The longest day, when balance shifts,
the year worn halfway through;
someday this endless heat will lift
and bleached-bone skies be blue.

The springtime will be young once more—
a chance we never get—
when winter evens up the score
and cancels summer's debts.

This spendthrift season racks them up
until its days run out;
it drinks the dregs of every cup
and leaves us only drought,

then winter comes to fill the lakes
while spring sleeps underground.
But there are things the summer takes
that never will be found

until the summers do not burn
and winters do not freeze,
until the years no more shall turn
but counterpoise in peace.

Though now we weep for what is lost
to every old year's spin,
someday in perfect equinox
it shall be found again.

Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge 2005 Photograph Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005. CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=195581

God bless all travelers now,
for soon they must be gone.
The road waits not a single hour
but even now runs on.

What they go out to find—
pursued, or to pursue—
give strength of heart and will and mind,
and body's might renew.

However far they stray,
among what friends or foes,
God, bless all travelers on the way,
and hold them ever close,

and hear them when they call.
In mercy, grant their boon,
for daylight wanes and shadows fall
and night is coming soon.

A homeward highway make—
yet even after home
there is another path to take,
another, longer road.

Lord, bless all who depart
on roads we cannot see,
and shepherd each one to your heart,
forever there to be. Amen.

Backpacking In a Pickup Truck, Lukas Robertson 2017-01-16 sheetstothewind – https://unsplash.com/photos/9qJb_wCFCrMarchive copy at the Wayback Machine, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61863370

The picture book my father bought
and brought home from a business trip,
I laid it in a carboard box,
your name upon the packing slip,

my name still written on the flap—
a book too precious not to share
for when your daughters fill your lap—
dead-lettered in its box somewhere.

As parcels under letters lie;
or under leaves old years' debris
remembering how they touched the sky,
communing with the new year's seeds;

and old selves lost to new ones made
responding to the seasons' turn;
so Beast lies dying in the glade
unless—until—his love returns.

Read out the story, then: She comes
to cradle his beloved mane,
and when she tells him of her love,
the handsome Prince is whole again.

The end.  Now read it out once more.
Today the postman brought your box.
Beast rises from the forest floor
where nothing's ever really lost.

Batten – Europa’s Fairy Tales By John D. Batten – Books, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31130471

Go HERE to see illustrations from the book this poem was written about, Beauty and the Beast, by Marianna Mayer, illustrated by Mercer Mayer.

I’m back in town and back to posting regularly. This was written on the first night of my trip:

O swifts and swallows, praise the Lord!
You swooping o'er the sunset field,
let all your evensong be poured:
Libations as you dive and wheel.

With compline calling, tree to tree,
the rafters of the woods resound
with antiphon and psalmody
beneath the gathering hush of clouds.

The solemn willows genuflect,
and pentecostal grapevine leaves
are shaking with the Spirit's breath:
They shudder in their ecstasy

while cottonwood clothes all the world
in fallen seeds, baptismal white:
The day's devotions, sweet and pure
to mark the fading of the light.

Go down, old sun; sink from our view.
Fear not to pass where none have been:
You will rise up tomorrow new.
No sparrow ever falls unseen.

Be like the swallows: Swoop and dive
and leap again, uncounted days.
You will not slip the maker's gyves
but wake again to shine his praise.

“Hirundo griseopyga” = Pseudhirundo griseopyga (Grey-rumped Swallow) By Richard Bowdler Sharpe – A monograph of the Hirundinidae : Scan from Oiseaux.net but higher resolution on [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80179239

Also while I was out of town, The Porter’s Gate released the first single from their upcoming album, Bread Songs. This one is called “Daily Bread,” written by Lowana Wallace, Kai Welch, and yours truly. This was one of the most exciting songwriting experiences I have ever had. Lowana and I had talked over this idea one night at the songwriting retreat for this project. The next day we managed to snag an hour to ourselves—but we were both so sick of sitting that we went for a walk. For thirty minutes we circled the block on a chilly day in DC, stopping at the corners for me to scribble down lines before I forgot. Lowana was singing a tune, and by the time we came inside we had two verses. Then we found Kai at a keyboard, and he and Lowana worked out the accompaniment while I wrote the third verse. That night Lowana and Kai performed it after dinner, and it went over really well. Two days and some lyrical tweaks later, and the song was recorded in studio. And now it’s out!

A well so deep I could not see the sky
from where I sat enveloped in the dark,
yet it was there, the sun still riding high,
and you were there, remembering the stars.

As if someone had opened up the roof
and lowered down a paralytic God
to wait with me—what else was there to do?—
'til I could rise, take up my mat, and walk.

Helpless as I, you made no darkness bright.
There was no comfort in you, no defense.
You worked no miracles there in the night,
and when I prayed, you echoed my Amens.

And so we sat there in the oubliette,
a broken woman and her broken God,
a speck of dust and old, stale crust of bread,
until the darkness passed and morning dawned.

And when I rose and saw again the skies,
you became whole that sunlit grace to see,
who sank to be with me that I might rise,
that where you are, I, too, shall someday be.

Schloss Schrattenthal By Christophwu – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 at, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28869453

Trying something more autobiographical. The incident described here is from fifteen years ago; it’s not a current issue.

A losing entry in a hymn text contest:

From nothing you made all that is,
and all that is will come to dust.
Through every change, we know still this:
You keep and care for each of us.

In you we live and move and are,
O God, creator of the world.
Your wisdom shines in every star,
your life in each new leaf unfurled.

Then give us minds to know your works
and give us hearts to seek your ways
between the daystar and the dirt
where we live out our given days.

So may we sing your praise as one:
Your works of love rejoice in you,
and when creation's days are done,
O God, create all things anew. Amen.

I entered this text in a hymn contest on the theme “God the Creator,” seeking hymns for a proposed new ecumenical feast (though not in the Catholic Church, as far as I know): “The primary focus of the feast is on God’s creative action which then calls forth the human response of thankful praise for God’s creating and sustaining action; a commitment to responsible stewardship; lament and repentance for destruction caused by human greed and apathy; and hope for a restored and renewed creation.”

I’ve done plenty before in the “lament and repentance” line, as well as the “responsible stewardship” line. What appealed to me here was the option of “thankful praise” and “hope.” So I focused on that, while also hewing to the contest’s guidelines: “The text should be written in an accessible poetic style that lends itself to singing. It should be contemporary and inclusive and avoid the use of binary language, especially with respect to gender. The text should be appropriate for ecumenical settings, with the possibility of at least one stanza that would be appropriate for an interfaith context. The total length of the text should not exceed four stanzas.”

Four stanzas can give you a lot of leeway on total length, but a simple, four-line tune seemed appropriate for what I had in mind. (I eventually chose the tune OLD 100TH, perhaps best known as “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”) That means sixteen lines total, instead of my usual twenty-four. I decided I liked the challenge of trying to say something true, but also heartfelt and (I hope) beautiful in a tighter format than usual. I liked the result, but there were over a hundred entries in the contest, and today I received an email listing someone else as the winner. C’est la vie. I can still post it here.

Creation on the exterior shutters of Hieronymus Bosch‘s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490–1510) By Hieronymus Bosch – Originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia by w:User:Blankfaze., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148810