Follow the buzzard’s turn of his bare head
and see the broken body lying dead
upon the asphalt table.  As you drive,
the gracious host waits for his guests to arrive,
bids welcome to the vulture and the crow
with promises the raven’s children know.
Though they who fly will neither toil nor spin,
the feast is ready now, and they come in.
They must be ready, too, and since the dawn
have preened the wedding garments they put on
to take the sky.  Impassable they glide
and only know their maker will provide;
or else they flap ungainly tree to tree
to power line to streetlight, perched to see
what their great host is giving them today
with patient trust, the way wild creatures pray;
and when the feast appears, the streak of red
across the road, receive their daily bread.
They, too, will lie here someday, torn and creased
by speeding wheels.  They will become the feast
baked by the sun and seasoned but with dew,
become the mercy making all things new.
Out of their death the maker makes a gift
as you drive past, watching the buzzards lift.

Black Vulture on statue of Jesus, Casco Viejo (Old City) – Panama City – Panama, By Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada – Jesus with Buzzard – Casco Viejo (Old City) – Panama City – Panama, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64134312

No sight but by the living light,
no hearing but the holy sound
that spoke before the sun was bright
and echoes as the stars resound:

Oh, let me have no light but this,
from your own fire a burning spark
that shows the world for what it is
and conquers evermore the dark.

And let me have no music, none,
but what you sang ere worlds were made.
You teach it to us through the Son,
who spun the spheres and carols played.

Now all creation rings it out,
the Word our words cannot express,
each stone a note, each tree, each cloud;
each tone you give us but to bless.

You kindle every woman, man,
their flesh made bright by living fire,
to sing a note throughout their span
and harmonize the angelic choir.

Oh, let no singer be denied
to voice the tone your grace imparts:
Who see the vision open-eyed
cry out the music of their hearts.

Illumine us, Almighty God:
Give eyes to see and ears to hear
and voices, too, to sing your word;
and may we find your ever near. Amen.

The Choirs of Angels, Scivias.

Clay-heavy soil is dry and seamed with cracks, 
contracting as the drought extends its reach.
The heart can only think of what it lacks,
what’s fallen in each dark and barren breach.

But what is buried here can never grow
until the burning heavens open wide.
From east to west, there’s not a cloud to show,
and heaven looks upon us empty-eyed.

What if a storm from some far quadrant came
with hailstones like the judgments of the Lord?
What if the wind should howl a long-lost name
and strip the trees as terror’s torrents poured?

Our flimsy houses only need a spark
to blaze as earthly images of hell.
Let us be happy in the raging dark—
Who would not now bless any drop that fell?

So let the sky go dark, midafternoon,
and shadow all this barren bright terrain,
to stir the hope that always wakes too soon,
believing even darkness brings the rain.

Image copied from local news station WFAA’s Facebook page.

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?” 
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants. 
—Matthew 18:21-25

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Remember I am dust.
O God, do not forget.
You promised, when my life is crushed,
that you will raise me yet.
Then when I raise my fist
in anger to the sky,
have mercy, and remember this:
All flesh is born to die.

We blossom like the flow’r
and wither as the grass.
O God, be gentle in your pow’r
And hold us as we pass.
Look not on all my crimes,
but turn your eyes from them,
oh, seven times and seven times
and seven times again.

And still the seasons turn;
the clouds pass over us.
Oh, from your mercy let me learn
this kindness to our dust,
that as they strike my cheek
and th’old church clock tow’r chimes,
to be the mercy that I seek,
oh, seventy-seven times.

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. This depiction by Domenico Fetti (c. 1620) shows the unforgiving servant choking the other debtor. – 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=150920

Step back, beloved, or I lose my sight.
My eyes can’t focus when you stand so near
but glaze and blur ‘til I see nothing clear
and grope as blindly for you as at night.

Do I not know the contours of your face?
Then how do they surprise me even now,
and what new lines are written on your brow?
I know my own is changing, too, apace.

And so I grope for you; I reach and bleed.
What’s love but being close enough to cut
my hand on the rough edge of heart and gut,
or look at you and only see my need?

I gaze, but only in a darkened mirror.
Then may the one who made the blind man see
work from this spit and dust his grace in me
that someday, oh, my vision may be clear.

