Holy Seasons

Mercy

/ Korin Thomas / 3 Comments

It is curved, old, deep –
punctured, stretched, twisted.
Emptiness fills its hollow core.
A vibrant electric thrum
bumps along the walls
of this place we know –
do not want to know –
pushed behind our hidden door.

It beckons us from there –
knock, knock, knock.
Our deepest past
calls to us from remote well-springs,
life-bearing pools that seem, in dreams,
to be precipices, hidden caves, cataclysmic seas.

Silence, its name and substance,
waits for us to still, remember, open the door
to let in, at last, sweet mercy –
handmaiden of the living god
however we name her or call the holy.

Portland, Oregon – February 14, 2016

Lenten springtime-Year of Mercy

Thicket

/ Korin Thomas / 5 Comments

Ash 2Thicket, tangled winter barren,
through which small birds pass with ease.

I cannot pass through my own thicket,
its branches every which way crossing
bending, diving, reaching,
creating celestial star tracks
floating grains of blown ash
from fire, pyre, or soul
burning days behind,
wandering from time into eternity.

Ash Wednesday – February 10, 2016
Portland, Oregon
My photo is of our snowberry (symphoricarpos) in winter.

Mary

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Fr. Peter Gray - Mary and Child.jpgFor now you may love –
your child held against the wintry cold,
your dreams flickering before you in the fire.
Would you could hold him forever as on his day of birth
when he first looked into your eyes.
But, O Mother, though tears await you
and this son of yours be taken from you,
you will never forget his tender child’s touch,
his first crying or his last;
all his many words spoken to you
after a day of play or from a bitter cross.
On that day, Mary, as on the first,
you shall be joy-filled, God-bearing,
remembered with him for all time,
and we will join you in your song of praise.

1983-84 – Menlo Park, California

Fr. Peter Wm. Gray was a teacher of mine. In 1983 or 84 we collaborated on a Christmas card. His artwork, above, we did not use and I don’t know why because it is stunningly evocative. My poem accompanied the card with another piece of his artwork, also good, but not so striking as the piece seen here.

Joseph

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There are leaves in the Garden of Gethsemane
that grow old, wither, die, and fall to the ground.
Joseph walked among them.
She waited with fearful longing,
her face, filled with joy,
her hands, trembling with fear.
She whispered words, like falling leaves,
carrying Joseph’s heart to the earth.
He did not take his eyes from her face.
He walked about in her dark eyes,
walked among the trees of the garden,
tasted the fruit of the vine;
drinking deep intoxicating draughts.
Her hands stilled,
she smiled.
He raised his eyes to the heavens,
burst into laughter,
and shattered the starry night!

We do not know much else about Joseph –
he was a leaf in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Winter/Christmas – 1988, Las Vegas, Nevada

Which-A-Way O Soul

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Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?   
Which way leads to the clearing,
which to the thicket of thorn and nettle?
Not all the same, not all these falling years
lined with green shoots and golden spinning leaves. 
Put on your coat, O Soul, your dark down layers.
Open the door, for she comes and she waits.
Step to the days, past the lighted trees and frozen angels.
Here now the green shoots,
there the fresh leaves and flowers of spring,
here the lush and fragrant stilling heat,
there the golden spilling leaves
in pools of ruffled water. 
Look up, O Soul, awaken!
She comes again, clothed in night,
at her feet the path, before her gaze the wintry fields.
Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?

Seattle, Washington – December 2011

Advent Mouse

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Some years, Advent arrives quietly
like a mouse who hides behind walls
leaving behind crumbs of rain swept days,
nights when the moon passed through broken clouds,
warm evenings and starlit mornings.

Other years Advent arrives like a crazy mouse
who runs back and forth before our eyes
during a well-planned and lit cocktail party.
We were not ready for him –
his perfect absurdity and his insouciant bravura.
We excuse him to our guests who stand on chairs
hoping they will forgive us and return some day.

This year? That wild mouse!
The extraordinary mouse who assails the year
with babies, houses, and sickness;
awakenings in the night,
hammering in the daylight.

We opened the door of the new year and in he ran.
There was little we could do but watch and scamper from chair to chair.

Seattle, Washington – December 2006

Advent – For Our Enemies

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It is now the solemn season of peace
when we wait for the Holy One;
wait for a sacred stillness and loving-kindness
a peace beyond all imagining
to be born within us.
We are the Holy Ones
who give birth to the peace for which we long.
We pray for our enemies,
for men and women –
today in foreign cities
tonight in our own towns –
whose thoughts are tangled up in a violent story
whose ending is too terrible to say.
We bring them, especially them,
the peace we seek.
They are wounded, fearful, angry, and afraid
as we are.
They are confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed,
like us, so like us.
They are mourning the loss of someone
or some ideal of a life they thought could be theirs,
just as we mourn our dead and our broken dreams.
They are strangers in a strange land.
We pray for them.
We welcome them in our deep and open hearts,
hearts not crushed in spite of reasons to be crushed,
hearts that still have a place for our enemies.
If they do not have a welcoming place in us
then they have no place at all.
If they have no place at all
they will bring the fruit of their emptiness to bear
in dark and consuming violence.
Our suffering will continue.
This is the day, a day of waiting
to see whether our hearts will open or close.

The season asks us to choose.

Portland, Oregon – December 2015

Advent Vigilance

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In winter I must take care
or darkness will overwhelm me.
I will forget the silence of the earth
spinning in the glistening heavens.
I will see clouds without rain
darkness without stars
sunlight without warmth.
In Winter I must be vigilant
or I will lose my way
in thickets of tangled thought. 
I will forget to walk out the door,
to pick up one foot after another.
I will be drawn back in, out of the rain,
by a cunning, persistent lure.
I will forget that always, always,
I am leaving some thing, some place behind –
clutching at my clothing, dragging at my steps,
encumbering my arms, closing my eyes.
But too late. Even for the past –
what was or was not – too late.

 Again, again and again, it is Advent.
The coming of some small thing –
some laughter behind me,
some shouting around the corner,
whispers in the eaves, scratches on the door.
A sudden turning –
a pause, a listen, a quickening pulse.
A gathering of will in the face
of something sacred, scared, scarred,
wrapped in wind, rain, cold
like a god forgotten
who will not forget,
pursuing through the days and nights.

Seattle, Washington – December 2003