The Door

She closes the door
The door is closed, the window locked
The walls are thick rough planks
She can't tear through

Now, she won't return
She has abandoned
Everything that could have delighted her
Or everything that could have brought her to desolation

She turns her face back, touching the door with her wet cheek
What has she done? She does not know
Suddenly weak, she falls down,
Crawls to the window
Peers in, willing herself to know what she relinquished

She sees through the glass gleaming rainbows and butterflies
The golden glow of a rosy, uncluttered life
A cry clogs her throat, her head tilts toward the next pane, where she is grabbed by
Another view - of dirt and squalor, a girl with gravel rubbed into her heart

And now she knows that she can never know
What lies behind the door

After Petrarch

How is the world's delight a brief dream?
That from all takers must be taken still?
A dream delights, it charms unconscious moments.
A dream is all to one who lies asleep.
Misty-eyed, its magic he partakes of,
Trusting that there is no other reality.

But as he wakes the dream falls limp around him.
It could not endure, imagination failed.
The cup he drank, greedy, now is bitter,
Its poison percolating through his bones.
He feels around, but cannot touch his safety.
The home he hammered tight has tumbled.

How is the world's delight a brief dream?
A home built on the mud of California?
A smashed promise, a kiss from a flirt?
It floats in and out with the ocean tide.
As the tide turns, it carries to sea
The sum total of the minutes that you breathed so far.

Matthew 7:24-27

Query

This poem is not quite the way I want it. Those last two lines are begging to be revamped. I have stared at it too long, though, so I thought I'd let it breathe a while and come back to it.

If this green tree should branch into your wood,
Produce pale blossoms sweetly dropping down,
Would you protect its sticky sapling blood?
Allow its roots to anchor in your ground?

Would you defend its branches year by year,
From those who'd strip the leaves and peel the bark?
Would you snip off the suckers rooting there,
And teach the limbs to thicken strong, stalwart?

If lightning burns the crown and mars its head,
Would you remain until its boughs replace?
And when it topples over, topples dead,
Mourn its shattered brow and kiss its face?

In time, this tree will give you every fruit,
And when she's gone, she'll leave of you a shoot.

Dying, We Live

Dying, we live

And opening our hands, full of dreams

And dropping them to the floor,

We martyr our lives, living

It's not our deaths he asks for

(That would almost be easy)

It's a daily death inside:

To suffocate my desire, to

Offer my actions, my will to him

Lord, with all my heart I want you

Want your wholeness to engulf my fractions

Want your righteousness to swallow my dirt

Want your peace to obliterate my yellow-bellied nature

I give you myself to be reborn, remade

A new creature, made in the likeness of Christ,

Who by living and dying conquered both life and death.

The Power is Out

I can't hold on to my empire.

Defeat upon defeat shows my weakness.

My dreams loom over my head,

Taunting me, because I am not able to reach them.

Everything has failed, all at once

I try to flick the lights on in every room,

But I fail, because the power is out.

The power is out of me.

The power is out of me.

It's a freeing thought, really.

Because the power is not in me;

It's in someone wiser, kinder, and more than a million times more righteous.

Now that my empire is lost,

I can take my place in his empire,

And trust that he will never lose me.

Winter

My bones ache in the winter
And when the wind whips my ears,
Shoulders, hands, calves, ankles, toes,
I try to hide in my coat.

I am a heat-seeker those times.
If a flame is licking near,
I will find it, its breath warms,
Then roasts me until I turn.

In winter, the dark hangs low,
Leaving small spaces of light
Where I plant myself, yearning
For more as it fades away.

There's little of winter that
Cheers me. I count it down. It's
Prison time without parole.

Do you check your closets before going to bed? I don't. I do admit, however, that as a child, I would often check under the bed. For a few weeks I even jumped into bed from several feet away because I thought there was a nun under my bed waiting to snatch my ankles. (I don't know why a nun.)

Fear is a strange creature. When we are children, we are afraid of things that are ridiculous, like the bogeyman or, in my case, nuns. As adults, our fears our easier to rationalize, but perhaps if we really examined them, they would be just as ridiculous.

I read about a businessman who wrote down all his worries and analyzed them. He found that most of the time he was either worrying about something that had already happened or he was worrying about something that was not likely to happen. I think fear is something like that. We tend to fear things that are either not likely to happen, or if they do happen, aren't as bad as we imagine them to be.

Fear, though, is one step past worry. Worry can be an entertaining pastime. But no one likes fear. It's scary. When I am afraid, I feel like I might stop breathing, that my vision is going black, that every pleasant part of my life is slipping away. Although it might be irrational, it's very real.

When I was little, I ran to my parents when I was afraid. They were the voices of reason that drove away the madness. I was assured that what I feared could not occur. Now that I am grown, I realize that my parents have fears of their own, and the magic answers that they had back then no longer apply.

Ah, yes, fear is a scary monster. I can't run to my parents anymore, but still I have somewhere to run. I can run to Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." (Psalm 23:4) "For thou has been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle forever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings." (Psalm 61:3,4) "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

I would be lying if I said I am never afraid. Still I know that if I run to Jesus, He will give me assurance. What I fear can never bring me down, because He is with me.