Poems by C. Van Gorkom

THE CORDWAINER

2009-05-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

I buff your boots with wax and tears,
rub the leather with preserving oils
and prayer,
with care for durability and fit;
not a machine,
my life goes into it,
a leather casket
shaped like your foot.

Days are bent nails,
sweepings on the floor,
my efforts last forty years
and then are forgotten.

Who remembers the consummate
shoemaker for his craft?
he must twice bless the world
to be remembered once.

Like this leather, let me be
trimmed, stitched,
stressed and stretched,
waxed and polished,
to be made fitting for my task.

And A Pencil

Hardly had I slid open
a long unused drawer
when a white moth fluttered
forth like a soul
flying home.

Emptiness filled this sliding
wooden casket,
save simply a journal,
with fragments of unfinished
poetry,
a few sketches,
and a pencil.

The River

There is a river running
through my history
with heavy flanks
of galloping horses.

Today yellow sunshine climbs happily down
from spruce tree tips
plays sap green on grass along the banks.

My river runs redemptive silver
and free sky blue,
birds sing scarlet and golden,
the baby of God is snuggled safe
in my Bethlehem,
though soldiers knock on every door
with orders to kill
all the children.

A PETITION IN THREE PARTS

2009-03-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

I
Lift Us Up

In stillness of borrowed breath,
among aromatic cedar,
you make us your offspring.

Yet at midnight,
under the Bethlehem star,
on the tip of your scepter,
we are staggered by your power,
but not destroyed.

You bless those who bless us,
curse those who curse.

You bring us to our knees
in painful reminders of mortality.

You hear our penitent prayers,
collect our anguished tears.

In mercy, the grace
of your unfailing love.
lift us up to walk with you
again.

II
Last Wild Storm

Gripping desperately, as if your hand,
in this last wild storm of the world,
torn by a wind, the beating
of raptor’s wings in a tornado
of silent screaming terror,

I see swirling about me
the detritus of fear
that leads to the hanging tree,
dragging friends and family,
a fear that encloses dumbly in a tomb.

Who bites the hand of love
who pulls down his house
upon his head,
striking out, accusing falsely,
spitting curses on love’s flame,
unravels in the vortex
of panic’s fell syllables
lets slip the talisman of trust.

You have spoken,
I believe.

Grip strong my reaching hand
of faltering faith, O shining One,
from above this wild storm!

III
The Answer

To the one who prayed,
whose tears fell,
whose small bag is packed,
who may need to answer a call
from another realm
at a moment’s notice,
from sound asleep,
to carry or be carried.

I am your Shepherd,
you shall lack no good thing,
all your sins I freely forgive,

I will always be with you
from this new journey,
even to the end of the age.

I will comfort and support you,
lead you beside still waters,
feed you in green pastures,

you shall fear no evil,
though you walk through dark valleys
shadowed with death,
for I am with you,
I will never forsake you,
I will bring you,
and you shall dwell
in my house forever.

LIGHTNING

2009-03-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

lightning slashes night sky
from east to west
no announcements
no warnings but the darkening clouds
no committees, no criers in the streets
some are sleeping and others agape
at the fiery silent slash
word of swift judgement
at that moment in that blue light
the church steeple split
from top to bottom
the brass sounding one last time
cloven in twain falling
every face streaming in the rain
lifted skyward at the flash
the clean and the unclean
and then the thunder
collapsing the lung
like a fisted punch
and rising a gasp a wail
a jubilant hallelujah!

BUDDING ROD

2009-03-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

You are the rod that budded,
brought new tongues,
new authority,
new power,
child-birthing a nation.

a dead stick bore fruit
life rose like magma
in its hollow wooden cells
flaming tongues of leaves
coals of ripe almonds
your name was carved into it
you had the favor, the anointing,
of virgin born,
You, a lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world.

a fish swallowed your life
more than digestible
three days later spit it out
on a beach near wooden Nineva
You rode forth
upon the white stallion
of your own salty sea-wet words
and commanded salvation.

