Red Apples

 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.