The Ressurection

As the first pulse of the world beat out in throbbing tones,
Fanning heat from the depths of the darkest regions,
In a blast more fearful than Lucifer’s fall
At which our globe still grievously groans,
Or Zeus’s rods of war now molten,
In a thunderous whiplash striking the earth
Opening a wound as a lance to a heart,
So casting himself from Heaven came the angel to God,
Calling for stones to yield and give birth,
Rending the barrier of men apart,
And the soldiers’ spirits retreated before the awful sight,
Falling as smitten with the spirit’s rod.
The messenger tore the iron chains and rock apart,
In a righteous fury and holy might,
Summoning Creation to salute its King,
Bowing to the One Who Lives.

Christus Surrexit!

Weep Not for Me

Weep not for me, children of God, but for yourselves,
Sinners, and for the sins yet to be by your children.
Rejoice that you see my suffering, for it is fitting that I –
So that all may know what sins have caused – should die.
Sorrow not for my wounds nor for the burdening beam,
Which heavy now, pushes further into my brow the thorns
Of pride that so numbly ride and rule the Head of God,
But for the transgressions that make My Blood stream.

Shed no tear for this Blood shed,
Let lamentations cease. Give peace instead,
And follow Me distantly to the death of your sins,
Mourn the lives lost, dear daughters – not Mine;
Rather each everlasting life spent spurning My Love.
Cry for the crimes convicting Me, Who now,
Obeying and willingly reach out to gather in all from the world.

When the earth is shadowed in darkness,
And the Light of the World seems unlit,
The unworthy dust, more worthy than man,
Will drink, and writhe at the cost of this Blood.
Weep then for your loss, and for your Mother’s grief
Who bore to you Me in no pain,
But now in receiving all as her new children,
Conceives this Conception, gives birth by My death.

Regret the cause of her sorrow,
And look on He Who you killed –
Not for My pain, My wounds, My death,
But hers, and theirs and yours,
And in this you will honour Me,
Remembering why –
I must die.


Illium’s Rebirth

Traveler, you seem to me blind. Permit me to be all of your senses for you while you rest here. If you would, lift the eyes of your mind, be willing to see and I will be a light to you. Listen now to words and let them wash over you; stand like a rock in the breakers, for distant, deep blue and ancient, as a thing older than the sky, lies the sea.

Serene, unshaken by war, it murmurs melodically, playing with dead men, toying with broken armour; washing clean the shining spearheads strewn by the hundreds on the shore which look like teeth of some sea monster. All have been borne and gifted to her by the river. The waves adorn the shore with an array of glittering bronze like a goddess flirting with vanities. After claiming these things of man unchallenged it stretches, reaching out beyond the sight of man to comprehend the world.

Look closer about you, take a breath. Here is a field once green and thriving but now a hoof-torn muddied field, littered with corpses of horses and men. The earth is steaming still from heated battle and blood and the angry glare of the sun.
The heavy tang of rusted iron rises with the fog where the swords of deity contended; black mire oozes in great pools and dark red streams mingle with them. Even the blood of gods has fallen here in this contest of fate and the earth greedily draws it in.

Listen . . . listen. No sound of the ocean reaches here.
Following the clouds rising, dark with the scent of blood, crows call to their brothers, screeching as bone broken by bronze or steel shivering on stone, summoning one another to the dark feast of the dead.
The slain lie as wheat newly cut and the harvesters gather. 
The dogs are coming.

Look up now. Look up.
As the daylight recedes in a sanguine glow, the sky is unevenly divided – the east still is light. Nature is defied.
A burning city shudders and groans in a great ruddy smoke, flares and flames as though it were another sun contending with Apollo’s chariot. Ghosts of the dead prophecy there, petition their cruel gods for rest and the ancient altars are broken.

And born again in bloodshed, the world grows silent in the sunrise of Rome as the sun falls on fallen Troy. 

The Death of St. Joseph

O Lady of Stars, did you sorrow when
Your silent champion closed his eyes
After looking long on you,
Beauty which bore
God from the Highest to men,
And saw one like himself, yet more –
When you saw him gaze on the Mystery?

My Mother, did his steady eyes soften,
On leaving you behind in this deep night?
Or did he rejoice that he should wait to pass,
Beyond the hovering of soul near Paradise
In silence, for your Son to go before him as a light?
Did you give him to your Son, detached
In pure love, as Joseph gave himself to you?

Did he wait for you just in the Door;
Escort you as his once-cherished bride –
Now Queen,
And give to you the crown he’d made
From the Thorns of Christ now blossomed?

