Ah, the great Cage Master comes once again,
and he looks in.
Does he see
you and me,
in Cage XYZ?
 
He checks the feeds,
nutritional needs,
records in his book
our chart and our measure
our reaction to pressure
 
We are his experiment,
somehow, his intent –
no repeat in all history
of designs traced in mystery –
He studies each one
then adds to his sum.
          
Oh, rat caught in a rat-cage, complaining,
are you sure that
you are a rat, or just living in Rat-Rage?
accepting an oblivious feeder
and illusion of a Rat Leader?
Does concept of Cage Master
feel safe when you compete faster?
 
Could you see in bareness
intimation of fairness?
the confusing maze
as soft embrace,
the routine feed and turning wheel
as balm for hurt you hardly feel?
 
Your cruel picture of God, by some mischance,
deformity of brain, or chemical imbalance,
that posits rigor instead of love
and a need to know, in God above
 – who needs nothing, thanks or praise
for our uniqueness and our days
 
Unneeded gift, unneeded glory
pour out in love our own good story.
So, do not compete faster or try to ignore –
understand, if you can, instead of deplore,
why you think of yourself – as an experimental animal
and of God – as a cold scientist ….

 
We like to look upon the moon, but why?
Its light is gentle in the sky
Its beams reflect a stronger source
whose blast would burn our eyes with force.
And so we take from God’s small image, man,
some heavenly inspiration, because we can --
The rocky orb bends physic’s mystic rays.
The human sphere rebounds His infinite grace.
 
                                                                        (1980s) 

set, oh set, the prayer wheels turning  [i]
light in dark a candle burning
tell the beads in groups of ten
chant the songs in groups again
 
in case Attention slips away
or we forget, or cease, to pray
though Holy Spirit’s prayer is heard  [ii]
when we find no word
 
for we must leave our quiet space
and work and play in time and place
so – let invented substitutes
flag the path and count the route
 
while we accept the human aid
of devices we have made
to stand for us who cannot stand
to mark the way we cannot plan

Upon a mountain stony
a little wheel, all lonely –   
my mind sets it to spin
my heart with it turns round again
 
                                                                        (1990s)
 
 
[i]   Footer Illustration:  Bikrampratapsingh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. “Prayer Wheel”.  Wikipedia.org. {https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Prayer_Wheels.jpg}  (accessed January 14, 2022)    

[ii]    Romans 8:26,  USCCB   –  United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. {https://bible.usccb.org/bible/romans/8}  (accessed January 10, 2022)   –
“In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.” 

There is a blazing star 
they tell us, oh, so far
our jingle-jangle
hardly feels its jar 
 
Yet if that never came
with reach and resonance so tame,
the universe down to our cells
could not equate the same
 
Or if just now it ceased to be
although its distant light we see
for years across the void,
its absence also touches me 
 
Symbol of our pilgrim way,  
changes encountered every day,
cairns and signposts left behind
whose inner meaning has no say
 
 Yet while these star-rocks beckon, while they call
we also find a path we follow, small
but, blind to meaning’s mystery,
we barely grasp the What – not Why –  of All
 
                                                                        (2000s) 

 
For forty, fifty, years this lady drank with fierce resistance
escape or wall –  she thought it kept her Free  
and the Twelve Steps, though known, gave her no assistance –
she lacked that path or bridge to God, Step Three.  [i]
 
Her child, a living Sister, gave me a gem
which I have been turning and watching,
a diamond hard and cold
which flashes bent, and many-colored Light
 
Words this woman told her, uttered long ago
by a mother now dead, to a child now old –
the Essence of self-destruction
bent back as hatred and rebellion, at reproach,
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

When a small child said, “Mother, I need you,
please stop losing yourself and return to me,”
This self-destroyer lady said in classic phrase,
same as the devil spoke:
 
“I will do exactly as I wish to do.
and I will continue to do so
as long as I wish to.”
How pure, how clear! Dark angels hovered there.

 How those words turn beams so bright,
flashing like Lucifer, Prince of Light,
or like the serpent once coiled in tree,
which still spits and bites its enemy.
 
Or gleaming like mythical words
of our mythical parents,
before they blamed the snake,
and turned and killed each other.
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

What lonely words! How cold,
they brighten Hell with lone-ness
greater than any fall or wall
“I will do exactly as I wish to do.”
 
They suggest alternatives the will
has known and fled, to find its frozen stand
“I will continue as long as I wish.”
What a sad forever! Is there a greater pain?
 
How often till she spoke had she rehearsed
yet would not speak, to husband,
mother, mother-in-law, but only
to a small, dependent, pleading child.
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

She fired bright rays at Helplessness
with the fierceness of a laser.
Ah, wounding! rejecting, not caring,  
“Exactly as I wish to do” – spoken like a viper.
 
 The child’s request she termed “Reproach,”
her mirrored self-hate, inward foil turned out,
as though Innocence were required
to reveal that self-destruction
 
Pain for this Child – and other children….
Those gem-like words scattered many rays,
long-reaching, some bright enough
to cast a “loved one’s” Shadow visible
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
I take and turn this diamond back and forth.
It flashes, it gleams, and burns,
it speaks to me of spells, and secrets
“Is that why? Is that why?”
 
