Mystery Without Rhyme or Reason. Michael Coffey

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he realized the tires were shot, trip was done,

      he gave thanks for that day he trusted the Teacher and took off

      gave thanks for letting go, for the restless spirit

      moving him fluid through life like wild water streams

      Aquavit

      Lent 3 A

      John 4:5–42

      Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)

      If it’s true as you say, O abstruse teacher

      that you are the pale straw aquavit that we pour

      at Christmas and Easter and all the great feasts

      Then you infuse us like caraway and cardamom

      warm us like whiskey in November

      tipsy our imaginations to see you even now

      Then how crazy was she at the well to dip and draw

      when you stood there like a ribbon wrapped bottle

      all gift and wonder, no tax or debit required

      How crazy are we like grumpy teetotalers

      not to pour a glass and sip with you when

      we keep dropping our buckets in empty wells

      If Jesus Were Blind

      Lent 4 A

      John 9:1–41

      Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” (John 9:39)

      On his face there were only closed lids and not even

      the sun could penetrate his corneas with blood red light

      but on his fingers he had eyes one on each tip

      he could see and feel the world the wind and you

      With ten oculi he could peer into the eleventh dimension

      see beyond dodecahedrons and hypercubes and superstrings

      look into a world our stereoscopic minds cannot envision

      he saw the glory beneath the light and within and beyond it

      He only saw ultraviolet and infrared, the hidden beauty of things

      what hummingbirds see as they hover and zoom and spy

      firebush and honeysuckle, sage and yellow trumpet bush

      discovering the nectar guides and their honeyed revelations

      beyond faces and minds and egos manifested

      when he touched you and grasped you inside and out he saw

      the you lit up beneath the shadow you, he saw the gash

      in your wounded soul, the sweetness dripping from your floral heart

      Sympathy for Lazarus

      Lent 5 A

      John 11:1–45

      Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:35–37)

      He didn’t ask to be a magic trick like some dead rabbit

      pulled out of a stone hat with a hocus pocus incantation.

      He didn’t want to be resuscitated in full decrepit stink

      for his mother to see him shambling down the cemetery road.

      He was resting in peace after taking the dark plunge once;

      no one should stomach it twice, that long black falling.

      So Jesus, when I die and I’m put down to earthen solace

      or after my ashes are scattered into entropic chaos irreversible,

      do not force me to go through it again like brother Lazarus

      raised to face more time in suffering and second death.

      Let your tears be so you may let me go as we all must do;

      grieve your best friend fully and without recourse to power.

      Raise me then beyond time to your un-nameable dimension

      where decay has died and all fear of losing myself and you

      has been buried in that old entombed world where I still walk

      like Lazarus already dead yet alive and yet to die and rise.

      Kenosis

      Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday

      Philippians 2:5–11

      Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8)

      My mind so full of debris and hubris from the wasted day,

      phone calls unreturned and crumpled scraps of paper,

      casual conversations with hidden ego stratifications,

      the self I want to project onto a cinema screen large

      as a shadow silhouette miming my own celebrated life.

      My mind so full like a blue water balloon waiting for

      a painful needle prick to burst it open to emptiness

      where this small i is no longer my daily migraine throb,

      and into my hollow skull a new mind pours like wax

      filling every sinus cavity, skull crack and spinal tube.

      Your crucified mind so full of hydrangeas and cuttlefish,

      the siren of СКАЧАТЬ