Vanitas Folia

Leaves quickly fall

now that November

is nearly done. 

From behind a glass door

I watch the dry storm,

blanket the ground,

Useless appendages

liabilities in the wind,

cast-aways await

the hollow scraping

of my wide rake.

Yet in the tree

holdouts

hope for reprieve, 

wave and rush 

confidently 

sure that bright color

can distract, delay death

with brilliant 

blush.

September 11th

“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.”  Thomas Merton

+++

Rushing from shower to sink, I heard the TV
blare its usual chatter of news and advertising
as we made our hurried preparations
for another busy day,
when I saw it:
dark smoke rising into the blue New York sky.

And I stopped, all schedules forgotten, transfixed
by high flames scorching glass and steel.

Calmly, the newsman speculated
about airliners and tragic accidents,
when the passive camera caught it, the black spot
flying straight and sure as a bullet, piercing
the second tower in a shower of orange flame and shattered glass.

This was no accident,then, this morning violence, and I wondered
how many people were already at work when,
pinned by burning jet fuel and melting steel, their busy day
suddenly ceased in searing red pain and numb darkness?

I wanted to go on with my own day,
to hide in the comfort of my routine,
but I could not turn away when I saw jumpers
drop to merciful deaths;

I saw a suited businessman,
pale in white dust, slowly plodding
through a deluge of drifting memos,
clutching his briefcase like a life preserver;

I heard the shrill, muffled
sirens of ambulance and fire-trucks,
lost in the dirty fog of terror.

And I knew in that moment
that we all are New Yorkers,

we all are falling into our dark, quiet center
where, sinless and without fear,
we encounter God, Yahweh, Allah,

The Eternal,  

as our shattered bodies rise
through flames of anger
into the pure, cool, forgiving
September air.

(9/11/2011)

Compassion

Photo: Brian Federle

“What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid, and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion.” Thomas Merton

I’ll wander with you
in our pain.

Though dry days
and star-drenchd nights
we’ll search the sharp rocks
for pools of cool tears.

Forty days and
forty nights shall we journey
through the wilderness,

to the green oasis
where we’ll flourish;

audacious 
lilies in hidden springs

and there  
we’ll possess
every good thing.

(13 Oct 2012/revised 7/31/2018)

Fountain of Fire

“Just as it is impossible for a man to see his face in troubled water, so too the soul, unless it be cleansed of alien thoughts.” Thomas Merton

Closing in
the ancient wind sweeps
still waters, turns clarity
to confusion, joy
to primal fear.

I seek my face
but see only a blush
on the river’s edge,
red betrayal seeping
from deep within,
from a wound unseen.

Cleanse me, O Fountain of Fire, 
still my fears
and again I’ll see
my face
washed clean
by grateful tears!

Revelation

Photo: Brian Federle, San Francisco Homeless, 2014.

Inside

my secret door

deep in the dark

I face you.

We are

alone.

I have no place

to hide.

I don’t want

shelter

from your steady

eyes.

You see right through

my petty lies--

into the truth of

my shivering

life.

You know me

and yet

you love me!