Night Magic

The sun sinks and turns the sky to flame, burning

itself out, extinguished by the magic of night emerging,

turning our sanctuary into an immense cavern of darkness

while we, holding hands, stand together, watching,

watchful, the darkness spreading and shrinking us

to tiny specks, some dusty and foreign relics to be

discovered, perhaps, eons from now, dug out

of the ruins of a lost time, a lost place, the rocks

around us carefully removed, chipped away to expose us,

old remnants of a forgotten species, now extinct, speculations

rising about the time and place, the habits and behaviors,

the whos, the whats, the wheres and wherefor, two fossils

intact, watching the sun set and the night magic begin,

an immense darkness forming around us slowly, revealing

a world grown large and distant, leaving us behind,

holding hands, watching, a little afraid even, and wondering,

perhaps, what it is we will leave behind in our passing.

Silent Journeys

The universe settles into itself,

and this old Earth turns itself toward night,

like a clock advancing time, the stars and

their constellations rising to repeat

their silent journeys across the heavens.

 

In the darkness ensuing, an eagle, perched,

cries out from his nest in the trees beyond,

and a lone loon echoes back, “I am here;”

a vixen pokes her nose out from her den hidden

along the ridges, her eager kits yipping behind her.

 

These are, perhaps, reminders of who we are, settling

into ourselves, pausing now in our own journeys

taken alone across a universe we cannot comprehend,

lost in its vastness moving forward, toward what end?

She

     [for mothers and grandmothers,

   sisters and aunts and all the women

I have known and loved, for all women]

 

She

            rose above herself

            rose above them

            rose above those who said

            “stay in your place”

            rose above the very word “no”

            to become more than herself

            to become … stronger,

            to become … all women

            to become …

She.

 

Arise

and face the world,

naked, afraid, perhaps alone, yet

wrapped in a truth found in living,

that we are here and meaningful,

one of the many whose sole purpose

is but to live, to shine in a dark place,

illuminated, illuminating,

            a lamp, a mirror reflecting

                        life.

John 11:35

I remember when Bible verses had rewards attached,

back in my Sunday School days at the Elm Street Baptist Church,

back home, much younger then, naive, when we received pins

for the number of Bible verses we memorized, and little banners

to attach below for more verses memorized, said aloud

to the class and our Sunday School teacher, applauded and lauded.

We’d scour our King James for the popular verses, John 3:16, “For God

so loved …” and the 23^rd Psalm, fearing “not the valley

of the shadow of death,” and the easier ones when we needed one more

for the next banner, John 11: 35, “Jesus wept.”

I misplaced those pins a long time ago, but from pictures,

I had quite a long chain of banners to show. Not sure how many

of those verses I still remember, not word for word, anyway,

but maybe a phrase that pops into my head when I need it,

or just randomly, like tonight, that short verse in John, “Jesus

wept,” wept for Lazarus, his beloved friend, four days dead,

and his sisters, Mary and Martha, “groaning in his spirit”

a very human Jesus, virgin born, son of God, crying

for the death of a friend, grieving, his love broken,

“groaning in himself,” a verse I remembered today,

rewarded once by a shiny pin on my Sunday suit,

rewarded now by a faith that says, “Lazarus, come forth,”

a faith believing in the humanity of Jesus,

in the humanness of God, grieving,

hope for a troubled world calling out.