Red apples
I want to write a poem today
That falls upon the mind
Like the autumn sunshine
Falling on this page and
Giving a sudden sharpness
To the ink,
To the fibre of the paper,
Such that a smooth page
Is now,
A landscape of detail.
Such that a single letter
Is now mountainous
In its meaning.
I want to write a poem today
That silvers the shadowed
Corners of the mind
Like the harvest moon shining
In the window at night,
Large and lovely in the sky,
Making your room
An unfamiliar forest that
Appears only in
Your midnight waking.
I want to write a poem today
As warm as the red
Of apples in the old
White bowl upon
The kitchen counter.
Fiery jewels, juice filled and
Garnered from garden
Seeming to hold
Summer’s essence
In sphere form.
I want to write a poem today
Flaming like an autumn bonfire,
That licks lazily at
the secret senses of the soul
And illumines the
Hearth of the heart
With flickers and sparks
Of faithlight kindled.
But how can I write
When the world itself
Seems to be aflame?
When the chaos of war erupts
Again, and again, and again.
When violence screams
So loud in language
Of hatred and pain.
When the sufferers are
Silenced and the listeners
So deadened and deafened
In their overwhelm
They weep now only dust.
When the terror tells its lies
In every tongue and we
Fall back again and again
Into the dance of death
That separates and sunders and sins by
Seeing the child, the woman, the man
As other than brother or sister of
My own blessed being and cries out
Against the simple song of
Now, of love, of peace, that
Our souls were always meant to sing.
So how to sit with
Meaning in the midst of madness?
I do not know.
Except to name the beauty that
Still blesses and sing the bounty of the
Moment that is always graced.
And try to cultivate the peace
Of Soul that slowly kindles
Kindness in all the hearts around.
Ever beginning anew, ever offering
A new beginning to all
Who see ending only through
Their weeping eyes.
And all the while to cry out
For every voice now silenced.
To give the dead their due
And offer prayer for all,
With all, that soon
A ceasefire of sacred stillness
May arise around the world.
That after storm, and fire,
And earthquake, there may be
A moment for us all to breathe
At last and most of all for those
Whose hearts hate has consumed
And who consume the souls
Of others in their hate,
That they may stop
And drop their guns and guard;
Hearing at last the sacred sound
Of divine breathing, our common
Song of inter-being, then,
Seeing in each other’s eye their
Own reflection returned and know
In sacred sight of soul
Their own brother, their own sister
Revealed at last, again
In the shocking clarity
Of repentant tears.
So perhaps, so perhaps,
I will write a poem after all
That sings of peace
and of the sacred
Power of ordinary things
And the divine light
In which they bathe,
And from which they come.
To remind us all
Of common being
Of blessing and of
A graced present now,
And now, and now,
Abiding and ever calling
Us to begin again
Beyond the path
Of pain we travel tired
And so cry out
The kingdom to
A world weary of weeping;
That in every choice
In every moment
Another way is possible
Of joy and grace,
Of warm red apples
In a white bowl
Waiting for our gaze to
Liven them into love
Made visible once again,
Signposts of soul
Guiding our feet into the
Way of peace.
