He taught on hills, near streams, on sand with words of great design.

He asked, What profit can you gain to worship selfish goals? What way of life can people claim who march with steely souls?

He rubbed his spit on man’s blind sight and said to wash them free. The man rejoiced as night turned bright; the others would not see.

Kyrie eleison, miserere nobis. Kyrie eleison, miserere nobis.

He makes them see themselves. He makes us see ourselves He frees us from our hell, He’s our Emmanuel.

Arrested by a mobs death wish, accused by men in the dark, He had the court of a hooked fish thrown into a sea of sharks.

Some ponder now that ancient site, long after icons dull They raised him up, those men of might, to die upon a skull.

Messiahs words, alive today, speak out from hearts and shelves. The crime his judges had to slay? He made them see themselves.

He makes them see themselves. He makes us see ourselves. He breaks deaths ancient hell. He’s our Emmanuel

In Potter’s field the grasses grow.
The winds of time still blow and blow.
The Master’s friend—happened like this:
Betrayed the Son of Man—with kiss! A trusted friend—sold as a foe.
We breathe a sigh—so long ago.
The mob approached—by torchlight glow!
Could they have heard the serpent’s hiss In Potter’s Field? Eons have passed. We here below,
Who know the Lord, pray our faith glows—
Will we sell out, perform a kiss
And backslide down the dark abyss? We won’t forget—the past we know
In Potter’s Field.

*Aramaic, field of blood (ah cell-da-mah).

That Thursday, another cloudless day, sweltering. No breeze.
Hot enough it’d about wilt tobacco. Bearable 100 feet down.
I picked, shoveled rocks and dirt into wheelbarrows.
A few young bucks toted them, dumped into a large bin
attached to ropes. Mules pulled it to the surface.

Hell, we might get a few cents per ton. I must’ve sweated a bucketful
by quitting time. Most miners had no shoes. Damp black soil
stained our bare feet over our ankles. Locals called us
‘Black-anklers’ but shopkeepers didn’t mind our money.
After work that Thursday evening a few of us climbed

onto a foreman’s truck and he drove us toward Steeds,
the truck kicking up clouds of dust—the fool drove real fast.
Quarter mile from Steeds, he gunned the pedal on a curve and
the truck listed—we slammed to one side, down a slope,
flipped over and over. I struck a pine tree and was out like a light.

I woke, black as night, on a speeding train with all sorts of people—
some dressed highbrow, some in rags. Behind the engine, our car had
no windows. Some dark figure shoveled coal into the roaring furnace.
The engineer turned his head—face was dark with soot and evil looks.
The boiler roared. We zoomed faster and faster, got hotter and hotter.

We yelled ‘Stop!’ but the engineer waved as wind whipped our cheeks.
He yelled “You paid full fare and now you’ll pay your due.’
He slammed brakes and we screeched to a stop. ‘Welcome to paradise.’
Dark things prodded us off with burning rods. It was so hot my shirt
and dungarees singed, burned my face like splattering grits but

it was darker than a mine shaft. We were blind as moles.
It smelled foul—like sulfur, rotting roadkill, sour milk.
I screamed, felt like I was thrown into lava. All around me
yelling, screaming, crying, cursing. Never heard the like. Tried to run
but the ground was hot as roofing tar on bare soles. Kept jumping.

Then I felt someone snatch my wrists, pull me upward
and I blinked awake by a tree at dusk. The other miners stirred,
tended scrapes, bruises. I felt a goose-egg on my brow and a bloody lip.
We staggered to the road, hitched a ride to Steeds.” The reporter paused,
put in another cassette. I rocked, sipped black coffee, smoked, flicked ashes.

“That’s about it. Never drank no white liquor since, near sixty years.
Joined a church, got serious about the Lord and the Word. You saved?”
The reporter cleared his throat. “Well, this isn’t about me; it’s about you.”
“Cannot remember those verses dad used to read about,
about some damn train, but I swear, I think I rode on it.”

We love him because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 KJV

[Love] is an abyss of illumination, a fountain of fire, bubbling up to inflame the thirsty soul.  –  St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.

For the beauty of your face,

Body clothed in glowing lace.

For your touch, which since our birth,

Gave us faith and cosmic worth.       

