Borrowed Dust

Haiku

2008-03-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

tumbling avalanche
three hundred million souls ~
white pines stand, silent

the cricket is stilled,
wingéd angle bracket soars ~
frost on the pumpkin

cut & run? hell, no!
cowboy up, America! ~
trouble everywhere

running for cover,
(somebody else's problem) ~
family values

moon-wash in my eyes,
I wait patiently to dream ~
a train whistle moans

helicopters drop,
universes colliding ~
bearded farmers gaze

horse-drawn black buggies
bearing their precious cargo ~
the planet spins on

millions of miles
in a matter of minutes ~
scarlet leaves sun-soaked

Bono calls the tune:
make poverty history! ~
small graves in the sand

autumn dawn, rooftop
dewdrops dangle, chill silence ~
a motorbike barks

the congressman squirms,
into rehab sequestered ~
the bushman's house shakes

crisp leaves scrape the road,
I jog absent-mindedly ~
no IEDs here

dusk ~ they bow and eat,
mom and her spotted children ~
three rosarians

Going... Going... Gone

2008-03-11T09:23:00.002-04:00

In the darkness,
TV aglow,
the graduate
and his father
slouch in chairs.
The son rises.
"I’m really going to miss you," I venture.
"It’s time to grow up," he says
matter-of-factly
over his shoulder
from the other room
as he ambles
toward his computer,
his world.

A moment passes.
It sinks in.
He meant me.

CFB (June, 2007)

A Figure in Hiding

2008-03-11T09:18:00.002-04:00

Dad tried to share his
love of nature.
He retreated as Thoreau,
to his cabin and
ten acres of still woods.
He knew the birds, the trees, the stars.
I preferred the pool,
the baseball diamond,
the spinning 45s.

God knows he tried.
One bleak winter day
I closed my eyes and counted
while he, like a wild animal,
crept through the snow and
hid.
It wasn’t rocket science,
even for a child.
I trailed the large prints,
zig-zagging
to the hay bales
where he crouched.

We played that game
into adulthood.
He was always a superb hider,
and I, the unmotivated tracker.

Until it was too late.

CFB (June 2007)

Looking through the Bent-backed Tulips

2006-03-28T11:58:00.000-05:00

In the early spring of my life
I wrote a poem
about flowers
(each word neatly inked, firmly pressed
onto blueish-greenish paper with wide lines)
while seated at my tiny wooden desk
in Miss Niley’s sunny classroom
at the top of the stairs.
Third grade. North School. Spring Street.

Greenville, Ohio – 1965.

That same year our class learned how to compose letters
by writing to "a famous person."
Some wrote to the Governor
(the anguish of Kent State
not yet conceivable in bucolic Ohio).
Others wrote to the President
(the heavy heart of Vietnam
still a small, dark cloud the size of a child’s fist
on the distant horizon).

I wrote to John Winston Lennon.

I remember the moment I met the Beatles. The needle
thumped down on revolving vinyl, tracing minute grooves.
Suddenly, the Voice of the Theater speaker exploded
with a throbbing, primal scream that pierced my callow soul.
Later, on Ed Sullivan, I beheld John in black & white –
outrageous hair, legs spread insolently,
strumming bar chords on his exotic Rickenbacker 325 –
so cool he even came with subtitles: "Sorry girls – he’s married!"
And that music...

Revolution or revelation?

In my letter to the famous John Winston Lennon
I described a band where nothing is real.
P.J. was Paul, Mike was Ringo, Randy was John, and I
was George. (I wanted to be John.)
Crude plywood guitars, string- and knob-less,
ice cream tub drums wrapped in shiny foil,
paper plate cymbals, crayoned gold, on Tinker Toy stands –
spinning 45's, passionately flailing away on ersatz gear,
we mouthed the lyrics as if they were our own.

They were.

The years tumbled blindly by.
You let slip that you were more popular than Christ,
and they crucified you (even though it was true).
Maharishi Om, Yoko Ono, hair peace, bag productions,
I Love New York, Merry Christmas, war is over (if you want it).
Then one December morning, as I soaked in the tub,
I heard the elegiac news from the Dakota.
Shattered glasses. Shattered world.
Give peace a chance

and look what you get.

Nearly forty years later
my friends and I still twist and shout.
Real guitars; real drums; real loud.
We still play your songs, John.
And tonight, as the vernal equinox
summons yet another spring
(in the early autumn of my life),
I come together
with a circle of poets and

imagine...

You never wrote back. No reply.
Not a word in your own write.
Even so, John Ono Lennon,
across the universe, I feel fine.
There’s nothing to get hung about.
Yet one question still haunts me.
Were you telling the truth,
or just playing with our minds again,
when you let slip the clue that the walrus was

Paul?

CFB ~ March 21, 2002

Greenville Creek

2005-06-28T22:41:00.005-04:00

Slow and dark the water moves,
silently,
between verdant banks.

