Sifting Through

post photo May 13?I am a sifter filled with floured memories. Shaking them down through metal mesh, turning a crank while dusty white turns into particles of gold. And  I am panning through the nuggets knowing they are all gold. In fact, all are gems.  I shake from side to side the pan sifting through and naming each one priceless – the dull and the shiny. The dim and the sparkled. Spattered with dust that flakes off the corners of a life.

I am an archivist searching through the rubble and the ruin, finding life among it all. Shovel and pick strike the dark dirt of possibility. And excavate a voice buried in the wet black soil of waiting.

I am  a wanderer, slow walker down the paths of sun-drenched beginnings. Stumbler, mad-dasher, free-falling, zig-zagger changing it up, discovering what has been there all along.

I am a beauty-seeker. Finding a  seat on a leather perch, peddling down gravel and sand, concrete and asphalt, weaving in and weaving out. I am a trail-blazer of the ordinary. Going in circles again and again. Riding restless and riding at peace. Turning down lanes of ivy and honeysuckle. Following fragrant folly down narrow paths covered in petals of spent blossom days.

I am a receiver of gifts, unfathomable,  unparalleled, unnameable and new. Peeling back layers of wrapping to breath in the smell of love in the offerings laid at my feet. Ripe for the picking, unpacking, palpable seasoned with love.

And I am a child, learning to walk, to move from the pablum on to the banquet. To run and to twirl, to seek and to name, to climb and cling to each tree trunk and rope swing. To laugh and to fall, to sing and to dance.

I am an acrobat, balancing life, on a thin tight rope of wonderful beautiful magnificent days.

I am sous-chef cooking up feasts for ravenous curious hungry me. And mine. And ours. Seeking to sprinkle the right mix of herb and spice. Folding in nutrients for heart and soul. I am a planner and thrower of fetes. Singing and lighting the candles of celebration. One wick at a splendid time.

I am a journeyman looking  for places to pour out the offerings of gifts of love. To give as  been given  to or more or beyond. And I am a cartophrapher mapping out moments. Spilling my soul into spontaneous seconds shaded by serendipity.

I am a life-giver, grower of people, young into old. Director of orchestra of days and of lives.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow will look new, because a lens of love was viewed through  again. Bending light and life through the backside of a wide angle.

As a child of God, mouth and hands open wide. And turning it all to grateful poetic praise.

God I am as you have made. And  I am sifting through it all, with grace.

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Joining Laura Boggess at Playdates at The Wellspring.

 

A Writer’s Sabbatical Prayer

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A Writer’s Sabbatical Prayer

Lord, thank you for the gift of words
I praise you for the ways You speak
Lead me as I seek Your face
Walk me by the waters that refresh
And show me how to use Your gift
Thank you for a time apart
To hear you, know you, see your world
Thank you that you trust us to create
I love you, mold me in these seven days of seeking
Your child, your poet, writer, humble friend

Lord send the Holy Spirt, to comfort and provide

Mold me as you would, the clay
Amen and again a hushed and quiet deep amen.

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Serpentine Grace

serpentine grace

Before the sleepy’s rubbed and wiped away
At the start of  day in early May, leaves kick their feet
do a manic jig
Fast as the boys jitter bugging
when they returned from war

They tell through dance,
communicate the language of the trees
Leaves look like fingers too, another way
through the panes with sleepy eyes
I am deaf, they are signing
mysteries only trees can know

That with the winds comes a shakedown
It is the way of howling air, blustering power
and might, a change
Words that say what oaks, they know
the bending delivers strength
The branches carry messages for me

braille, for me, the blind one
The one who can not see
Planted in the eye of  storm, in the raging winds

That the dusty blows away
Hitches a ride on the tailwinds in the sky

Before the plans are made and prayers are eeked
And worry settles in the folds
At the outset of  new day

Grace is carried, dropped and settles
On the house, in which I live
And all that’s left for me
The one who simply cannot see

Is wind-blown trust
from the Grace Giver
Golden leaves now dance instead
Gentle musings out my window,

Wind and trees a joyful mix, whispering words

To walk the way that winds, not straight
It’s serpentine
though paved with grace.

Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturdays

and Emily for Imperfect Prose
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A Poet’s Prayer

wpid-IMG_20130430_184203.jpgSome of those songwriters
Man they slay me
Lassoing words up into something that goes round for eternity on repeat in your soul
Speaking words of wisdom
About world turning
And missing Mayberry, sitting on the front porch

When will the noteless poet penetrate words
Through the film of hurting humanity
Words of George asking Jane to stop this crazy thing
They too, plant into the culture deep roots of permanency.

Some of those songwriters
Man they nail it
With someone left the cake out in the rain
We live a lifetime repeating nonsense

Or remembering bridges over troubled waters
And never seeing friendship the same way again
Can a poet reign in a heart and cup it toward glory
Toward  all He is and made and does and loves

Some of those songwriters
Man they knock it out of the park
Taking words and sending them out onto the dance floor partnered with notes
To waltz and shag and boogey with words that we
Remember, memories like the corners of my mind

Can a noteless word dance in the silence, buoy
Hearts
Grab hold of  the hopeless and the beauty seeker
The longing one, the lonely one, the one following after
The heart of God.

Man those guys from Nashville, they really crush it
Dice and slice words on a blank page pair them with music
And give us beauty we remember forever
Can a poet in 2103 show His glory Hallelujah in the quiet

In the quiet of a place
When the music stops
Can the words alone
Pull back the lids of a complacent heart

And sing a song of noteless beauty

And whisper amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Lord, give me words that soar and dance on the edges of the heavenlies
Or send me packing
Maybe to Nashville