The Red Star Stream

Deep flew refraction of ruddy light,
From the heart of the black-water stream,
Flashing, serenely mocking the stars,
Which coursed forever, cutting the earth.
Caps of whitened foam were beating across
Red silt and the shining of smooth-rounded rocks,
Polishing ever anew the fine grain,
Sending the sands above to engrave,
And feather the ancient faces of glass.
As blood over iron, so flew rivulets;
Black iron water and blood-red stones
Mingling, separate, together, alone,
Chanting of change, repeating the song,
For centuries’ incantation of washing clean wrong,
Purging anew the stones as they bled,
Sifting the silt and the slime as they fed
All trees which dipped fingers down to the cool,
The grasses a-resting upon the small pools,
Renewing, refreshing the freer of creatures
Singing of life, the unliving sang,
And ever in memory the symphony rang

Winter’s Triumph

One quavering note of winded horn,
Was forced aloft, brazen and high, 
Lifted and on winter winds borne,
Upwards through the frozen sky.

It silver echoed from the moon,
Resounded into darkening gloom,
Passed through forests far below,
Tired then swiftly through the snow,
And by such cold was forced to die.

Again the Hunter sounded his call,
Summoning ice from skies to fall,
To sweep the earth with iron death,
With one silent, frosty breath.

One stroke and winter would be his,
The sun could offer no true hope –
Then was triumph of the cold,
That in one night transformed the gold,
To paler light, more blinding, steel.

The forest froze, no creatures sang,
Only the horn of the Hunter rang,
Despairing, the moon watched the sun fall
As Winter came, and conquered all.

Cross of the Rock-shelter River

In a somber light a man passed by
The lonely path which carried him
Through shadow’d gloom within his heart
Without, it shone around him dark.

In day or night there was no change,
For dwelling alone, turned within
Naught to be seen but dull, unending
Living – man’s death with his sin.

So round ensnared by mind and thought
He traveled days and down the hills,
Turning ’round the mystery
Of our enslavement to our wills.

Until there found him forest green
And shaded hollow filled within
Near mottled flecks of violet shade
In feath’ry air, a misty sheen

Where stilled a hushed echo
And little creatures fled
Away from Man as man fled God
The trees clear bled, and green turned grey.

He halted, hearing a new wind
And with the sun’s break in the leaves –
Or was it leaves that broke the light? –
A shiv’ring slice of thought came twining
Through a door outside his mind.

You care for the tree which held Me,
And work with  tools that pierced Me,
But sadness finds you when you look,
At yourself and the faults and failings,
Of the souls I saved through these.

Don’t seal closed the open door,
I stand without a-waiting.
You snare your thoughts in circles,
Bruising your soul with sin,
But find escape, this prison break
When you just let Me in.

Escape not from yourself
Run never from your nature
If God became as one of thee,
You flee – you flee from me.

Find not disgrace in wandering
Deliberations deep,
If you will turn out from within
‘Tis My truth that you seek.

You think you fear Eternity –
But think of it as time,
You trap yourself in creation
Forgetting it is Mine.

While men fight bitter battles,
Rivers of blood red spills,
But the Man alive brings comfort
To the lost soul in the hills.

And as the moon arched high that night,
As sun fled playfully,
In a final jest the great light gave
The flare of the Trinity.

*The photo was taken on the bank of the Androscoggin River at sunset.
Its name comes from the Abenaki or Penobscot dialects, and means ‘River of rock shelters’.




The New Year

Ah, so 2020 is exiting and now everything will be fine – right?
My dear superstitious friends, 2020 happened to be the year in which humanity made a fumble. The name we place on a certain segment of time has nothing to do with what we do within it (proven by most children during ‘naptime’).
Of course we can always hope that this coming year will be ‘better’ than the past was, but maybe we ought to be hoping to be better in the year instead, and then Actually Being Better. If we wait around for humanity to perfect itself, we’ll die having done nothing for our souls

We live in a world where we are told simultaneously that we have to create ourselves, our futures, our world, and that we are helpless and despair is normal. That’s all true to some extent: We don’t make ourselves as we are in our body-soul-ness, but we do have some say in forming ourselves physically and spiritually; present actions necessarily have effect on the future and our neighbors; we are utterly helpless on our own; despair could be said to be ‘normal’ but that doesn’t necessitate ‘goodness’ or any moral excuse for doing so.

What we don’t hear much is that we have been given everything without deserving it, and should receive and give our Time, Bodies, Souls, with grateful humility and love, and exchange this short life for an unending one. We’re invited to do that by the Creator, always have been.
He gives something to us and asks for it back – perhaps that seems unfair but without Him we would have nothing to give. Love gives entirely of what is asked of it for the good of another and is consequently united to the Beloved. We are human and Small Fallen Ones at that, so we are given many opportunities to do just that.

It’s just another year, to Whom are we going to give it?
Who and What are you going to love primarily?
How are you going to write this next paragraph in your Eternity?

To See Over the Mountains III

278 days. 76.2% of the year.
It’s been that long since I sat in the Denver airport, waiting for my flight which would leave 7 hours later, writing the first of these three posts.
I like counting time – always have – and was doing so before I even left that day. Have been counting ever since, despite not knowing when I would return. Maybe I think of Time too much. Impatience thrives on Time, as do other things.

It’s been a long time. I think the top of the mountain is visible now. What the beginning looked like is forgotten in part, and there are more climbs to make after this – that’s not to be discouraging though. We are in eternity already, called to travel ever onward and upward, further up and in until we hit that Furthest Light.