What a little wisp you are
Blowing lonely down the long Montana hills
You and i travel a space together
Driven by nature and love
I think of where you rose
The vast Pacific Ocean
Where you rose and fell as rain
Before blowing up across the beach
And then against the coastal mountains where you fell
Across the dry stretches outside of Spokane
Until again you met another decimating mountains
You are so small now
So frail against the evening sky
The wide dry plains of the continent before you
I remember when i lived on the far edge of those plains
Longing for my sister on the edge of the ocean
I remember thinking when the rains fell
That perhaps these clouds were Seattle leftovers
The ones that made it over the mountains
Across the plains
To the far edge where i say looking West
You have traveled far fair little cloud
But now
I live on the edge of the ocean
And i am driven by the wind up over the mountains
Across those wide dry endless plains
What is left of me is blowing down
These long lonely hills outside of Billings
For i left a bit of me there
On the edge of a lake on the edge of the plains
And now, like gravity
I'm falling towards a place that i can't help call home
I'll race you, little cloud, little rain
And i'll give whatever is left of me
Whenever i arrive
At wherever i find myself
To all of those whoevers in my life
That keep calling my heart on
Making the long lonely drive
Worth all the while.
-------
love,
luke
Friday, June 12, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Pruning a Fern (25/5/2009)
I have never pruned a fern before
But this ancient thing
Beside a more ancient stump
Is in desperate need
Neglected in its old age
Contained by a thoughtless blade
Sheered brutally into shape
New growth mingled with old
Moldering
I snip back the old woody stems
Deep into the tangled knot
Of brown and green
The rotting heart alive
With wood mites and fungi
I wonder if it is the right season
If i am making the right cuts
I regret the autumn spent indoors
Watching the rain fall
I should've been on my knees in the mud
Pruning the old growth
Trusting the roots were deep and strong enough
Knowing in spring the green would return
Bright and emerald and full
But my hands were rooted in another soil
And now my heart races, strangely
Practicing this late resurrection
Returning the old death to the older earth
Nourishing the place from which it came
Giving it life by taking away
Standing humbled, despondent
The growth of years in piles around it
While its new green arms
With their curling and unfinished hands
Stretch naked in praise to the silent sky
Unmistakably alive.
------
love,
luke
But this ancient thing
Beside a more ancient stump
Is in desperate need
Neglected in its old age
Contained by a thoughtless blade
Sheered brutally into shape
New growth mingled with old
Moldering
I snip back the old woody stems
Deep into the tangled knot
Of brown and green
The rotting heart alive
With wood mites and fungi
I wonder if it is the right season
If i am making the right cuts
I regret the autumn spent indoors
Watching the rain fall
I should've been on my knees in the mud
Pruning the old growth
Trusting the roots were deep and strong enough
Knowing in spring the green would return
Bright and emerald and full
But my hands were rooted in another soil
And now my heart races, strangely
Practicing this late resurrection
Returning the old death to the older earth
Nourishing the place from which it came
Giving it life by taking away
Standing humbled, despondent
The growth of years in piles around it
While its new green arms
With their curling and unfinished hands
Stretch naked in praise to the silent sky
Unmistakably alive.
------
love,
luke
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Seven Sketches for Holy Week
I.
I do not want to wake up
To another morning
Without
You
I have waited long
So that i can't remember what
I'm waiting for
II.
If you are thirsty
Said the sky
If you are thirsty
Said the earth
If you are thirsty
We will thirst
With you
This our second divorce
Necessary distinction
So we could feel the need
III.
Stretched seductively to the sky
Opening her petals to the world
Reveling in the green
Swallowing up the sea
The pea blossom revealed in color
What the monks would find in numbers
IV.
Sun above us
Moon beneath us
Stars surround us
We are fixed in a dance
We could not escape
V.
Oh, Leviathan
We called you
To begin
In immensity
The singing of the sea
VI.
I do not want to wake up
To another morning
Without
You
I have waited long
And now i know
What i am waiting for
VII.
Rest, beloved
As Christ in a tomb;
Creation begins tomorrow in
This the land
Of our resurrection.
-------
love,
luke
I do not want to wake up
To another morning
Without
You
I have waited long
So that i can't remember what
I'm waiting for
II.
If you are thirsty
Said the sky
If you are thirsty
Said the earth
If you are thirsty
We will thirst
With you
This our second divorce
Necessary distinction
So we could feel the need
III.
Stretched seductively to the sky
Opening her petals to the world
Reveling in the green
Swallowing up the sea
The pea blossom revealed in color
What the monks would find in numbers
IV.
Sun above us
Moon beneath us
Stars surround us
We are fixed in a dance
We could not escape
V.