Emptied of that buoyant life
Jonah the prophet pouted in self pity
under a shady vine on a hill
demanding a ring side seat
for gloating in the deserved destruction,
but the vine died under his condemning
cloud, did not bud,
did not bear fruit,
became dead wood.

Nineva budded.

NOTES OF WORDS

2009-03-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

with cup stains,
coffee or wine,
small scatters
with silences between
where meanings hide,
while a rock band tunes and warms,
enlisting a wild drummer to cover
the second rooster crow in frenzy,
the denial only the waitress heard,

then turning to watch
a live stage show,
accept a plate of counterfeit,
a glass of bubbling ale,

while back of the hall,
behind the lights,
a quiet murder by crucifixion, then
three days later a storied resurrection,
witnesses keeping scattered notes
buried under pages
by scholars,
or cups of coffee,
or bread and wine,
hence the stains,
copies passing hand to hand.

THE UNCHOOSING

2009-03-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

Shimmering, voices bringing words of life.

Shining, agates rolled wet
on shores of margin.

Wisdom, polished endlessly
in sands before time,
lying at your feet.

Echoing, prayers five centuries old
in a foreign language,
floating on ocean winds,
prayed for you, the descendent.

Faithful, the god who answered them.

Chains, once forged in sacrificing love,
never broken.

BETWEEN THE MEDIEVAL

2009-03-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Before sunrise this morning,
a rutting trumpet with a smoky snarl,
the scramble of bars closing,
dying darkness screamed,
groaned in the mountains,
aroused a storm that heaved waves
of tangled raging on the lake,
echoes foam-sliced, wave-blown,
crises-crests,

yet with dawn comes peace be still
of quiet water!

a liquid mirror surrounds my craft
of wood and gut,
horsehair bows sing songs
many centuries away from their beginnings.

Winds and waves grow still.

With rising sun, a harpsichord,
a polished wooden violin,
an orchestra of them,
with cello and viola de gamba,
a sound made before electrons
and their sixty cycle hum
unleashed themselves upon the world,
before the trumpet rutted,
came this hush of quiet water,
the landscape everyone’s cathedral,
jeweled descent of dragonfly
against peaceful mountains,
every breath the song
of simple rising prayer,
music of sun on splashing trout
seen dancing on the water.

BEACH COMBER

2009-03-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

Every day the tide rises and words tumble ashore
in galloping foam.
I walk the beach and scan the offerings
kicking them about, or picking up
one or two for closer examination.
Mostly I am careless of them,
telling yesterdays beads as I walk,
or my eyes fixed on the horizon
looking for a sail.
What wealth may have been washed ashore
and carried back out again
I do not know,
nor how my life may have changed
had I been a more careful collector.

DO NOT DESPISE

2009-02-28T10:50:00.000-08:00

Do not despise that my flesh is weak,
that over and over, winter follows spring,
that a comet aims for the sun
no matter it’s color
and misses, thus flung
far out into the cosmos
only to return
to your longing blue eyes again
as you look to the sky
in a thousand years.

Do not despise.

There is a northern cross
made up of stars
that only earth-bound can see:
to fall upon it for mercy and grace
you must launch
from Sabbath for the sun
in what seems like an opposite direction.

Rest flailing arms and lift your head,
far flung one,
soaring traveler on wings not yours,
salvation draweth nigh,
the cross surrounds you
like promises,
stars in the sky.

GARDEN

2009-02-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

Gone and back again,
yet not quite back,
I could not find the heavy wooden door
in the stone wall
by which I left the garden.

I remember it was a garden,
plants grew in rows there,
a community weeded between them,
watered and cultivated,
lived a simple life,
But I followed my row to a stone wall
in which an unused door had been set
through which I ventured forth
into a world I thought I knew
but did not, had never seen,
where holiness is an unknown thing,
and does not have a name.

