Beyond the many mouths
Of the imagination,
Or dreams,
Which give us words,
Is numbness
Like a wind
Through icy branches,
Or the dead center
Of what we know.
In a stillness
That whispers,
A silence
That rustles
Like dead leaves,
Clacking like branches
In the night,
In the darkness burning,
We cannot look
Upon others
Without compassion,
Or upon ourselves
Without fear.

We are not your children, but
We write you nonetheless
To wish you Happy Mother's Day
With sweet, sad tenderness.
We loved your child, who cannot write
The words that he would say,
And so in memory of him
We send you this today.

There is no comfort can assuage
The passing of a child,
But we must do what we can do
And know he would have smiled;

The Lord is the Lord of all nations;
I, of all nations, the child.
White and black, yellow, and brown:
All rivers flow into my sea.

I, of all nations, the child
Melded in passionate love.
All rivers flow into my sea,
Joined in the blood of America.

Melded in passionate love,
I turn to those still behind walls,
Joined in the blood of America,
And tell them that love is the Lord's.

I turn to those still behind walls,
White and black, yellow, and brown,
And tell them that love is the Lord's!
The Lord is the Lord of all nations!

A heart shattered,
Pieces skattered.
A friedship lost,
At such a high cost.
Such a great thing we were,
I wanted to keep it for sure.
You took it all away,
That sad day.
Tears, they fall,
Knowing between us there is a wall.
Love, you lied,
And I cried.
My heart was yours,
You broke it, torn.

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline...
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.
We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were.
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
These tiny, humble, wordless things -- how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Remember, should you have to choose between them in the strife,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Wedding Poems