waiting to cross over
And still now every morning,
each momentary wish for healing
is a risk, a wakening call
to change, to choose,
to leave so much behind,
and be again made new.
– Steve Garnaas Holmes
Hey can you write a letter for me?
Dear … (what’s that preachers name?)
Every holy diadem of a single
solitary breathing
every moment on this shelf of living
a single, solitary life
subsumed into the pain of others
the holy grail of connection
filling this cup within my heart
this role play with each character
each story a classic
an epic tale of woe and joy
there is always room for more
than tables and candlesticks
turning a carpetbag into a steamer trunk
poppins would be proud to carry
under a particular umbrella
why do we so easily forget ourselves?
abundance is our birthright
gluttony a human pursuit
shared by too many of our contemporaries
marking time by comparisons
making life a heaviness to be borne
where music falls as dirges
and the cracks we free-fall into
drop 45 minutes straight to the center of the circle
the letters we learn to write
always seem to start the same way –
but
–
what would happen if I was not fine?
Cuz Im not so sure
I am…
feeling suspended
If you didn’t tell me how you are in such a smug word
but drizzled your feelings sweetly, slowly, a bit at a time
throughout a scrawled leaf of imperfect penmanship
a new thought might become magical
a new life might be born into being
we might all find a new nickname even better than T-bone
as a matter of fact
🌈
Amy Lloyd
Oh, I talked so much last night.
Told secrets,
laughing at the words that came pouring from my insides.
Life that was raw and succinct .
That crisp expression
when you capture something right.
That knowing that years were not wasted
and even trying to work out your salvation,
is a mistake…
the time I found a compass in the drawer,
the frog in an open palm
a New York City block
and a long, winding road in the desert of the heart.
We can hear it in a hundred ways
God forms changing by the years,
by the nudge
someone sitting next to us in a pew
messages delivered
by monster,
by administrator;
by the balancing of chemistry
and the hours on a clock.
Wordless expressions
on the faces of men.
Children wrapped in pastel blankets
and swaddled in their parents arms
diligent tendering
finding words on paper
to match the age that you’ve grown to.
We say we don’t do it…
but that working it out before it’s too late…
we try it
hear our mistakes
wonder why we thought such a thing
or how long before the veil wakes us up
the morning arriving, so soon.
and plane trips are often distractions
when you’ve forgotten
which direction to go…
knowledge of Carl Jung,
and we’re gone for hours.
Sixty is not a long time
but it’s enough to know some rules
to practice the ordinary niceties
to break free of the constant enabling
to fraction more inner waking
and to sleep inside deep, deep healing skin.
When you truly hear the language of
Love…you know to whom you belong,
For what you would die
How you would comfort,
And how everything is a gift.
And the Spirit of the Living God
Leans inward on the heart.
Beauty,
Rev. Donna Knutson
life: acoustic & amplified 