Human eye with limbal ring, anterior view. The eye is the sensory organ of the visual system. The iris, pupil, and sclera are visible. Photo by Rapidreflex – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135379096

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May the mother of our savior
wrap her starry cloak around you—
this mercy, oh, we pray for—
‘til Christ has come and found you.

May the hands that held his body
tend you now, your wounds and sickness,
‘til Christ—oh, praise and laud him!—
restores you. Lord, come quickly!

May the voice that magnified him
whisper to you of his mercy
‘til Christ, though shadows hide him,
speak clearly in your thirsting.

Now may she who stood there weeping
at the cross of Calvary’s sorrow
give you into his keeping,
for Christ holds your tomorrow.

And may she who saw him living
because death could not constrain him
pray Christ, good and forgiving,
bring you into his reign then.
Amen.

The Madonna del Rosario (c. 6th century or earlier), perhaps the oldest icon of Mary in Rome. Medieval tradition held that this icon was painted by Luke the Evangelist. Photo By Asia – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61627017

Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
—Matthew 18:15-20

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What I have bound and what set free,
that I shall make my earth to be.
Here in my hands you put the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Then let my selfishness be bound,
sequestered from the world around,
my anger under lock and key—
O God, be merciful to me.

And bind my pride in iron chains
(oh, give me strength to bear those pains)
and let repentance turn the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

But let the humble spirit go
to bring me low and still more low
enough to pass without a key—
O God, be merciful to me.

And let my love be free to roam
and in the end to lead me home.
Let love itself be lock and key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Give me the wisdom here to see
what I have bound that should be free,
what I have loosed that bound should be.
Let mercy only turn the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Gate of Locks, Lima, Peru, January 2025, Photo By Grandmaster Huon – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157494076

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We wither as the grass
beneath your burning sun.
The blossom of our day must pass
when day itself is done

unless you make us green
beneath the burning light
no mortal eye has ever seen—
we cannot bear the sight.

We fade within the hour;
we vanish as the dew
and leave no trace of fruit or flower
unless your power renew.

For you, O God, are green.
Pour greenness on the shoots
that here against your mercy lean:
Fill us down to the roots!

And when, like us, the night
forever’s passed away,
oh, make us green to bear the light
of your eternal day!

O living light, be rain
as well as brilliant sun,
and bring us back to green again
when all our days are done!

Scivias, Cod. Sal. X,16, p. 4 By Hildegard of Bingen – http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/touch/salX16/#page/4, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81326012

For it is written:
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the learning of the learned I will set aside.
Where is the wise one?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
—1 Corinthians 1:17-25

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You pick my wisdom all to pieces,
unravel every thread I’d wound
and woven in a silken thesis—
oh, soft the shroud that had me bound!
This cloak was fraying at the creases;
now it is tatters on the ground.

So now I stand here naked, threadbare
as Adam shameless under sky
or as the woman that he met there
in Eden where we learned to lie.
And now you hold me in a dead stare:
I am uncovered to your eye.

And all my life unwinding spoolish
unravels everything I’ve known.
My stubborn stitches, hooped and mulish,
have ruined all that I had sewn.
Where I was wise, you’ve made me foolish:
My wisdom now is you alone.

Then take the distaff up, O Weaver,
the earth your spindle since the drop,
and twist new hope, O Undeceiver,
while here you spin me like a top,
to clothe me now as your believer.
My Tailor, make of me your fop.

Eve spinning, the spindle in her right hand: Hunterian Psalter, ca 1170 (Glasgow University Library) By Anonymous – http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/psalter/psalterindex.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2549773

When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
—Luke 4:16-30

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We bring you to the crowning of the hill,
here on the heights where prophets come to see
and men look down upon their enemy,
and mean to kill.

A place like this showed Moses the promised land,
showed Abraham a ram caught in the thorns
and bound there by the curve of its own horns,
and so we stand.

But, quiet as the ending of the dawn,
you slip our grasp.  We cannot see you pass.
We stand here with the wind, the sky, the grass,
but you are gone.

Come back, O Lord, if such a thing can be,
if mercy could induce us to repent,
if judgment could, as mercy does, relent,
and let us see.

Aerial view of mesas in Monument Valley, on the Colorado Plateau By J Brew – originally posted to Flickr as Over Monument Valley, Navajo Nation, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9709328