Returning, can anyone return?
I turned
When I felt the brush of a wing,
the concussion of beaten air,
startling me as if I had been asleep,
far off, a glimmer,
as I drew near, a sweet scent
and golden light in silence,
no conflict or fear,
a silence filled with choir
holding one chord like a candle
with steady flame
a canticle with no beginning, no end,
resonating with eternal life,
calling forth dead Lazurus in every cell.
I drank like a dying man in a desert
from an overflowing well.

Then I planted poems in a row.
Dug them deep, covered them
and tamped them down.
“Unless the seed die,
it cannot bring forth fruit.”
I have abandoned them
to the keeping of the law of ground.

BARGAIN OF HADES

2009-02-17T20:54:00.000-08:00

Does the keeper find the rent I pay a little thin,
I heard a door bolted behind me,
could there be a change of weather on the wind?

I walk a path overlooking cliffs by the sea,
it has been years since I walked this way,
back then I was wrestling
to justify the price of admission.

The voice of his Spirit has grown faint,
an old tower of stone is now behind me,
where I ground corn in the basement
laboring at a stone wheel,
willing slavery to buy someone’s
freedom, like on a buried cross
of my own choosing.

I paid once for the privilege of dying
to unlock the bolted door and get in,
but then I traded favors room to room,
forging my own chain.

Finally broke,
bereft of the small coin of that place,
rather than running up the keepers tab,
I stumbled out the door,
chain free,
Father bought that option for me,
untradeable,
I had its bloody secret
from the beginning,

I am not looking back to see
if anyone follows,
my life is wrecked if they don't,
wrecked if I look.

Such is the bargain Father makes
when he deals for sons
with the keeper of Hades.

WITH DRUMS THEY COME

2009-02-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

The love of Christ, a simple child, shining,
steps from the shadow of its appearing
into the path of running darkness,
its life a little lamb snuggled in its arms.

Darkness has no comprehension,
came at the shaman's invocation,
swooped upon the urban multitude,
pulsing masses yielding to hunger ,
to the jungle drums, tribal songs, unity in worship.

A dark conversion.

Not like a wind, a vacume
predator that sucked human life;
yet blood was appealed to,
blood of humankind was offered,
the child with his lamb was slaughtered,
an oblation for peace,
for the quietness of a buried dungeon,
the peace of a burning grave.

Crowds dance like skeletons of bones
hanging on a string.
a nearly dead thing,
celebrating the life of death
rattling along a jungle path--

undone when the love of Christ,
a simple child, still shining,
steps from the shadows of its reappearing
into the path of jangling darkness,
confounding, amazing,
its life a little lamb still snuggled in its arms.

HOW THE STORY ENDS

2009-02-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

A fairy tale, a castle in the sky,
how shall I describe it to you,
or tell how one may walk or ride
for miles with its king?

Unless I become a child again,
enthralled in this moment
I cannot see his kingdom
or be calmed with his fellowship.

(a story to tell a child is the most profound)

I will have traveled far
as if in the company of some sin
and lost my way,
but here, this time, every pine needle
is coated with crystal frost,
the trees in perfect focus recede
with every needle distinct
over hills of untrammeled snow.

I am welcome to follow.
Here it is never cold.
My little dog with creator ears
perks up to voices of children playing.

In mysteries of eternal now and forest shadow,
a dark silent river flows singing
to the tinkling applause of broken ice.

II

Give me something stronger than poetry
that I may introduce these words in splendor.
I don’t feel depressed or lonely,
I don’t feel self pity, yet I weep.
I know something has broken
may it sing like ice
only he can mend
who has become my castle, my king.

He will guard my heart, protect me
when all the strength of man
has fled away.

staring into my homeless campfire
somewhere twenty years hence,
secure, yet totally alone,
I sail updrafts like an eagle
in the Great Grand Know,
wind of the Holy Reminder.

