be, Jesus, our joy!
Sunlight rests on the surface
of a mirey pond
like a sheen of oil on the sea.
It does not pierce the depths,
neither does it warm—
but only glimmers uselessly.
This is day 33 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
Que milagro haces!—
que un día solo ilumina
Tú en cien disfraces
y tantos con sonrisas
ya una coronada de espinas.
This is day 32 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
Are we anything now
but the co-authors
of a vast and lonely library
where poetry gathers dust
alongside theology, and linguistics,
and a treasure trove of in-jokes
we no longer care to understand?
Artifacts of a bygone age
like the Roman coin:
spent, stolen, spilt blood even,
now buried in an unlabelled drawer.
There are no footsteps down these
abandoned halls,
nothing to disturb the silence
(which is not at peace with itself
but longs for noise to fill it
be it laughter or crying it does not care)—
but the souls
in these stacks
are solid things, so solid
that they pass through this world lightly
and no longer stop to ruffle those pages
but move ever on, like an impact grenade
whistling endlessly through early morning fog.
This is day 31 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
Breaking down is easy.
It requires only a hammer
and an eye for where to hit
and where to pry.
Building up, now—that takes hours
and many false starts, and
mistakes and extra screws,
and its byproduct is frustration
but its product is
a chair. Just that.
Made to hold a human being,
more precious than all the gold in the world.
Made by human hands,
some in Guangdong province
and some in Silverton, Oregon,
men on a kitchen floor
laughing for the sheer joy
of making something for someone else,
even though it came in a box
and it wobbles like a communist régime
and the screws don’t fit quite right.
How much of ministry
is knowing when to break
and when to build?
How much is simply saying ‘yes’?
How much is nothing more
than being there
when you are broken down
by a stray blow?—
and not to build you back again,
which is beyond the reach
of my only tools,
a screwdriver and patience—
but maybe just to be with you
and make you smile
and read to you
and pray.
How much of ministry is in the spending
of time, or of energy,
strength, money, freedom, gasoline,
ink on paper, words on a screen,
or any other old thing:
poured out like fragrant oil
from an alabaster jar
on the feet of one you love
and not to count the cost?—or if you do,
as I do,
tally up the hours
but lay them down too
at the feet of the beloved
and let them value naught for you.
This is day 30 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
Noli timere … quod enim in ea natum est, de Spiritu Sancto est. (Matt 1:20)
One night in the dark my brother,
when I’d told him to trust in God
and ask humbly his will be done,
told me, with a guileless honesty,
“it’s the only prayer I know.”
It was that prayer I prayed
in the vastness from under the cross
when I laid my life on the altar
and begged you lead me where you will,
and the prayer I have prayed ever since.
Every blessed day You are done in me!
though I grumble and wish it were faster,
though I favor my ways over yours—
even then! your will like a river,
course altered, rushes on to the sea.
What have I to fear but my fear?—
And even that no more a scandal
than a rock to a mighty current
which by numberless moments is smoothed
from a break in the stream to a bridge
on its journey from source to source.
This is day 29 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
A tree planted in running waters
longs to flower and bear fruit
in every season,
but though the waters run
and the sun bloom bright,
sometimes flowers wither on the stem,
fruits rot on the branch
for want of harvesting.
And the flowers that blossom one season
in another fall to petals on the stream
swept away to a who knows where:
sometimes to the spring, to the source; others
to the weeds or the river-bed.
A few, a very few,
bearing seed, take root.
These he calls “blessed,”
these, “espoused.”
This is day 28 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
And should the valves burst open
and loose the dammed-up waters ‘tained inside,
would they drown? or hope in
that love our hearts denied?
since Golgotha, daily crucified.
This is day 27 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
And I don’t know what I would do
without that silent country
which is not like a forest
nor a mountain peak
and where there is no path
nor even tracks
left by earlier explorers,
so that I could almost be the first—
or the only—
but for one.
In another place
there is a fountainhead,
there is sunlight and
the smell of moist new earth.
Here there is only the spring, here
There is only surrender.
This is day 26 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
I don’t know what I would do
without the laughter, and the stories,
and the injokes, and the nicknames,
and the endless brotherly mocking,
without the hugs, and the crying,
and the praying in the night,
without the living heart beating
in the silent golden well
pumping love throughout the body
that is us all.
“It’s nice to be around so much
positivity,” she said, and rightly,
for in you there is nothing lacking—
to say ‘negative’ is only to say “not you,”
but in us you are not lacking
and your presence is made known
in the positive:
that is,
in love.
I think I would wither on the vine
had I not love:
such a tender
raucuous
unmistakable
theophany.
This is day 25 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
I am a clay pot
or an earthen vase,
made to be filled
with the water of your being,
with the wine of your love.
And I am not enough: not worthy
to pray, to bless, to counsel, not worthy
to look upon your face, not worthy
that you should radiate in me, not worthy
that you should use my lips to speak your wisdom,
nor my hands to bring the comfort of your presence!—
my lips, my hands, which how often have uprisen
in a parody or a paucity of love?
I know nothing of your goodness,
nothing of your greatness,
nothing of your mercy,
nothing of your love,
save only what little
you have revealed to me.
To one I admonish:
“your prayer is too self-centered.”
To another:
“surrender, and let Him heal your wounds.”
But when I come before you—
How, Lord, you must sigh.
Three hours here and still all I can say
is “not me, not me,”
when I must say only “you, you,
You.”
This is day 24 of LABIA MUNDA, a series of forty poems during the forty days of Lent.
In Your Embrace 