Writing Exercises on Silence

Great Silence, while Your eyes search
Goshen's dim streets lit by moon, faint hope,
and factory smoke, I descend into the earth.

Into mystery, thin pages and intimate light
at angles off floorboards, white walls, and
cobwebs. It's You I dread despite

all reassurances, the dust that coats
my basement floor and sticks to bare socks;
it has been one with me, now brushed off

in disgust. Oh Silence that slept with me
through the dark, come close like the breath
on my pillow, like the depth of my shadow,

like the hand of my lover parting my hair,
slightly graying at tips but unnoticed
in the thin beams of the dawn. Silence

I am uniting with You, though the brief
rise and fall of my chest dismisses You,
each hold and catch in wonder summons back.

The crack of barefeet on hardwood, a cry
that inaugurates the sun. You dissipate into
my day and a gradually long for another morning.

Writing Exercises on Election

Note: This poem actually comes from Matthew's Hours, but it also worked as a writing exercise so I posted it here as well. Written in the style of Rainer Maria Rilke, expressing desire and the frustrations of not understanding everything about God.

Romans 11

i want to be the morning light,
slowly dispersing over hills to
drive the dark off the rocks.

My unbelief burns brighter,
for where You have abandoned
mountains, dug lonely caves

i wish to explore, to invade
these unelected quarries with
my oscillating flame. Underneath

i may find those uncalled by You.
i don't understand. i want to.
Lest i flare indignant, i must admit,

if there are some You do not want
then i will go, offer sorrow, apology,
and perhaps a cup of tea,

then hopelessly hope they will walk back to You
with me.

Poems for Gideon: Cups

You come swaying, as if a song
were humming through the freshly swept
oak floors beneath your innocent feet.
Your smile knows no reticence
when you sense the rushing waters.
Pushing your elbows on the tub's edge,
short legs and short laughs,
joyously struggling
to swing one short leg up over the side.
You want colander cups
to drain the warmth and spread its stream
over your shakingly bowed head,
twittering with each giggle and splash
in your careless eyes.
Like nature's rains rinsing winter off,
or the cleansing fling of hyssop,
yet drops find few fragments of dust,
no remnants of lust or other deformation.
Still, my son, seek the freshness
that is always pouring forth in creation.

Poems for Gideon: Towers

A boylike steeple, block on top of block,
grounded on green carpets, built well,
rising from the floor grandpa's still trying to sell.
A tiny totem, stacks of r's and i's,
a basswood column just your height,
cracked eggs etched on the side.

You of indelicate hands, palms clapping
over the last bite of an unsyruped waffle,
watchful and grasping of your mother's handful,
crackers of any sample, the goldfish or the animal.
Lacking building skills, when you turn you will
laugh with head thrown back, breath in gasps,

in joy and energy, you will destroy this tower.

Then you will be six foot three, hiding
underneath a tattered hoodie, something
like daddy's beard thin across smooth youth.
Dexterity of adolescence in your hands,
the choices and piles of written demands,
the pressures of pretty girls in fashionable

curls, and the speed of knowledge and sin,
building desires to become block, to fit in.
Then, encompassed by the asherahs
of entertainment, bombarded by contentment,
bound by green papers, all these idols stacked around.
Then, in infant holiness, knock them down son,

knock them down.

Writing Exercise on Becoming

Become the dawn's arm sprawled softly on my bare chest.
Become dark Kenyan beans, the fragrance that releases the sun.
Become the frigidness, the sharp intake, the negative degrees.
Become ignition keys, the hum and the din of AM radio.
Become the sweat that wets my handspun curls,
Become the coolness as it pools behind my ears and streaks down my stubbled neck.
Become the faces that walk through halls without getting out of bed.
Become joy to bowed heads, there in the midst of trivial heaviness.
Become the rest of idle hours, the silence of an ancient room,
Become the smell of cedar boards and portly doors.
Become the measure of my labor, the ink of my corrective pen.
Become the sound of second hands, mouse clicks, and then
Become the bell that brings the silence once again.
Become the afternoon headache from voices high and cracking.
Become the reprieve, the cushions that receive my tired body.
Become colors in the Midwest sky, painting shoddy maples orange and red.
Become the bread in dark and tiled kitchens, the wine that warms my weary wife.
Become the deadness of a winter night, the rumble of a locomotive reviving it.
Become the invitation to sleep, the slender love that folds me in.
Become my day and night, the moon and the sun.
Become everything as it becomes one.

Writing Exercise on Diction and Communion

A Sunday has been prepared. Eyes water,
soon lower, downfallen from lofty resolution,
weak to the sweetness, lust for the smells,

lost in gluttony. Twenty of us gather,
so the forty-five Dixie plates are strident
affectations from where we were, the places left

behind. An informal line of ex-trustees,
luxated from former communities, put out by
careless words and the lack of intentionality

in action. The symphasis of individuals becomes
a heavy cup, held by shaking hands and equally
shaky voice, for fear of poor word choice.

Broken pieces can form the most intriguing pottery,
and we have come to taste the broken One,
energized by hurt and hope, drunk with common sympathy.

Writing Exercises on a Sunday Morning

She's loosely attuned to "Air Force One"
over the shoulder of our son,
giggling as he holds tightly
to crossed leg and bouncing knee.
She's unaware we disagree.

What we did has become what we do.

Held hands across bucket seats,
a Burgundy Bonneville parked once
on a dusty road by a Crooked Lake
and once at the drive in. Made plans
for long movie nights in. Passed through
open house by popping in a DVD. Survived
without in the lounge by the smoking oven
watching football, in arms, relaxing.

Sighing, grinning, turning again
to a collection of poems, stapled and
waiting for my scolding pen.

Ease everyday, he knows what the silver button
does and why you clutch the toy with
the red, green, and yellow things to push
and watch the colors change.

In the next half hour, if he grows in
knowledge will he grow in stupor?
The stain is reaching within my oneness
and I no longer wish for separation.

Old patterns die, please, smile and laugh
and be buried.
And to the new and simple: rise.