III

Let me dwell now in this present,
not crossing wires of the past
with another of unknown potential,
the Grand Guess,
spitting sparks, puffing clouds of ozone,

I will take the past and hold it in my bare hands,
this moment with its tarnished copper strands,
its electric impulses be swallowed
in my satisfied silence
until a new day releases hope,
light shining from cracks
as if from around an open-bursting
mausoleum drawer.

Then, wherever I am,
shall the mountains start forth in silhouette
and I see you with my king come riding!

WHITE STONE

2008-09-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

My river flows pouring over rock,
curls back on itself in celebrations
of foam and laughter;

sand collects along the shore,
near water dances crystal clear
in shallows over coloured stones,
so many stones,
all tumbled smooth and round.

Deeper water flows transparent green
with flickers of cosmos blue.

An army of cotton wood trees
line the river’s edge,
some look battle-worn,
gnarled roots sinking into the dirt,
others sample the water,

they crouch there,
sipping watchfully,
polished stones still gripped
in wooden fingers.

I kneel listening among them,
seeking rumours of the white stone
I read about in a book;

so many stones in the universe,
I am told one is engraved,
from before this river began,
with my real name.

THE BELLS

2008-08-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Let my words ring like bells
though they be but dripping rain
on leaf-mould forest floor,

Let them ring,

Bells sounding deep,
dark among green mountains,

Let them ring,

though they run in laughing rivulets
crystal clear among green moss
in a nursery of white stones,

let them ring,

disturb the sleeping bear,
the wolf in his lair,
startle to weightless bounding
all the deer,

let them ring

though they roar down cataracts
with the tumult of a waterfall,
like a tower of pealing bells,

let them ring,

where no man lives
and the trekker in his earthen cloak
seldom visits,

let them ring

let my words release the pebbles
of a new-born avalanche,

let them ring

then let them slide and snap the trees
like matchsticks,
let them dam the river valleys,

let them ring,

though collected in the mist
like a mountain mirror morning,
yet like brazen bell of warning,

let them ring,

then shall their report be whispered
in the far-off city, portents
dire their resounding,
rumours echoing,

let them ring,

inclining all at the last
bending trouble’s stiffened knee,
suing God for grace and mercy,

let them ring!
let them ring!

WITNESSES AMONG LEAVES

2008-08-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

The face among the leaves,
glimpsed only if you look,

a many-membered face,
maybe a misty cloud,

speaks seldom, sings often
with the voice of many waters.

a watcher, a witness,
with eyes that dance,
grieve with all the sorrow
of ages,

with eyes of compassion,
patient understanding,

but eyes full with the sorrow
of the intimate knowlege
of a thousand deaths,
the shame of a thousand
guilty sentences,
a thousand undeserved reprieves,
fathomless love,
wanting only the best for you.

a face with lips full with wanting
to receive you,
welcome you into himself,
a joyful multitude, a misty cloud,
witnessing the drama
of the ages from among
the many not yet written leaves.

WORDS

2008-08-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

words are become inflated, they are
worth much less these days,
it takes more of them to fill
a meaningful sentence.

Everywhere I go, voices
blare, words with drums, screaming
guitar pounding syllables.

words, words, words!
too many to eat and digest.

This is why the world needs
slow deliberate poem words,
sturdy porters to carry
well traveled luggage for
life and death.

SOLDIER SONGS

2008-08-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Goodbye lurks everywhere,
different kinds of soldiers
marching into different kinds of war,
behind them a devastation of closing doors,
guarding memories in bottles
or velvet lined oaken chests
against predation:
goodbyes try to steal one from the other.

Sitting alone with my kit along a river,
at my campfire,
I see you dancing again in the flames,
I know somewhere I am flickering in yours,
another goodbye stretched taut and thin
as a long low howl in a sleeping forest
at midnight.

