I've been rereading Ray Bradbury's (...may he rest in peace...so sayeth we all...) Fahrenheit 451. Actually, I'm listening to it on Audible; there is a performance of it by Tim Robbins which literally makes me weep. It's THAT good. Anyway, as I revisit this all-too-prophetic story of a society so frightened by what is uncomfortable, challenging, or…
When I was a freshman in college, I had the not-uncommon experience of feeling 150682234% overwhelmed. It was honestly a feat of grace and strength that I stuck it out, but by the second semester, how happy I was that I did! As that terrified, homesick 18-year-old, I went on a choir retreat and nearly…
Empty, the sanctuary waits beneath a tree, beneath a cross— the branches a burden and trough to bear body and newborn king. White wails of a storm without are vespers whispered warm within, And yet echo infant, age-old cry — of beginning and of end. In the lonely silence, all is dead, yet all holds living…
They were going to throw me away, Out with the rubbish bin. I, who you used to play, When you were small children. . Did it not mean much to you? The scales we learned together? Maybe if I were shiny, new, I'd be kept out of the weather. . But moving on is hard;…
I was a stranger here yet better known Away from all I thought myself to be— Away from all routines that made me, me, I found myself in being severed grown. Away from all the people I loved best I found myself in newer company— I found my soul in this older country Away from…
My feet pounding the pavement to the beat Of poetry that laid the cobbled street, I feel a shaking sense of bittersweet For a face I only once did meet And wind that sings its fingers through my hair Will not again its subtle secrets share, Nor will the trees and flowers for me bear…
A stillness falls and dimly-lit, A bell tolls distantly, As in this life we numbly sit For what we cannot see. The words of grief we hear afresh, A melody its gloss, As we seek out our souls 'neath flesh Remembered in deep loss. This room is filled with love-lost ghosts Of our most private…
That moment gone was but a spot of time Yet still I yearn towards its eternity, To find it past yet feel it presently For such moments are best realized in rhyme. But somehow this one fails to really be As full in feeling as it was before; In that one moment, not a second…
The words that lie written beneath our feet, Titles of saints, these graves in graven stones, The echoes of reformers' gracious tones Which once and still all sinners here would meet. And still these words evoke fascination Of both pilgrim and poet's seeking hearts, Quickening with the spirit each their arts, Knowledge grown into Imagination.…
Walking through Cambridge, inspiration is difficult to avoid. My apologies to those on the sidewalk who had to go around me as I stopped to give this poor bird a proper elegy. "His eye is on the sparrow," so 'tis sung But 'neath some foot or wheel its feathers flung- Poor claws curled up in…
