questions

Destruction in Homs, Syria 2012

“While I am asking questions which You do not answer, You ask me a question which is so simple that I cannot answer. I do not even understand the question.”  Thomas Merton
 
“In distress you called and I rescued you; I answered you in secret with thunder.” Psalm 81: 8

City in rubble,

walls exposed,

shattered windows,

shards

rudely ripping

`children

waking

the dead

searching

for any good reason

to live.

They ask

questions

which you do not

answer.

I want to understand

your master-plan

but you speak

in secret

in whispers of

thunder.

Victims of Bashar al Assad in Homs, 2012

Spider Web

The spider web drifts,

abandoned, useless,

high in the window 

bright in the setting sun,

close to a world in motion.

Not immersed in the savage flow,

it is protected from wild birds 

that caw in the swaying tree

peering down

at creatures bound to solid, 

unmoving ground.

Their motion 

is sacred motion,

but the web just aimlessly stirs

in an inner breeze 

always on the edge 

of the living sea

held fast by stasis 

of gravity.

star of the sea

edge of night,

cold consuming

blackening hills,

clears barely

the deepening ridge

bright tears -

star of the sea.

Confession

I’m an unworthy vessel,
a rusty cup.

I foul your pure wine
with my common
corruption,

and yet
unreasonably
you fill me up again.

Brimful with your
glittering love
I become
a golden chalice
to hold your sacred
blood.

Night Rises

“There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and mercy of God to the whole world.

There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken, not a child’s prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God.”

Thomas Merton, “Friday Psalm Prayer,” A Book of Hours

night rises

from the still-warm earth

climbs rough trunks to

higher planes

to where leaves still burn

in golden flames.