I look at the mystery and miss it,
the question and the answer,
setting sun on the water,
the bright eagle soaring.

I only remember a distant dog barking,
at my feet water softly lapping,
days getting shorter,
menacing tyrannies
crouched upon the border,
for us all
a prayer wheel turning.

Lakelse Lake

2008-08-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

I

Softly, like an evening sighing
through a thousand small leaves,
a choir of sunset among mountains
began to sing,

voices rose like mist above the water,
a solo roman candle slowly fell earthward,
flowering upside down over the lake
in bright showers of tembre and color
reflections of wilted roses
glowing from deep in valleys
of cumulus clouds,

music seen, tasting tart and tangy,
avoiding thorns
in days final folding
savoring inwardly a musical phrase,
a muse of salty blood
upon a sunset shuttered tongue

II

The new morning, lightly raining,
keeping moss green, tending
cedars rich and burgeoning,
silences of mist
sailing among ancient trees
huge with years and forest wisdom,

all night tiny foot-steps like blessings
danced upon my roof
to no applause,
I heard them,
no one could have known,
as if someone was praying,
and now a light rain
falling.

I MAKE ANOTHER JOURNAL

2008-06-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

I will lift this pen and prepare this paper,
fold it just so,
then another and another,
bind them together in a book of leather.

I will fill it with praises to your mercy
and grace;

your rain that falls on the rich and poor,
the sunlight at dusk,
golden on long green shadows,
flooding with promises and mysteries,
evening gardens of the just and unjust,
the honest man and thief,
the true and the betrayer;

to the agonizing cry, a winged answer,
gold in the mouth of a fish,
a lions clenched teeth,
floods that recede,
storms that obey when peace be still
comes breathing by.

you are worshipped in the house
of the handicapped,
the cripple and deaf and blind
know your patience;
the prisoner is amazed at your love.

I know what it is to be your enemy;
you encircle me with kindness,
utterly defeat me.

SETTING SUN

2008-06-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

setting sun highlights with painterly strokes
in yellow light the grey-silver aspen tree trunks
standing like men and youths
among breeze singing choruses of leaves

through them a cloudless blue lit sky,
far away, a train whistles in memorium
to a boy killed crossing the river with a friend
on a narrow trestle bridge.

His friend had jumped into the river below,
lived to party, grow up and marry;
but the other froze with fear--
since then all trains blow their mournful horns
in warning and memory,
it’s written into the regulations.

night passes with the noise of drunken teens,
a mouse chewing plastic in the wainscot,
labored breathing in bed,
rustling in the underbrush outside as dawn
in velvet moccasins flies across the sky.

Now sun filters down the leaves like golden rain
dogwood and wild rose,
pea vine and saskatoon blossom
solomon’s seal and raspberry
aspen and cotton wood
in an explosion of exotic greens.

Tyee lake mirrors the mountains in stillness
birds sing from miserere to hallelujah
filling the temple with offerings,
unconscious praise and pleas for mercy,
Golgotha and the empty tomb
like smoke of different scent and hue
incense upon the air,
campfires mixed with pancakes and bacon
coffee and toast rising upward
as bird-song and sunlight filter down.

come forth from the wilderness,
from your failure of faith.
What do you see? What do you hear?
are you looking back? you camped here
before your children were born,
before they were grown,
you bathed your daughter in a blackened bucket
on this picnic table, under the sun.
years later,
you camped here and awoke to a morning like this
with her children playing when they were small.

are you looking ahead,
will they camp here when you are gone?
drought and famine have not reached us here
but there are rumors on the borders
wrinkled skin, the failure of cherished assumptions,

yet every morning rises Golgotha and the empty tomb,
eternal songs redeeming life,
a choral concert streams across the universe,
the midnight miserere
the golden hallelujah!

