The Willful Beings

If you, like I, have eyes that see,
to read these words and know
that meanings are a human thing,
as consciously we go;

If as you go you hear a voice
of one with voice like you,
to fill the air with meaning noise,
that magic humans do,

you're bound to think it common,
too familiar to be shocked,
but a willful, thinking being,
near your being, walked and talked!

To will a thing and act on it!?
Unbound by matter's laws?
No chemical reaction
can explain away this cause.

If we were naught but atoms,
and by their laws restrained,
each thought would not be chosen,
but follow, as if chained,

by inviolable laws,
one following another,
without a choice to break them,
to will this or the other.

We break the laws of physics
every time we think or choose.
For reason follows no set course.
We choose! My God! We choose!

If you are not alarmed at this,
amazed that we are free,
to break the laws of chemistry,
you're less likely to see

that each and every human,
who wills, and thinks, and moves,
deserves respect, has dignity,
should be among your loves.

Their right to live, to choose, to love,
is equal to your own,
and you, my friend, a marvel are,
and more than flesh and bone.

Myopia

My literature professor said, "Everything's a text."
The Freudian psychologist thought everything was sex.
A physicist materialist insisted, "All is matter."
Do bakers think all that exists is rising in a batter?

Good Shakespeare wrote, "The world's a stage" -
A playwright and an actor.
He too was subject to this rage -
This occupational hazard,

That makes computer programmers say,
"All is Code!" instead,
while idealist philosophers think "All"
is in their head.

I might hear out a plumber who suggested, "Its all water."
I understand a mother whose whole world's her lovely daughter.
To hear a saner view of things, I found her four year old.
She sleeps and plays and eats and sings, "The whole world's made of gold!"



(In our age of specialization, single vision and limited scope get in the way of seeing the whole in a healthy way.)

Spring

In the low crook of a tree
that blossomed white
in my brother's yard this week,
a robin had made a nest,
and my niece found three blue eggs,
mildly speckled and the same size
and color as her wide eyes.

Life beginning again
in the branches,
in the nest,
in my brother's children.

Easter.
Colored eggs and
kids searching
in the nooks and hidden places
for these speckled reminders
that life goes on again after
the death of Winter has taken
life from the Tree.




(People who live in modernity, who have separated themselves from the seasons and nature significantly, often ask what children hunting for colored eggs has to do with Easter. This moment with my niece answered them.)

Poor Boy

A certain man died
nearly two thousand years ago.
Regardless of what you think of him:
that he didn't exist;
that he did but was merely a man;
or that somehow, what billions
have come to believe --
that he was divine;
whatever your thoughts
on the matter, your life,
and the world you live in
were impacted by the life,
or the myth, or the words,
or at least by the words credited to
this small town personality
who was no big shot in the world
of his day.
If his message,
or the claims about him
do not convince you of anything,
at least let the impact of his life
convince you of the one thing
all stories of him claim he came to say:
that the smallest life,
yes, even small lives like ours,
yours and mine,
matter.

Nocturne

I walked out into the Night,
into the Darkness
that had expected my visit for years,
waiting to remind me that
I was one of Her creatures;
that the deepest self we hold
is always shrouded in mystery,
as She is.

As I quit my home
the leaves of enormous trees
shook like the beating
of Seraphim wings,
on fire with Angel holiness,
praising the Lord of their belonging,
pressing me forward,
forward,
in a march to their erratic rhythms,
away from the habit of home.

The poems that prompted
my spirit to the outing
I pressed tightly in the notebook
cradled in the curves
of my possessive fingers.

I opened the book
and the looseleaf oracles
somersaulted in every direction
before me, joining the choir of leaves.

I gathered them all, save one,
which led me further into the Darkness,
walking, then running,
chasing this newborn
Angel of God
along its pirouetting path
through the empty, early morning streets,
flat against a gnarled trunk,
fighting,
flapping violently to gain its freedom,
then lighting like a winged swan
upon a puddle.
There it sucked the weight of water in
as an anchor, and held.

"You must go,"
the Angel told me
as the fluid seeped.
"Go, and be caught up
in the winds of Darkness,
letting go of your plans, and finding,
at the end of your perilous journey,
that place where your spirit holds
and will not let go.
Where your constant seeking
is not enough to stir you from
your belonging,
and you can finally
be filled with the
waters of life."

Original Sin

I came to a conviction
to throw out all convictions,
so naturally, I still believe them all.

The sense that our potential
is lacking some essential
is best described by calling it, "The Fall."

At present, our reliance,
on falsely-worshipped science,
threatens every creature, big and small.

I'd love to solve these errors -
relieve us from our terrors -
but Tweeting sans merci hath me in thrall.

Two Fools

"Nobody judge me, I have the last word!
I'm free to be me, however absurd!
There aren't any rules; I'll do as I please!
Freedom means pleasure - a life full of ease!"

...said the fool.

"I value my freedom to work every day,
Improving myself in some measured way,
Through discipline, care, and working through strife,
Loving all that I love, living all that is life."

...said the Fool.