Oh, Leviathan
We called you
To begin
In immensity
The singing of the sea
VI.
I do not want to wake up
To another morning
Without
You
I have waited long
And now i know
What i am waiting for
VII.
Rest, beloved
As Christ in a tomb;
Creation begins tomorrow in
This the land
Of our resurrection.
-------
love,
luke
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
A Prayer
Save us Barack
And our blessed manufacturing
Of six cylindered fuel efficiency
All the horsepower at half the cost to the greenery
We see from our windows speeding by
Save us Henry Ford from the work of our hands
From working for the joy of it and the burden
Of having to love what we make and making things lovingly
Save us you gold standard, you parity of purchasing power
You favorable ratio of imports and exports
Save us you dead presidents and statesmen
Save us and our economy of spending
What isn't ours on things we make the world need.
We have cluttered our nest
With twine stolen from other birds
The red from a crow
The blue from a meadowlark
The white from a thrush
We have built ourselves the grandest love nest
And we shove our eggs over the ledge
Oh Hunter come and save us,
Fowler, Falconer come and flush us out
Logger and Timberman save us,
Destroy our comfortable rotting snag of a house
Our whitewashed house filled with the ghosts
Of Bosnia, Panama, Vietnam
Save us Christ save us
Even if it takes our destruction
Save us from our lying hands
Constructing falsehoods
Creating nothing but
Better credit to sacrifice
On the altar of consumption.
-------
love,
luke
And our blessed manufacturing
Of six cylindered fuel efficiency
All the horsepower at half the cost to the greenery
We see from our windows speeding by
Save us Henry Ford from the work of our hands
From working for the joy of it and the burden
Of having to love what we make and making things lovingly
Save us you gold standard, you parity of purchasing power
You favorable ratio of imports and exports
Save us you dead presidents and statesmen
Save us and our economy of spending
What isn't ours on things we make the world need.
We have cluttered our nest
With twine stolen from other birds
The red from a crow
The blue from a meadowlark
The white from a thrush
We have built ourselves the grandest love nest
And we shove our eggs over the ledge
Oh Hunter come and save us,
Fowler, Falconer come and flush us out
Logger and Timberman save us,
Destroy our comfortable rotting snag of a house
Our whitewashed house filled with the ghosts
Of Bosnia, Panama, Vietnam
Save us Christ save us
Even if it takes our destruction
Save us from our lying hands
Constructing falsehoods
Creating nothing but
Better credit to sacrifice
On the altar of consumption.
-------
love,
luke
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Concerning defiance
Barth once described joy as a "defiant 'Nevertheless!'" As a self professed contrary (as Berry might put it, a mad farmer) i find both of those words very appealing. Defiance is something i understand on a visceral level. And as i prone to find stubbornly find exceptions the second word does nicely as well. As Rich Mullins once sang, "I'd rather fight you for something I don't really want than take what you give that I need." Certainly not the easiest line to take through life, certainly not the most Christian, certainly in desperate need of some breaking.
And yet (see, here i go again), there is something immensely freeing in defiance. In open, clear, honest to God standing against the wind. As one of my theology professors at Wheaton once said, we all come out of the womb giving God the finger. In context i took this to mean we all start life rebellious to some degree. For some growing up in faith means gradually losing rebelliousness. Virtue and maturity are instilled and rebellion leaves with spiritual adolescence. For some of us the best we can hope for seems to be turning our rebellion to the right corners.
I am pretty sure i will die giving my finger to something. I hope i die giving it death, confident, as Donne was, that death is defeated and shall very shortly be done away with completely. Perhaps i will outgrow it, but it seems that life is very difficult for me when i do not have something to stand against. Or rather, let me say it is difficult for me to imagine living a life in this universe in such a way that i would not be painfully aware of something that i must stand against. Again, i confess i am a contrary.
What i have been toying with in these latter years is the idea that this standing against posture is perhaps useful to the Church. But then when i look at what the life of defiance as spiritual service looks like i find myself quite frightened and tempted towards social activism or farming or running away to a cabin in the Yukon where i would make things out of wood and trap for a living. What i mean to say is, i've been a bully of bullies since i first found out i could take a punch, you show me a bully and i am likely to pick a fight. This worked out fine in high school, i got in a few fist fights and scuffed up my knuckles a bit. But what happens when you enter the world of the church and politics.