ON READING YOUR POWERFUL DEVOTIONALS

2008-05-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

teach me Lord what I should do,
clouds are dropping, thickening,
congealing,

the muddy river is rising,
there is a fire burning,
a train is coming, lumbering,
shaking the earth

stars are shining brightly and steady,
some not consistently with integrity,
some needing the cupping of a sheltering hand
around a weak flickering flame--

the time is short , all must gather strength
to blaze in the face of opposing winds,
all must feed on oil drawn from the olive tree
gnarled and sinewy,
feeding nations of saints since the beginning,
or blow out in frozen darkness
unable to feed itself--

speak the word, Lord,
and we shall be healed,
You have spoken it--

unstop our ears, let us resonate with its
consonant and syllable,
grow tendrils in us to clutch the tree
of our sustenance, bore deep within
it’s beating heart and draw the oil
that shall feed our flame in this mounting storm.

MORNING AT BABINE LAKE

2008-05-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

I followed a narrow leaf-strewn trail
down from my campsite at Babine Lake
to the placid water’s edge.

The lake covered its secrets like a mirror,
smooth multi-colored stones cobbled its shallows.
birds warbbled and gossiped in busy cacauphony
a flicker rattled a tree trunk, a grouse drummed his passion,
a trout lept with a splash, loons sailed fishing by,
a moment of reverence,
then,
one met me eye to eye and flew,
wings beating in labourious panic,

moments of meditative silence,
then,
nearby, a quiet family of ducks,
peacefulness torn remotely at distant edges
like mist when
somewhere a squirrel scolded,

I sat on a gnarled root at the foot of a great life,
a cottonwood tree, very still, growing there,
a gnarled man, a poet watching God’s world
from a window in his poem

life is for moments like this,
thoughts leaning branches,
reflections undulating upon gentle
water

POUNDED AIR

2008-04-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

the mountain shook
rocks broke, some tore
as if one would lift a city bridge
from its concrete base
and tear it down the dotted line

there was a voice like thunder
that pounded atmosphere
into pyramids of solid stone
hearts of brazen men ran like water
one word they heard reverberating
ten commandments from it written
one deep space and galaxies of stars
one word made melted sinners of every man

one word and on faces fall
every proud thought and pinnacle

“worship no God but me,”

“make no alternate reality,”

“do not speak my name and nature
but in reverance,”

“every seventh day is mine
keep it holy unto me,”

“Honor your father and mother,”

“do not kill”

“do not steal”

“do not commit adultery”

“do not lie”

“do not envy others for any reason at all.”

The voice was not heard for hundreds of years,
but then it shattered the cosmos again.
Jesus was being baptized by John

a dove descended ,
thunder rolled,
“THIS IS MY BELOVED SON,
HEAR YE HIM”

There is no hope but him
should that thunder roll once more,
by single word topple pyramids
of pounded air.

ST. STEPHAN'S CATHEDRAL CONCERT

2008-03-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

There is beauty in a cathedral,
an edifice built labouriously by hand,
with sacrifice of many lives
that stands for hundreds of years
carved of stone made living
by faith of many calloused hands,
santified by worship of generations
of faithful souls,
beauty in the stainglass, the sculpture
the archetecture.

there must be truth here
could all this be spent to build a lie?
so I come to a concert here
not a worshipper, but searching.

I found karma creating
a world without grace,
crowds seated with backs to the altar,
karmic poetry sung with remarkable voice
thrown from a tower,
clothes torn from a battle of axes and swords,
a violent rape in mouldy hay,
singing at the matrix of the crucifix
where Jesus’ heart would dying beat
in a sanctuary monument to a saviour, forgiveness,
death and victorious resurrection,
built and filled generation after generation
with simple foolish unsophisticatd faith.

Empty now, spiders fill it
with gigantic webs catching stainglass lights
in colors sorrowing among
ensnaring strands,
flashing spotlights,
pounding drums,
mindless repeating phrases,
descending, descending, descending
into relflective shallow pools of self pity,
perfect circles before a giant
lifeless idol in silent repose.