the eagle flies on Friday
When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.
🌝
From Out the Cave by Joyce Sutphen
When the war is over
we will be proud of course the air will be
Good for breathing at last
The water will have been improved the salmon
And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly
The dead will think the living are worth it we will know
Who we are
And we will all enlist again
💧
When the War is Over by W.S. Merwin
The ocean spilled
into my coffee cup
which then overflowed
into my day
violent waves swallowing me whole
Catching co-workers in it’s salty mass
All I could do was repeat the phrase…
Just breathe…just breathe…
follow directions…
In / out…in / out…in /
and then the most violent moments of the storm came to take me
and finally subsided…
Me, left empty and wrung dry,
swimming into a deep pool of peace and surrender
I intake lots of clear, fresh and pure
of the substance poured in such quantities,
through the windows of my soul
over this day.
I grant myself rest and time.
and say to my pastor-friend, Jana,
as another Southern Belle once said,
Tomorrow is another day.
as life begins to begin
again.
🌊
Amy Lloyd
life: acoustic & amplified 