Eventide

“In the stillness you realize how the whole valley is alive with singing of crickets, a constant universal treble going up to God out of the fields, rising like the incense of an evening prayer to the pure sky.” Thomas Merton

Glowing low through eastern pines

suspended, self-contained,

this perfect world gently refines

the rough, red clouds

of eventide.

Beneath the moon

in throbbing streams, tremor

in the vibrant night,

green cloisters chant their lusty song

glorious noise, rising antiphon.

Tree by the Road

A naked tree
stands apart.

Cars pass
with freeway speed
bending thin branches
in their own furious wind.

Slowing
I see black leaves
on nearly empty limbs…

No, not leaves,
but dark pears,

or glass balls left to fall
from a forgotten Christmas tree

abandoned, alone, without cheer,

when, roaring, an eighteen wheeler
spews misty twisters.

Then leaves, ornaments, and pears
all rise in a singular mass
of flashing black wings
cawing into the
grey winter
air.

Storm on Tamalpais

From high above,

Pacific waves conceal

both depth

and content.

But when the mystic cloud

ascends this holy mountain,

the living mist rises

from fecund moss

to consecrated  crown,

and rain pours down

in resurgent rivers,

insurgent life

drowning death

in the sea’s mighty

depth.

Bright Day

 

bright day, trees waving

like summer, chill revealing

winter lurks, waiting

His Secret

"There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?"Thomas Merton

The pain cuts me
Like an edge of ice
Cutting brightly
Into thickening
darkness.

We walked slowly
To his grave.
The grass was wet
With winter's dew
Newly melted In
the warming sun.

I saw it,
The newly turned soil,
A few rocks
Glittering joyfully
After a million years In
underground darkness,
Raised at last,
Bare and sparkling
In the black earth.

Silence,
Stillness in the field,
The wind intimating
His newfound secret.

Christmas Star

“Kindled by a spark of divine love, the soul streaks heavenward in an act of intelligence as clear and direct as the rocket's trail of fire. Grace has released the deepest energies of our spirit and assists us to climb to new and unsuspected heights.”  Thomas Merton

in the high Texan sky
contrail flaring,
streaking, glaring
thrall
of fire!

Is this some love-struck soul,
streaking heavenward
seeking in unsuspected cities,
a new home
in the golden dome?

or does it fall,
ever to heavy earth
drag of weight,
dross of
mortal freight?

Fog at Dawn

“We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time...He is everywhere, He is in everything, and we cannot be without Him.”  Thomas Merton

Morning fog softens

spreads through the bare trees, muffles

the cries of the birds.

Edges blur, rounded

fog,  logic of cloud earthbound:
faith betrayed and drowned.

Days of Infamy

The day recedes into peaceful night
spreading gentle darkness
over wide California fields,

the flames of history
nearly forgotten
but for the ember glow
In the wrinkled cobalt sky.

But we remember
bloody days

when war-planes roared
into the rising Pacific sun
and ripped it
into sanguine strips.

Bombs pierced polished decks,
and amazed sailors dove
into crimson waters,
as the Rising Sun spread darkness
Over half the globe

seventy-one years ago. . .

. . . yet just say the date
and silence fills any room.

We remember movies we’ve seen
Of dive-bombers and chaos,
heroes rising in fighters to
stave off the improbable wave.

We see old men in service caps,
Tossing wreaths into
bright Hawaiian waters.

They weep
as old wounds
again bleed.

They gaze into the sad eyes
Of buddies who
didn’t make it.

And we think of our own losses,

Korea and Vietnam,
torrents of blood
flowing through fertile
Asian valleys,

and the obscenity of 9-11,
insurgency raping
Iraq and
Afghanistan,

and we ask, “When will it end?”

Nodding slowly,
we know.

Storm's Ending

rains cease, clouds closing

rising to sun, blue by sky

encased and dismissed.

Grizzly Island Road

Soft sky, blue and white
cloud swelling over low hills,
delta waters,
twilight sloughs

calling to geese and egret,
kingfisher and mallard
to lounge in waving reeds
as grazing cattle linger
in verdant valley.

Like a river the road flows
down to the sacred sea,
to the deep, living stream
of Earth.