Into these turbulent waters
your dove returns with Sunday:
good will, Festival,
proclaiming pleasant land.
Huddled in loneliness,
we sing
and kiss our neighbor
 
(1960s) 

 
I bring you purity
not of white, of light, of ice
but purity of blood
that temperamental, precious element – 
red, rich, warm, salt
aged through the ages and in my age
running ever new
the pulse of loyalty
to our human-ness
the fearsome taint of living this has done
a kind of Purity
I bring to you
 
(1960s)

To dance you to health
I lift each finger
with happy tune
while you mark time apart
in rest-beats, quietness
 
We know that Francis
and his ragged  troop
in monkish foolishness
sang abandon –  Nothing,
except God and Joy.
 
The music’s clownish beat
cynically rings out paradox:
in the Creator’s eyes
all things made are marvelous,
ridiculous – rejoice!
 
My world overflows
with love and flowers,
for you I wave their shadow
hands and feet paint Nothing
filled with music.
 
To conjure air
is ancient art
done for sickness
where body and spirit in the dancer
pray for their mirrors in the ill
 
(1970s) 

 
Teach us, God, that truth is one;
Let us see your only Son;
Help us in our neighbor find
fruitful cause of open mind,
and seek in knowledge yet unheard
the sign of your most holy Word;
Let no fear restrain our search
in the facts of your great works:
as our father Abram went,  [i]
no End known, for your intent.
 
(1960s)
 

[i]  Genesis 17:5  – “Genesis”. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. {https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/17}  (accessed February 17, 2022):
“No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham,* for I am making you the father of a multitude of nations.” 
Abram was his name when he set out on his search. He received his new name later.  “Abraham”.  Wikipedia.org.  {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham  }  (accessed February 17, 2022):    
“God had told Abram to leave his country and kindred and go to a land that he would show him, and promised to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great  …  Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran …. Thirteen years later, when Abram was 99 years of age, God declared Abram's new name: ‘Abraham’– ‘a father of many nations’.  ”  

 
I am the Cross that he carried,
I weighed him down,
saying, I have sinned,
and will sin,
I will be saved
and I will sin.
So I pressed him down.
 
I am the wood that abrased him,
bruised him and cut him,
hard, square and splintered,
rubbing against him,
inert, clumsy burden
wherever I touched him
I opened his sores.
 
I am the wood he was pinned to.
He willed himself on,
smashing against me
and would not tear down
his Omnipotent palm;
though I held the bonds,
he would not step down.
 
I am the cross that he died on.
Like the bitten apple
which could not grow again,
each grain felt him dying,
none could respond.
From the soft body,
blood running cool.
 
While he prayed and thirsted
Godhead condescended
to union with the helpless
inanimate in death.
When the pulsing ended
we were one.
 
As the Cross I tell you:
come within this Presence,
only under outstretched arms
catch one drop of life-spent blood,
– you can kill him –
he will save you.
 
(1960s)

 
Poetry breathes outside
but I’m in my corner,
fast beneath your crucifix,
a heartful of inquiry.
You look on tenderly
 
Where in this depth
and what in this nature?
Roots of long ago spring fresh
in a changed garden
 
What is me
and what is dream
and what is your glory?
 
You, friend, know me
If I have ever loved, you know;
If this pain is foolishness, you know.
 
With gentle, compassionate laughter
you speak me patience
As if you felt no suffering
on your cross
I say, man is dead
and poetry’s dead
and love is dead, in me.
You speak me patience,
who are alive
 
Every branch of being
trembles in the winter
to feel a secret sap:
goodness, peace,
no fiber useless,
hibernation,
waiting for the spring.             
 
(1960s)

 
Dear God,
thank you for the idea
the needed, inspiring idea
which will from now
be my direction
I see now
that all the time I was looking for it
it was finding me
 
at the moment it seems too big for me
I am painfully expanded by it
while worlds upon worlds pour into me
if only I could be content
merely to unwind that future
instead of, sightless to the present,
feel all those unknown possibilities
explode in me

 it is too big, it is too much
but it is enough, it is what I wanted
I will grow into it
I am grateful for it
 
 this I will follow
take the risk of its failing
perhaps the need for new direction
but for today
for this idea
for its hope and beauty and power
I thank you
 
(1970s ?)

 
Helleborus – named like Hades,  [i]  
word history meaning poison,
then Niger,  –  black, [ii]  
year-long dark, dense, short and shady
 
this dull and noxious tangle
is redeemed by flowered crown
winter-blooming
white and gold, pure and warm,
and most important, “outward-facing,”
 
Think upon it,
buds rising,
freezing ground or snow,
winter-blooming,
outward-facing,
 
Winter-blooming,
outward-facing
comes the  Christmas Rose
 
(2010s)


[i]  “hellebore”. Online Etymology Dictionary.  {https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=hellebore+} (accessed January 20, 2022).

[ii]  “niger”. Online Etymology Dictionary.  {https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=niger} (accessed January 20, 2022).

 
each of us
within his cells
must practice emptiness
compose a cave
for worship’s hollowness
from each day’s steadiness
with simple things
awake our selves
in quietness
 
let the sun flood
our desert rock
or gardened plot
stand firm rules against
intruder Loneliness
incense Creation’s air
adore its only-ness
whatever world we live
brother hermits past and now
bound to vows of happiness
 
( 1980s)

 
Like the tired, wasted frame
of Age upon a bed of pain
whose breath can hardly raise his chest
whose limbs with life’s own weight are pressed
down into death-like, stone-like rest,
like the straining eyes which fade,
the groping thoughts, the words unsaid,
my Soul meets God with debts unpaid.
  
(1960s)