Monday, November 27, 2017

The Light in November

Photo: Brian Federle,  Oregon, 2012.


The light in November slants low.
It fills my eyes as I glance
askance through amber trees
and see the leaves descend in
gold flashes
past my open window.

The autumn sun skirts
my low Suisun hills
casting deep shadows
along the ebbing marsh

where wading egrets probe
still, black waters

and finding their prize
rise to blue heaven,
white, slender wings
elegantly beating
the softly falling sun.

(2012-2017)

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Leap of Faith



You decided
that you want me,
and so commanded
flashing angels
to invade my night.
With blind bliss 
to contend,
and weary with seraphic strife
I gave in:

(a pious moment
here and there,
a sign of the cross,
a whispered prayer),

until, patient Father,
in bright dreams you called
and led me high 
up your holy mountain
promising
that I will rise
and never,
never fall.


(24 Dec. 2011)

Thursday, November 23, 2017

"The Gift" by Mary Oliver


Thanksgiving

Full from the feast
table laded
with fragrant dressing,
steam of onion and celery,
tender turkey and
five kinds of pies

The family gathered.
My parents smiled
at our busy banter
brothers
and sisters nudging and
teasing,  beaming
in the glow
of that happy day
so long ago.

Now you and I gather
our sons around us;
again we pause, pray
and eat the bounty
of this bright Thanksgiving Day.

They say that some things,

kind hearts,
hearty laughs,
enduring love

are so good
they persist long down  
the thankful
generations.

-----------
(for Brian we are so thankful)

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Paradise

Passage: Sunset. Photo by Brian Federle, 2016

Paradise

Deep inside
I carry paradise,

A bright flood,
pours through
my soul’s veins,

but like those blind fish,
I cannot see
the holy river
running through me.

On a good, clear day, though,
staring hard beyond,
I can almost see
God’s holy fire
glancing off
my boundless sea.

(3/30/17)

Monday, November 20, 2017

In Contemplation of Seeking

….contemplation is simply the “experience” …. of God in a luminous darkness which is the perfection of faith illuminating our inmost self….. a flash of the lightning of divinity piercing the darkness of nothingness and sin. Not something general and abstract, but something, on the contrary, as concrete, particular, and “existential” as it can possibly be. It is the confrontation of man with his God…    Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation
+
In my darkness I seek you
through deep caverns I run;
my dying flesh yearns for
your fierce, piercing love.

Through darkness I see
you’re glowing so bright,
but always receding,
deeper than night.

I fear that I’ll falter,
betrayed by frail will
when softly you whisper

“my child, just be still.”

(3 Dec. 2013)

Friday, November 10, 2017

November Sky

See the perfect sky of November
cloudless, cool, southern sun,
garden of blue eternity


vaulting over rioting trees, leaves
shouting that life is good
as they fall, and with red cover
the green world


with perfect red
as in perfect blue
life turns inward,


like the planet,
pursuing


the fleeting sun’s
fading hue.

(2013 - rev. 2017)