From your life we conquer death,

Safe beyond our final breath.

Your love, a fount of fire,

Your love, a blazing spire,

All of this, we are immersed.

The greatest gift? You loved us first.

Mustérion

—a mystery or secret doctrine, Strong’s Concordance

She—dark eyebrows, inky eyes,

raven hair, olive skin—bakes as her family

works in the fields daydreaming

about that bearded man

under their ketubah . . . so handsome!                   

but exiling such thoughts she

reaches for flatbread toasting in a pan

the dim room incandesces with blinding light—

an iridescent figure speaks

words piercing her soul—

then vanishes his image seared

in her sight the room again dim

flatbread smoking she seizes it

burnt then she sits staring

at smoke wafting through

the small window contemplating

“the Highest overshadowing you . . .”

Pale Blue Dot

The Unmoved Mover saw darkness

in His universe of galactic ballet

birthing suns and colossal novas,

marooned moons and looping planets

and at this pale blue dot

millennia ago. At that time

and at that space,

piercing dark matter dark energy

between spacetime arcs and curves

through photon and electron orbits

passing electromagnetic forces,

infinite energy became

infinitesimal mass

at an immaculate point:

Spirit beamed light

into an ovum

of a Galilean girl.

Cristes Masse

This night a couple begged for space in a stall.

Starlight unveiled her swollen belly.

Her face grimaced like his. The couple

collapsed on straw, dung, pigeon droppings.

A stranger rose,

dragged an empty feeding trough

to the couple, folded his mantle inside it,

glanced,

What is this glimmering shaft outside,

aiming at the stable’s doorway?

Morning Star

First Cause breathed all worlds into being

As orbiting lenses bring tiny spirals into seeing,

And shaped symmetry and tones to butterfly wings;

Poured living water from cloud-capped springs.

He sent a shimmering being one night

To grimy herders, soul-stricken with fright,

About a birth this day in the city of David *

Hidden among sheep and lambs, goats and kids.

A Deliverer swaddled in a feeding-box bed;

a Hebrew infant resting his dear sweet head.

Above, an assembly chanted with single accord

Glory to the Holy One, the highest Lord. *

Swiftly the sky turned dark, spotted with stars,

But one streamed ahead, from heights so far.

The herders left all and trekked to that beam…

Lost in the spectacle they had just seen:

A mystery so deep, so impossible to grasp;

A mystery so beautiful, so impossibly vast.

*Luke 2:11,14

Is it not odd, how God stays hidden—

Yet shows to one washed with pure vision.

Splendor shining through a cosmic veil;

A still small voice in a tempest’s wail . . .

Strange—how He conceals and yet reveals,

Not seen, but felt, whenever we kneel.

Stranger still: we affirm or deny

He is—or is not. I wonder why?

*1 Corinthians 13:12

Death Be Not Proud, Rejoinder

The hand tick-tocks. The grandfather clock chimes
In the hallway. The seasons of life blur

As decades pass like a hummingbird’s whirr—

The mirror shows our face past April’s prime.
Shall we boldly query Where shall souls go?

Are all destined, bound for a “better place”
Regardless of what evil they embraced?
Ignored the lost caught in life’s undertow?

There is no death. We all shall blink awake.
The Light of life frees all from fear of death *
And fills their souls with His eternal breath—

For those who enter through the narrow gate *
And follow Him. There is the broader way
A soul can take that ends at Judgment Day. *

*Hebrews 2:15, Matt. 7:13-16, 2 Pet.3:7

It cannot divide and multiply.

It cannot self-replicate.

It is a parasite, a predator.

It has a shielding coat. It invades,

infects a host, sheds its cover,

and replicates itself ad infinitum

until the host weakens and succumbs.

It is invincible to medical treatment,

began eons ago in a garden lush

with mangos, figs, pineapples, coconuts.

The Agent infected a susceptible host.

This first host replicated in the other host.

Contagion carries in living hosts

in perpetuity, in all environments.

One physician has the cure.

A golden knob could lead to some landfill.

A padlocked door: God may want me to knock

And knock, then grasp His key and turn the lock.

No door so shut that Christ won’t push ajar;

How thick, how broad, how high, or even far.

If Christ—who knows what’s best—closes a door,

Grant me the sense to wait, and Him adore.