“I will do exactly as I wish to do.”
She wished to die, in little pieces
and fought, cat-like, those who tried to stop her.
The role of Child was not to question….
 
I never gained the clarity this gem reveals,
its message now the gift of understanding,
explaining how a mother hurts herself,
and how child’s pain can come to be
 
I take this diamond
to my inner window, where I ask
the Sister of a Book, and of my Soul –
to help me see this right
                    ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 This Sister gives me words which show the Light
which is the Life of that and any gem,
the Beam which runs through all our air
and here and there delays encaptured, bent, still bright
 
And for those other Wicked Words,
I quote the book she wrote, unrhymed, unchanged.
Now see this Soul of Happiness,
whose Secret should be Mother to us all:
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

“Love casts out fear.
Since I came to love God
with my whole being
and with all the strength of my heart
Fear has left me.
 
“Even if I were to hear
the most terrifying things
about God’s justice
I would not fear him at all
because I have come to know him well.
 
“God is love and His Spirit is peace.
I see now that my deeds
which have flowed from love
are more perfect than those
which I have done out of fear.
 
 “I have placed my trust in God
and fear nothing
I have given myself over to His holy will;
let him do as He wishes,
and I will still love him.”  [ii]  
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Oh, Sisters Both, thank you for your words,
these Mother-Words which help me grow – 
the sad and painful words
from a strange mother’s fall to death,
 
radiant words which speak
what her damaged heart should wish to say –
implied in her cruel and haughty hate,
from her own Childhood – fearing with despair,
 
the stamping of rebellious feet
“I will do exactly as I wish to do.”
What a sad life those words provided,
kicking and screaming, dragged through Earth to Heaven
 
I am thankful to read the other’s phrase,
“I have given myself over to His holy will.”
In trying to follow these I can also say
“Fear has left me….I fear nothing.”
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

It takes a crystal speck of human Frailty
to refract that lovely Light.
Thank you, Sister-Mothers,
for your gifts that help my sight.
 
                                                                        (2000s ?) 


[i]  “The Twelve Steps”.  Alcoholics Anonymous.  {https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps}  (accessed January 11, 2022).
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God
as we understood him.”    

[ii]  Sr. Faustina Kowalska.  Diary: Divine mercy In My Soul. Stockbridge, Massachusetts: Marians of the Immaculate Conception, 2001, § 589.

 
Our corner of the world
is a garden lantern glowing.
When lilies sway on soft light
the paintings and poems of your ancients speak
 
Today, hearing soldiers shot you  [i]
I would have left the flowers
on those streets
till someone said
“It was time to halt them.”
 
then came a long discussion: 
“Moderation has no friends,
it can’t appeal to passions.”
History says mobs are dangerous.
If so, those shots make sense,
though not to many…
 
since I believe in sacrifice
and first-fruit offering,
which is youth.
But logic says  –  Christ died alone,
it was the Crowd that killed him
 So, now, my heart leans toward you.
 
Well … your blood ran today
and I, like your long ago sages,
have no role but to invite your spirit
–  would it had been your youthful selves  --
into my garden.
 
Sit by my lantern
paint me a picture
read me a poem
listen to reason.
 
 
(1980s  –  I had no affection then for the Beijing dictatorship. But the student action, grown violent, was no longer intellectual dissent. A government who tolerates such action likely invites further trouble and so abdicates its rule. The bloodshed on the square, in that sense, was at least defensible.
The cruelties and persecutions afterward were needless, thus indefensible, and to me the most appalling terror of the whole event. The poem was composed before that retaliation became known.)


[i]   “1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre”.  Wikipedia.org.  {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre}  (accessed January26, 2022).

Dear God,
I am your sun-flower.
As you watch me carefully
I follow all your ways,
I bend across your sky,
from rise to setting
my growing thirsty head
drinks all your rays.
 
I am not an earthly plant
and Nights without you
last many earthly days
where even in earth’s morning
I would raise my face
until earth’s evening falls,
but inner darkness stays,
until I learn your constant course
and drop my heavy head
to feel your path beneath the world
whose Shadow makes our night
and soak the dew-soothed restfulness
of your invisible Light.
 
 Then always your dawn’s rays
touch each cell of waiting
with ever new return,
no words can celebrate your rising
or tell the power of growing Day
which draws life’s forces into consciousness
and lifts and swells the flower
for quite unearthly stay,
no dearth of light
through arctic circumstance
of many earthly nights.
 
Oh universal sun
if your sun-flower
can with upturned face
at least resemble you
follow you and return to you in seeds
your many riches
I will grow with the same thirst
that brings both bloom and heaviness.
 
Made by you and for you
I will submit to forces sent from you
from my rising to my setting
through embrace of earth below
toward a dawn I do not know
I will be your Sun-Flower   
 
                                                                                    (1970s  ?)

