Monday, November 28, 2016

A poem for a friend

I would have written a poem for you
But the long, grey leagues of the sea between us
Swallowed my words,
And blew my songs away.

(Seagull and albatross,
Wings that rise and fall,
And beat across my mind
An alien rhythm,
And the sea and the spray, and the wind and the waves
Seem one,
Just one,
I turn and try again.)

There is no rest here
Until the winds are spent
And the storm has moved away
(Wherever it is storms go)
And the words fall back in place,
And cadence rules again.

Will I offer such a poem?
A trumpery of syllables?

But there are more than poems
In the warp and weft of breathing,
In the sacramental reaching
Of the hearts that He would join,
Music without notation
But a pilgrimage of joy.

Therefore I would send you
Not the stale words of my typing
But the breath of my heart’s leaning
From the weariness of life
To the resting place we find
When the heart says, “yes, YOU see!”
Following kind whispers
To the music of the spheres,
Tracing a moment’s giving
To the grace that binds us close.

And where we reach, we touch

Despite this world’s wide winds.

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