Four Triolets

Twenty-first century man thinks

Inside his head, outside the box

Mail fraud hurts but Columbine stinks

Twenty-first century man thinks

While wisdom's busy hatred slinks

Under doors while we're changing locks

Twenty-first century man thinks

Inside his head, outside the box.

Post modernists keep guessing

Trust belief or throw it away

Religion builds castles of resisting

Post modernists keep guessing

No narrative nor philosophically assessing

Does life have meaning with touches of gray?

Post modernists keep guessing

Trust belief or throw it away

Found my voice in a local haberdashery

It was cold; I'd stopped to buy a hat

Was asked inside how can we be truly free?

Found my voice in a local haberdashery

"Isms don't kill people", I said with industry

"What zaps freedom is to grow lazy and fat"

Found my voice in a local haberdashery

It was cold I'd stopped to buy a hat

 

Colds do better with camphor on your chest

At least that's what granddaddy said

If it was about suffering he knew best

Colds do better with camphor on your chest

Today a sneeze or sniffle we are on a quest

Meds that stop sludge backing up our head          

Colds do better with camphor on your chest

                   At least that's what granddaddy said

Ash Wednesday 2010

 

A somber line center aisle single file

It has been a long year of definition

I am bowed low with shame, for awhile

 

Thought I'd bested the human condition

O what a farce confession and pardon

Shy sinners don't look for recognition

 

But once I felt the ash cross go on

And remembered my dusty creation

Sin's real again, but God's forgiveness won

 

So why this annual self flagellation

Is not behavior out, self-esteem in?

Nature competes with sanctification

 

Ancient worldviews include personal sin

Name for personal, corporate failure

God has ultimate plan, his fight is within

 

Ashes are symbolic, a helpful signature

From tradition taking Sin seriously

Humans are God's forgiven creature

Next time we will travel for fun

Tour a new pastoral scene, forget our trouble

Not to see any relative whose time has come

 

Or borrow problems from those on bubble

Risking or going under bull dozer blade.

Or buried beneath reams of post data rubble

 

Scraps of paper each with insufficient aid

Craftily hidden from snoopers and passer bys

Until message is dead or contact made

 

Yes we will have fun with a twinkle in our eyes

Blue bonnets, wild flowers wait

Creation opens wide under hill country skies

 

 

For the Torched Churches of East Texas

Gathered for worship Sunday after

Arsons match made disaster scene

Sadness, sorrow, lost is laughter

We walked burned spaces again



Stench follows where evil has been

Phonebooks still smoldering

Forever gone little reminders

who brought baby Jesus diapers



Level makes it fair, sets it right

From the butcher's meat market scale

To rival nations prone to fight

Hatred keeps us in unleveled hell.



Adversity is nothing new.

Since Adam and Eve shared the fruit

Have existed problems between two

is painful to see Sin lives in our root



We have been carrying rocks uphill

Hoping God would say how unfair

We continue to clean the spill

It only hurts because we care

Wonder and whisper

Wonder and whisper someone touched my heart

Opened eyes see God's earth set apart

Blessed wonder when creation comes forth

God our Father everlasting support

 

Wonder and whisper someone called my name

Listen for whispers in the wind they came

One ear to heaven and one to the air

News I have gathered now waiting to share

 

Wonder and whisper someone watched me step

Help my gait and balance I fear life inept

One foot then follows my walks resume

Swept out bad habits when God loaned his broom

 

Wonder and whisper someone showed me love

Caught in my sorrow, why me they thought of

God's love and patience wipes away tears

And he made promise to join in our years.

 

The living remain to ask why

People they loved had to die

Life is hello, good-by then grieving

Short ride in funeral coach they're leaving

 

Until we follow the dying in resurrection

We have no adequate explanation

for crippling emotional pain,

but life is what it is sunshine or rain

 

Consuming us day and night

Stress builds with no flight or fight

Reason is suspended, when we dare

Expect quantities of loving care

 

In my grief what clung to me

Was nothing from what we shared

Tears release powerfully when

Lone call of whippoorwill drifted in

 

 

 

 

Mountain men

Old mountain men drink black boiled coffee

From wooden cups to count livestock lost

Overnight to suspect neighbor, Russell

Two dozen gone before market day dawned



Sheep taken quick as an eagle nabs prey

Anger gnaws then flares but no proof today

Knowing whispers at dusk lack evidence

Wise are wary of clever criminals



Crafty Russell's thieves are cautious braggers

Greet theft victims in daylight as old friends

Wooly hands no excuses posed as searchers

Don't love wooden cups or old mountain men



They love a dollar crisply creased and stolen   

Hidden until old mountain men pass away

White doves sing silent songs of hopeful peace

More than war peace includes oldmen and sheep

DAD

In Memory of

JESSE SPEED MCKAY 1932-2010





We all shared the memories we had kept

And I saw a pick up truck and football game

With misty eyes I turned and wept

When one life ends none are the same.





Decent men with values are a rare commodity

They bless, grace, and encourage us together

When the world peeked to view this oddity

a good soul, lover of family and weather

When our loved ones suffer, we stop to pray

For healing, end of pain, strength in grieving

Loss of health is not vision for the new day

Grace for hard times finds comfort in believing





Death lives with us as a life companion

Found in the shadows of every town

Is friend or foe to beggar or champion.

We may delay, but death lays us all down

Days dissolve into disappearing years

Like autumn grass cut and then wind blown

Scattered lives are battered by fears

Discover the truth of reaping what's sown

we may pass as a ship to another shore

Or wait in a line to cross a pearly gate

we're in God's hands, dare we expect more?

Christ and us will not separate





Maker is never far away, near as our next breath

With love and hope sustaining us we stand

Firmly planted in life we are able to face our death

Praise God the everlasting Lord. Amen and Amen.