun to rise again,
and if the day is stale and flavorless,
still it is here.  So give me courage, then:
O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste,
and fill this hunger once more with your taste.  Amen.

Francisco de Zurbarán, Bodegón or Still Life with Pottery Jars (1636), Museo del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15962763

“The people asked Martha for help, and she went after the dragon. She found him in the forest in the act of devouring a man, sprinkled him with blessed water, and had a cross held up in front of him. The brute was subdued at once and stood still like a sheep while Martha tied him up with her girdle, and the people killed him then and there with stones and lances….

“As the hour of her death drew near,… she prayed in the following words: “My dear Guest, take care of your poor little servant, and, as you deigned to accept my hospitality, receive me now into your heavenly dwelling!””

–Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, ch. 105 “Saint Martha”

When I have bid farewell to flour and flagons
and sought at last to sit down at your feet;
when all is done and I have slain my dragons
and given up all thought of bread or meat,
then will you come to me and bid me eat?
You came to seek the lost, but what of stragglers?

For long ago, good Lord, at my poor table
I gave you bread and wine, the best I had,
and meant to serve as well as I was able—
but Mary wouldn’t help, and I got mad
because I couldn’t rest and she just sat,
like we were characters in some old fable.

Then you rebuked me—I have not forgotten:
All my best efforts live in infamy,
my work invoked as something slightly rotten.
I’ve tried to change since last you looked on me,
but my attempts all spring up fruitlessly
and wither, no so harvest have I gotten.

Your words are seeds: I plant them in my memory
but never is there grain in the golden ears,
for there’s a dragon nestled here within me.
I douse his flaming with a flood of tears
each time his fire destroys the work of years,
but still he drives me—Victor Lord, come win me!

For all the loaves I’ve baked can’t sate his hunger
and all the dishes cooked can’t calm his flame,
and who will have me in the end, I wonder?
Which one, of you or him, has greater claim?
If it be he, O Christ, yet for your name
pry up the dragon’s claw that I lie under.

Bless me, O Lord, though still I haven’t rested
or found the better part since you’ve been gone.
The dragon prowls; I fail when I am tested;
and all the many cares go on and on,
but you have promised me a Sabbath dawn:
Oh, be my host at last, and I your guest there.  Amen.

Taming the Tarasque, from Hours of Henry VIII, Photo By Graham S. Haber – https://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/images/shop/stmartha.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71099105

Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore,
was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. 
During the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea. 
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. 
“It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. 
At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” 
Peter said to him in reply,
“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 
He said, “Come.” 
—Matthew 14:22-33

I have known this wind and water,
seen their workings all my days,
from my mother and my father
learned their order and their ways,

yet you turn the wind from violence.
Now you turn the seas to stone.
You are turning storm to silence,
overturning all I’ve known.

Can I trust you in the stillness
as the tempest falls apart,
though a greater fear now fills me
than the longing of my heart?

I have never seen this ocean
and its whispers never heard
where you walk with careless motion
as the waves obey your word:

If I take the path you’re forging,
if I walk on this new sea
and I fall where fear is surging,
will you turn your back on me?

Lord, I long for you to call me
but I sink beneath my doubt.
All I’ve known is failed and falling:
Let me see your hand reach out.

Хождение по водам (Христос спасает начавшего тонуть Петра) Jesus Christ Walking On Water, By Alexander Ivanov – http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/ru/collection/_show/image/_id/599, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9086974

A plastic Jesus glowing in the night,
a gift from Sister—God, what was her name?—
not white as light, but shining all the same
a pallid green, and gentle more than bright,

long-lost, I’m sure, a trinket never blest
and thrown away with other plastic trash
for tidiness and godliness must clash:
A landfill holds it now with all the rest.

I did not feel my bedroom in the dark
was Tabor, did not hear the Father’s voice,
nor did my second-grader heart rejoice
to see some light of yours, a faintest spark,

but how much would I give to see it now,
that small light shining gently in the gloom
of sleeplessness?  How much more in the tomb
this comfort, if the grace of God allow?

The landfill’s high, and higher ere the end
of all things.  Will it shine like Tabor’s light
with plastic Jesuses to make it bright
when Christ returns, all broken trash to mend?

O Son of God, make my poor matter bright.
When in that valley all of us have swarmed
let me be mended; let me be transformed.
Make me, if it be possible, a light.

For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 
—2 Peter 1:16-19

You saw him in the burning light
and heard the Father’s voice
within the cloud descending bright,
and told us of your joys.

On Tabor’s height his face revealed
made bright the shadowed world,
but now his grace is all concealed,
his shining garments furled.

O witnesses of glory there
who speak of what you see,
of brightness filling all the air,
pray that the light finds me.

For now I follow at your word,
a lantern burning dim
and echo of the voice you heard,
but when shall I see him?

When shall my winding road be done
that brings me to the place
where I will find the well-loved Son
and meet him face to face?

Though Tabor’s light touch not my eyes,
I chase its distant spark
until the morning star arise
to fill my inward dark.