These days it seems like everywhere i look i don't see anything but bullies. And at the end of the day i look in the mirror and realize the one bully i need to stand up against the most is staring back at me when i brush my teeth. I've never beat myself yet and not sure i know how. I am accustomed to taking care of things, especially in a fight, but what happens when i'm the one who needs to be taken care of? These days it seems like there isn't a greater enemy than me. Christ have mercy, defy and defeat me.
love,
luke
And yet (see, here i go again), there is something immensely freeing in defiance. In open, clear, honest to God standing against the wind. As one of my theology professors at Wheaton once said, we all come out of the womb giving God the finger. In context i took this to mean we all start life rebellious to some degree. For some growing up in faith means gradually losing rebelliousness. Virtue and maturity are instilled and rebellion leaves with spiritual adolescence. For some of us the best we can hope for seems to be turning our rebellion to the right corners.
I am pretty sure i will die giving my finger to something. I hope i die giving it death, confident, as Donne was, that death is defeated and shall very shortly be done away with completely. Perhaps i will outgrow it, but it seems that life is very difficult for me when i do not have something to stand against. Or rather, let me say it is difficult for me to imagine living a life in this universe in such a way that i would not be painfully aware of something that i must stand against. Again, i confess i am a contrary.
What i have been toying with in these latter years is the idea that this standing against posture is perhaps useful to the Church. But then when i look at what the life of defiance as spiritual service looks like i find myself quite frightened and tempted towards social activism or farming or running away to a cabin in the Yukon where i would make things out of wood and trap for a living. What i mean to say is, i've been a bully of bullies since i first found out i could take a punch, you show me a bully and i am likely to pick a fight. This worked out fine in high school, i got in a few fist fights and scuffed up my knuckles a bit. But what happens when you enter the world of the church and politics.
These days it seems like everywhere i look i don't see anything but bullies. And at the end of the day i look in the mirror and realize the one bully i need to stand up against the most is staring back at me when i brush my teeth. I've never beat myself yet and not sure i know how. I am accustomed to taking care of things, especially in a fight, but what happens when i'm the one who needs to be taken care of? These days it seems like there isn't a greater enemy than me. Christ have mercy, defy and defeat me.
love,
luke
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
On Observing the Dutch Masters
I.
The needle threads a line
From my thigh to my heart
And back again. Start over
Return to center
Return
Two central lines placed in the middle
My stomach could not feel them.
It has not turned like this
In years. Compassion, you
Distant insufferable companion
You miserable wretch thing
I can only see the vacant smiles.
The things that i said
The things that went away
The things that remained
All of these things faded.
All of these and more.
II.
I am a rabid dog, confused by a virus i do not understand
I am angry because i am confused, confused because i am infected
I am the random evolution of a half-living thing
I am infecting the saliva and confusing the brain
I am teeth and claws and rabies.
My stomach hurts, mother. My heart is not beating,
I cannot feel it beat i cannot
Retreat further into myself
The space between my cells is full of atoms
I am terrified of what has become of me
I am teeth
I am claws
I am a rabid dog
Scared of what is happening
III.
Put on your black dress
You are going dancing
And i am not invited
I hide behind
Absurdist lines
(So find me.)
IV.
Return
To the center
Where the fever breaks
The stomach stills
The line threads up from the earth
Spilled out like blood
Moving upward to the treetops
Stopped by gravity, let our science
Damn our souls to unconstructed heavens
It is enough that you loved me
Even if i was still sleeping.
For now i am awake though unaware.
Silent, blind. I shall fall asleep
And let this come to be.
-------
love,
luke
The needle threads a line
From my thigh to my heart
And back again. Start over
Return to center
Return
Two central lines placed in the middle
My stomach could not feel them.
It has not turned like this
In years. Compassion, you
Distant insufferable companion
You miserable wretch thing
I can only see the vacant smiles.
The things that i said
The things that went away
The things that remained
All of these things faded.
All of these and more.
II.
I am a rabid dog, confused by a virus i do not understand
I am angry because i am confused, confused because i am infected
I am the random evolution of a half-living thing
I am infecting the saliva and confusing the brain
I am teeth and claws and rabies.
My stomach hurts, mother. My heart is not beating,
I cannot feel it beat i cannot
Retreat further into myself
The space between my cells is full of atoms
I am terrified of what has become of me
I am teeth
I am claws
I am a rabid dog
Scared of what is happening
III.
Put on your black dress
You are going dancing
And i am not invited
I hide behind
Absurdist lines
(So find me.)
IV.
Return
To the center
Where the fever breaks
The stomach stills
The line threads up from the earth
Spilled out like blood
Moving upward to the treetops
Stopped by gravity, let our science
Damn our souls to unconstructed heavens
It is enough that you loved me
Even if i was still sleeping.
For now i am awake though unaware.
Silent, blind. I shall fall asleep
And let this come to be.
-------
love,
luke
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