 
How my heart longs for that garden
budding symbol of repair
where the roots the old man planted
still his dreams and wishes bear
 
an extra plot besides his neighbors,
paths of brick still shapely laid
statue’s blunt remaining foot
tell the dream of eyes that fade
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
a garden could be here again
I long to clear these paths and roots
to find and blend the ancient plantings
pruned with added springing shoots
 
I long to tear the broken shed down
not crudely with some business might
but giving each grain reverence
in the slant of golden sunlight

 on the shelves of his old work shed
find the savings of his craft
the tools and products age makes curious
let knowing hands preserve at last
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
live inside his house of darkness
walls and ceilings lined with soot
slowly, carefully, clean the rubbish
this blind man kept near hand and foot
 
in the image of his darkness
change the world from dark to light
with the vision I am given
return the rooms to pleasing sight
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Send remains to rest, old man,
not without sympathy, thought and care
though a stranger to your days,
restoring this – a final prayer
 
perhaps the prayer you asked for
who without family gave your land
choosing Church to redistribute
wealth with loving, generous hand
 
and while the outer world fell on you,
your savings brought to disrepair,
only inner hope as light,
beyond earth’s hope, could give life there
 
in your image of aloneness
in your darkness of despair
when sight of human love had left you
you chose a symbol of repair
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
impersonal, an institution,
still it serves to bring a share
of the good you wished to others
their thanks, remote, will thank you fair
 
and through this symbol, built for goodness
your life has measure, even least,
from thoughts of others, far or dim
whose lives your leaving finally blessed
 
So, when church is paid its penny,
I with hands would heal these wounds
I who wish to plunge my life
into this house and its dark rooms

                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Why seek the damaged and outworn
and grasp what others would ignore,
of men, the sick, enslaved, unborn,
and not the wholesome and the sure?
 
Is my universe one of blindness
where others live in daily light,
am I also reaching outwards
against an unseen inner blight,
 
touching in others the damaged part
which I would fix in my own heart?
And can these efforts placed elsewhere
through others, be my own repair?
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Old man, the desolated world
you lived, alone and blind and poor,
if my strength I say can conquer
not just for you, who passed life’s door,
 
but for some part of me that’s broken
and seeks on earth salvation
some need that seeks for healing
in worldly restoration
 
to bring to life, no, not your image
not what you were or wished to be
but all the best of all your striving
born in my possibility
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
somehow, from all these hopes you started
in my hands this house, my prayer,
would be, more than in some others’ hands,
for you, a symbol of repair
 
                                                            (1980s and 90s)

 
I was a wild thing and free
and I walked the wet woods
with their black bark gleaming
and the gold silver haze  
of oak leaves springing –
five miles upon a holiday
to see Aunt Tessie with my friends …
 
or crept downstream around the bend
where grassy banks give way
to oozy bog with tufts of green
and when together and unseen
he gently gave a kiss to me
I was wild then and free
 
Later on a clear crisp morning
when my boys would make their schemes
and I’d step out to catch them
my aims dissolved to dreams
to see that axe cleft in the log
the way my father left it there –
 
the boys would come then
and I’d threaten
or in a pout, I’d go tell Tom, forgetting
to feel, or let them see
I too was wild and free

                    ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 When all had gone
then I was knitting
watching winter fade
stitching distance to each son
and my farthest, dearest one
 
sometimes the cat would scratch the door
and lead me, walking on before
to lace-branched lanes of elms on fire
–  on such an evening of desire
I still was free
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I ride now in my blanket
this grandchild echo guides me
down the gray and twilight road
which cuts the fields
the houses build on
 
I draw the cover close
as jolting shakes my bones
and feel the chill Earth’s other blanket
brings soon to comfort me
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
This land is settled
there can be no yearning
for far-off, tree-soft hills
only turning of the restless spirit:
freed forever:  Spirit, speak of me
tell them I am Free
 
                                                (a “posy” for Myrtle G., 1970s)

 
Naked came I into the world
and naked shall I return,
spoke Job  [i]
when stripped by trouble.
 
St. Francis of Assisi
made his last request
to be laid out and buried
– naked.  [ii]
 
Worth remembering
when clothed and warm and fed
and all our moments filled
until we are completely
Un-Naked.
 
Or when deprived, we suffer
each a storied pain,
but, is all lost unless
we are alone  – and
naked?
 
Now, as a daily exercise,
are we ready to possess
only the flesh our parents gave us
then give that up
leaving even our soul
naked?
 
                                                                        (1990s)  

[i]    Job 1: 21,  King James Version:  {https://www.bible.com/bible/1/JOB.1.21.KJV }  (accessed January 15, 20222).    Job says  –
“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”  

[ii]    One of the best biographies of St. Francis:  – Jorgensen, Johannes.  St. Francis of Assisi. New York. Image Books, a Division of Doubleday and Company, 1955,  pp. 273-4. 
“Again he asked his guardian to have his clothes removed, when the last hour would come, and received permission to expire lying naked on the earth [in the small hut].”