Little Pieces of Spirit (TM)

--the art, poetry, musings of M. David Orr. The focus is on spirituality and living. RSS Feed: http://littlepiecesofspirit.blogspot.com/atom.xml (c) Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Monster Boy

"What happened to my monster boy?" my mother asked.
"He died," I said.
"It was no easy death.
This death had no romantic tone."

Baptism Of Fear

Hard knobs of wood upon an oaken chest
Were not so hard
As knobs of hatred nestled in his breast.
Steel pins in voodoo dolls were not so sharp
To pierce a human's skin,
Nor balsa hatchets dull
And impotent to crush a skull
As this his pet, his friend, his hatred dear.
Hosanna to his brain!
It was his precious
Measure of himself and every man--
"Is this gray matter graver than myself, or that?
Will this one take me, or I him?"
The world was cunning witch or brutal warlock hunting him.
And Heaven? Heaven help him, what he thought--
That God was creeping in the wings
To catch him in a broken line
Or faltering part, with premature review,
To crush the life from him.

Baptism of Faith

I have been in darkness for so long
To see the all-redeeming face--
That glorious dream of Eastern mystic mind--
The one, they say, who dusted up his feet
And bruised with Palestinian stone,
Who bled, they say, and died, they say, and rose.
And that's the catch--you see, I bleed;
The worms will eat my meat.
I die, but will a golden trumpet from the sky
Revive my riddled frame?
Will hell or Heaven caress my quickening bones?
(And isn't it strange that I should even ask
Or think about the Ancient One?
Because they do not teach of Him
In the Twenty-first Century curriculum.)
I find God's dying flesh so true because I bleed
And cry, "Oh, please deliver me!"
When not a friend or wife or god will comfort me
Of my mortality, in my Gethsemane;
For no one bears my load--
Golgotha creeps on every man alone.
And I have been in darkness for so long.

Baptism of Love

Sometimes the love of God--so great
That temple stones have trembled with its tread--
Steals like a slinking thief upon my care
And gently, gently lulls my soul to sleep,
With sweet solicitation of my will
To do His secret bidding well--
At break of day when shadows fly,
And spirits seldom speak,
At noontime in the marketplace
With patient, persevering pace,
In evening with my friends and wife
Who know my weakness well,
And even in my tangled mind
Where peace and passion alternate.
Sometimes the love of God takes wing
And lifts me up above all earthbound sense,
Where passion's fruit and fruits of diligence,
Of love, of peace, of care,
Alike seem thrifty in the widening air,
And wafts me to a better place
Where looking, simply looking, on His face
Is all the poetry on Earth
And all the work of Heaven.
Sometimes he dips me in His love,
(As first I felt His Spirit as a fire)
Suspends me in a perfect grace,
Where, walking in the world,
I see in every face
The dignity that God created there
And marvel at the work of Him,
Who hurled the galaxies through space
Yet made the souls of men.
"Forget the ancient, evil one," He says.
"Put by your fond, habitual, inward stare.
Embrace the universe and mortal men
With all the loving, self-forgetting care
I gave to you and yours
While wandering in your earthen air
And walking slowly, slowly to my cross.

"What happened to my monster boy?" my mother asks.
"He dies," I say."It is no easy death."

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Monday, September 18, 2006

First Love


--to Martha A.

Off the water shimmering, the image of the moon
Bathed my soul with light, my love was there.
Her skin was white with moon-flake snow,
All honeysuckle breath, chocolate eyes, wisteria hair,
The green grass and brown earth--our bed.
I could hardly breathe the perfumed air.
The stars bedazzled blackened sky,
She dazzled me.
Nothing on earth or heaven, at that moment, was more there.
I touched her moon-flake snow,
Breathed her honeysuckle breath,
Drank her chocolate eyes, and held
As if the years would pull her far away, her fine wisteria hair.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr