Rose at Nightfall

“God wants to know the divine goodness in us.” Thomas Merton

Red rose flames

in shade of day’s end.

Night sifts gently

through dark trees;

but the rose!

the rose yet blooms;

defies the fall

of night’s certain pall.

7/31/13

from "Memorial"

Brian Federle, born March 4, 1986

Spring  

Seven years after my father died

my first child, my son, was born in spring,

and in the gleaming, sterile room

I first held him in my arms

as, with his impossibly wide, blue eyes

he calmly gazed right into my raw soul,

and I felt in a sudden rush of warmth,

a timeless love

and at last discovered

the reason for my life.

It was then

I understood my father.

In my son’s face I saw my own

and felt my father’s eyes gazing

in warm wonder on me

and I glowed with

unconditional love for my son.

The One Thing

“Happiness consists in finding out precisely what the ‘one thing necessary’ may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.”  Thomas Merton

rain

falling

tenderly

on spring grass, on leaves

bending as two mourning doves moan,

beat wide their wings and brush back the sky, falling low to

dark earth. Gladly would I give it

all for a moment

in the glow

of your

eyes!

(9 April 2013)

Poet to Reader

Deep inside my silence
words glow like burning stones
plunging to dark waters.

Share with me my holy fire!
With joyful shouts,
we’ll flood the hidden rivers.

But if you leave
I cease.

My words die
without your eyes,
molder to
faded stains.

So come into my heart
and sing with me
this mystic chant!

We’ll be madmen,
hunting diamonds in the dark.

The Connecticut Effect

devastating velocity,
blood thirsty, fresh death-
dealing NRA
lies fly super-
sonic flesh thud-
ing ragged rounds
slamming into
stunned souls,
dreams
die.

(26 Feb 2013)