Beneath the canopy of willow, sycamore, and ash
we padded along overgrown paths,
youthful voices hushed,
senses alert for every danger ~
hoods, cigarettes dangling from sneering lips,
poison ivy and stinging nettles,
and the dreaded (yet never seen) copperhead.

From my backyard
we could almost hurl stones into the
brown-green water.
But I never felt fully at home
down by the "crick" ~
that strange, tangled place.

Once it had been home
to the Miami, the Shawnee,
the Delaware, the Wyandot.
They shared the wilderness with
the white-tailed deer, the fox and the beaver,
the great blue heron and the king fisher.

But after their chiefs left
reluctant marks on
Mad Anthony’s deed,
settlers poured in to
clear the land and
till the deep, black soil.

After another war,
President Monroe
presumed to grant
the water rights,
along one stretch of creek,
to one of his warriors.

Soon a grist mill arose,
thick black walnut boards
enclosing a labyrinth of machines.
Children dug the millrace
for a generous 50 cents a day.
Precious stones from France,
expertly sharpened,
ground the corn and oats and rye and wheat into
golden dust.

The industrious citizens came to forget
those troubling nights when
Tecumseh had stood defiantly,
illuminated by firelight
at the confluence of the Greenville and the Mud,
to protest the treaty
he never signed.

The Shooting Star vanished.
The mill grinds on.

Slow and dark the water moves,
silently,
between verdant banks.

CFB ~ June, 2005

Tecumseh, the Shawnee warrior, was born in 1768. His father, Pucksinwa, was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. By 1808, Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief. He led his people to a settlement on the Wabash River near the mouth of the Tippecanoe. Early in life he had developed a strong anger towards European encroachment. He argued that no sale of land to whites was really valid without consent from all tribes. This argument was based on the language of the Treaty of Greene Ville (1795). With the assistance of his brother Tenskwatawa (The Prophet), he had some success in uniting various tribes against U.S. expansion. He also had the support of the British in Canada. On November 7, 1811, Tenskwatawa and his followers were defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Tecumseh had warned his brother to avoid conflict until the their forces were strong and united, but to no avail. The confederation of tribes started to fall apart after this defeat. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh closely aligned himself with the British, attaining the rank of brigadier general in the British army. His forces assisted with capture of Detroit and fought at Fort Meigs, Fort Stephenson, and Brownstown. Although an enemy of frontier Americans, Tecumseh was widely respected for his honor in battle and the mercy he showed towards his captives. American naval victories on Lake Erie under Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry forced a general retreat of British forces. Tecumseh, while trying to cover this retreat, was killed at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. His body was never recovered. The Shawnee peoples were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River in 1827.

Mary Oliver wrote a wonderful poem entitled "Tecumseh."

Bear's Mill, on the Greenville Creek, is still in operation today.

Crossing

2005-05-05T11:04:00.000-04:00

A Poem for the Occasion of the Consecration of the

Chapel of the Holy Cross

The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

in Cincinnati, Ohio

The Eve of Pentecost + May 14, 2005

I cannot imagine
where you are not
or
when you were not.

Primeval firestorm,
Galactic infant:
traverses 13 billion light-years,
epiphanic red shift
dances through Virgo
announcing
starbirth.
"Let there be light!"

Elegant double-helix,
Jacob’s spiral ladder:
hides, convoluted and coiled,
betwixt deo and imago,
bears the inscrutable runes of
dreamers rising from the
dust.
"Very good!"

Ineffable presence
suffuses both places,
all places,
broods over interstices of
shimmering
space-time –

You called?
We are here – waiting...
Enclosed by luminous wood and stone and glass and copper
we reach through the fluttering shadows to
touch your face.

Will
you
once more
cross
over?

CFB

I am enthralled by science and theology, and have always considered them complementary (rather than contradictory) ways of perceiving, understanding, and enjoying creation.

The second stanza refers to Abell 1835 IR 1916, the newly-discovered galaxy (spotted with a near-infrared telescope) that is currently the most remote known in terms of distance/time. It is mind-boggling to me that human beings are just now witnessing the birth of a galaxy that was formed during the very infancy of the universe.

The third stanza refers to DNA. I was fascinated to learn that the DNA of humankind is almost identical. Only a tiny fraction of one person’s genetic code is different from the next person’s. We rightly treasure our uniqueness; but we are truly more alike than different! I wish we could examine the DNA of Jesus – the one who bridged heaven and earth (John 1:51), and who (in the remarkable declaration by St. Athanasius in the third century) "was made man so that we might be made God."

In this poem I express my hope that the new Chapel of the Holy Cross will be, to borrow a concept from the ancient Celts, a "thin place" where people will experience the loving presence of God in a particularly intense way. The whole poem expresses wonder in the mystery of the Incarnation (the good news that the transcendent God, the Alpha and the Omega, chose to "cross" the infinite gap between Creator and creature in order to come near to us) and the sacramental nature of God’s universe (there’s more going on here than meets the eye!).