Down From the Night A humid night, a balmy dusk, Fireflies on summer leaves Bear flashing likeness to the stars, but how Do rising stars resemble these? Think now, think, how can it be That suns can glow like fireflies, Attracting what above themselves, Flashing, burning as they rise? Both are temporal and pass – […]
Who Sends These Winds? How can you say you are alone, my love, Feel the rays of the fuse set up high Warming, giving life, giving light To frigid lonely flesh In heat served up fresh each morning? How can you say I’m not here? Here come the galloping winds Here come the playful winds […]
You and I Alone In this desert nothing lives but prophecy, Lightning in the sterile sky but never rain, Search the future in the desert secrecy, Torah of the line of the horizon Turn around the circle that you turn, There is the far meniscus of the shape Of earth that has been molten till […]
Heavy Laden They’ve ruined me! Their weighty words assign work, work, work to my joy. How can I let go this lack of blessing? I stick out my neck, O Lord, for your yoke. Mary Harwell Sayler
No One Knows How Far What is the future like? You have not been there yet, A time you have not visited You need not now forget Someone saw me walking Down a foreign street Long beyond the telling Where past and future meet There within a city A square within a square, Infamous to […]
Those Who Have No God I saw a buzzard floating with its black wings outspread To see along the alleys the living and the dead Above the pale white city on a motionless March day – What can the wind be thinking of, to blow and die away? These are the prophet scavengers which gather […]
Our Very Selves… The weight of our rebellions So heavy The savior falls to the ground and cries “…Let this cup pass…” But the angel comes With a looking glass Aimed at you and me To show Him our Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers Children, neighbors and friends Our very selves… The Angel whispers ‘The […]
Broken House Today I am convinced that everything I do has little value, Lord, to You, to others, or myself. A vase of many flaws, atop a shelf, just waiting: I speak, but no one hears the sound, and all around the silence of myself – berating – I wonder what will make me real? […]
Rara Avis in Terris Nigroque, Simillima Cycno — Juvenal [A rare bird on Earth, like nothing so much as a black swan] But who will know when rare birds come That may take form as any shape, In greatness or as modicum, A man, a woman or an ape And they will walk and they […]
On Calling Out and Hoping God Will Answer Love breaks open like a beak – half up, half down : and from the wings of a throat erupts a cry. Mary Harwell Sayler
The Ants The ants have built their mansion in a pile of sand, Are we not better, wiser, larger, The cities of our comforts better planned? Clever, they misconceive the great backhoe The concrete mixer and the dredge, For at their scale how is an ant to know? The mall was in the blueprint […]
Where Are You Going? Where are you going There on the paved face Of a sphere That spins while racing Swift orbits Around a flawless star Suspended in a black universe There you are Sitting in your car Staring at a red light To watch the change That you might move your foot And be […]
Stranger of the Night Barred owl, what are you doing here At bay in a tall pine tree Where the small birds curse and jeer? This is mid-morning, not evening shade – Glide quickly to the hillside den Where shadows of the moon are made , Turn your rounded head and stare Swivel at the […]
Why Do You Say…? Why do you say that Man is the king of creation? The robe is too wide for his meager, rickety frame, The crown of a king is royal for his skull’s dimensions, When a summons arrives he can’t even remember his name Not upright nor wise despite Linnaeus’s flattery, Swooning over […]
The Sculptor’s Chisel His living bread His body The Sculptor’s chisel In clay kneaded like a potter’s mound He moulds an image of Himself His wine His blood Love’s river Love’s river carves the canyon’s face And steers the searching yearning heart Michele Marie
In the Synagogue of Night Light of gold and then of silver A shawl on the shoulders of the world That bows to the sun In the synagogue of night Pavel June 29, 2011 “In the Synagogue of Npavelight,” a reading: http://www.pavelreads.com/
Secret Prison They’ll try to change the planet Into a secret prison Where God can never find us But prisoners may summon The prisoners can sing In that secret prison Though it be the cell Of the ruins of oblation No crypt of death can hold God’s beloved Son, Nor keep Him in the cell […]
Disgracing Dinah from Genesis 34 prior to the law of “an eye for an eye” Dinah’s weeping, Judah. Dinah’s weeping. Do you hear? Does she fear the horror that will happen when her big brothers hear of the ill-fated love fallen upon her as forcibly as the trial […]
Look Out of the Window… Look out of the window, see How the wind moves through the leaves Each one green and of its own Free and graceful in the clear stream O my father, this I know full well These are the trees of Paradise Where I will dwell Pavel June 10, 2011
Be Still Awhile… In that softly shadowed place With the candle of His presence lit There He waits and listens Taste the Savior’s bread and wine Eat His flesh and blood Bow your head, Loves’ arrived The King of all, who Sees your need, Takes the time to be with you Stay with Him, while He’s with […]
Age of Miracles We all look solid-built enough, No one who looks can look through us, We are not paper, stone and rough, Two-legged walls we seem by guess And yet there is a wind that blows From far, the farthest far away That only someone frail can know And only someone small can say […]
Reading The Will Isaiah 58 From the midst of yourselves, pull out oppression. From the center of yourselves, remove falsehood and cruel speech. Feed the hungry, yes, but find some way to satisfy the complaints of the afflicted – those most likely bothered by what you do not do. Then light shall lift you from […]
The Morning Stars When his daughter died he planted a pine – When he died himself it burst through his death As if from the tomb in which he lay What did you plant for us, child of God? We wait for the tree that will shade your tomb In a dark soil rich with […]
Stations One sits beside Him And He knows He sits alone. That one will kiss Him Then be on his way. A true friend longs to be there Should something happen On a night, Where no joy lingers In a windy desert that Howls its danger, Past the praying Though most are sleeping A true […]
