Coral Skies at Seven

I was surprised by coral skies
With bits of golden at the edges
And pastures gray which grimly lay
beneath the fog that swathed the sedges

I ventured out on a country road
Where the noise of traffic could not follow
And soothed my eyes with the flaming skies,
With the solid hill and the wispy hollow

And standing speechless all alone
Surrounded by Heaven's lush display
A bare-boned tree, amazed, like me
Sighed a quiet song as we started the day.

A delicate song that matched the mist
on its fragile way to vaporize
A peal of praise for this day of days
And the lavish beauty of coral skies

Worship Band

They move in syncopation
each in his shining circle
swaying on an elevated stage

Blasting--bold and brazen--
guitars like whips of rhythm, and a
drummer in his plexiglass cage

Nineteen spotlights flashing
blue and red and purple
changing to reflect the singer's mood

We cheer and clap with every song;
they pull the audience along
for, "Jesus, this is all about You".

But I wonder if we've thought this through enough
"Why aren't the blazing spotlights pointed up?"

Prepare a Place

Harry Brioche Prepare a place,
a quiet place.
Shut out all the clamor,
Wait there, alone 
He'll come

Moses built a heavy tent in the winds of howling wilderness.
Without was stench and the strident sound of a murmuring multitude;
Within, the smell of incense and the  quiet voice of God,
And Joshua with a patient face...listening.

David turned a crumbling cave into his sanctuary.
So while a jealous murderer scoured the landscape with his armies, relentlessly pursuing a one-sided war,
The psalmist cheered his weary soul with hushed and solemn songs in that
Hidden, holy place.

Manasseh, evil monarch taken captive into Babylon,
surrounded by dank walls of shadowed stone
caged up to face his own great wickedness
met God, and the cell became a refuge
more sacred than his once-consuming throne.

The mighty Nebuchadnezzar
Grass-grazing like an ox
While his million subjects turned their faces...
From the lunacy that locked him all alone into a raving world apart
Alone, he met the king of Heaven,
under a silent, dewy, dawn...and then he knew.


It need not be the finest hall
Gilded, jeweled and fragrant.
Just a place...a quiet place
where you invite a quiet chat
with your creator.
If you prepare the room,

He will visit.

Mary prepared an humble, little bed
A place of peace
In the middle of a turbulent night.
And God Himself came quietly to fill it
Slipping into the world
From an open door in Heaven
To meet mankind

Prepare a place,
a quiet place; shut out all the clamor,
And wait there, all alone with an open heart
Just wait...He'll come

Nearly They Stood...

This is one of my favorite C.S. Lewis poems. First he talks about those who lost a race, or even the race of their own existence, by one tiny mishap, one slip. Then he discusses those who by a thread, or by a small event saved something large, perhaps even their lives.

   Nearly they stood who fall.
   Themselves, when they look back,
   See always in the track
   One torturing spot where all
   By a possible quick swerve
   Of will yet unenslaved–
By the infinitesimal twitching of a nerve–
   Might have been saved.

  Nearly they fell who stand.
   These with cold after-fear
   Look back and note how near
   They grazed the Siren’s land,
   Wondering to think that fate,
   By threads so spidery-fine,
The choice of ways so small, the event so great,
   Should thus entwine.

If we take the poem out of the realm of life and death, and into that of mere success and failure, we see that there are many such times as this: times when a decision, sometimes a split-second decision, determines the future for us in a huge way. We look back and say: It was that second, that momentous choice, or effort, that deposited me on this path or that one. Loyalty/betrayal. Obedience/rebellion. Decision/hesitation:  Some things are worth our extra resolve.

And how are we so quick to judge the "nearly stood"s? We, ourselves, only made it by an inch--that's no wide, flat ground for boasting!


  Therefore I sometimes fear
   Lest oldest fears prove true,
   Lest, when no bugle blew
   My mort, when skies looked clear,
   I may have stepped one hair’s
   Breadth past the hair-breadth bourn
  Which, being once crossed forever unawares,
   Forbids return.

 In the third verse, Lewis ponders how, on some perfectly normal day, though far removed from the threat of disaster, he too may step over that edge and not return.
True.

We live on the brink of our eternity.

One Warm Walking Day

Thanks God,
for the sudden flame-peach sunrise
In the midst of winter--one, warm, walking day,
And tree limbs, naked, stretching out to touch it--
The blue! the yellow! After all that gray!
For pearls of pigeons spearing through the sky
like silver beads on slender strands of chain
exploding with a joy that leaves me humbled,
Thanks for the fact that You would even deign
to answer a prayer I knew I shouldn't pray,
When I asked--in the winter--for one, warm, walking day.

Western Oklahoma Countryside

Late summer evenings
and the sun so slowly passes,
stretching for one glimmer on the rocks,
one last glowing
on the grasses




Hurry now, for the clouds are crowding
and this green will all go black;
Even the rocks are changing--
yellow gold to dark and cold.
and it'll be hours before they're back!









Oh, let's run down this little road;
for I know the house
that sits just over that hill.
I've never seen a cloud
that made it past the door,
and lavish light's on every window sill

Go Read this Poem

A few months ago, Elijah wrote a poem from the viewpoint of the Prodigal. I've been nagging him to put it on his "very seldom written in" blog. (He posts as Blackstubble--an alias, just like Elijah is an alias). Well, anyway, he finally put it up today. Here's the post. You might as well accept the fact that moms brag on stuff their kids do. It comes in our mom contract.