I.
She came in a caravan today, her questions
veiled like her eyes and just as green,
like doves in a sycamore or terebinth tree.
Her voice is rain on his head
and in his ears, falling water
on his lips and in his eyes.
II.
By day, the movement in the corners
of the field. By night she slides inside
and crawls across the floor,
She folds down the patchwork quilt
and lies there by his side, clothed in his shadow
till the sun peaks o’er the hill.
III.
Be here. Stay here.
Track Name: Arbor Day
Arbor Day
I.
Ripped and pulled like a branch
from a swinging child and tossed upon the ground
beside the lifeless trunk that I called home.
As a compass crossed with a magnet,
I circled, needle spun, and where the rain
had pooled I stayed and sank.
I stayed. I sank.
II.
Ripped and pulled like a branch
from my sleeping arms, they reach into the scar,
and my legs are longer than I thought.
Home. I’m home.
Track Name: The Assumption (Ballad of the Red Lost Notebook)
The Assumption
(or Ballad of the Red Lost Notebook)
Did you hide under the seat with change
and old receipts, on my right
in the passenger side? Did you hide
under the tree, whose mossy eyes can see,
and feet taste the rain, on the hill in the clay?
A cathedral and a school, the catholic principal –
they are no help at all. But a mother
holding grace and the heaviness of her place
knows where stories are kept safe.
Track Name: Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
I.
Across the room, hair twirled around your head,
I smile and you turn without an inclination.
I called you up. You said things that made you cry,
but I have no words to share aside from speculation.
If I were older, if I were wiser,
if I were stronger, would you let me in?
II.
I picked you up, knees knocking at your door.
And your father says it’s fine, you have the right to drive.
We found a tree and climbed it with bare feet,
your prayer said out loud, if only for a night.
If I were older, if I were wiser,
if I were stronger, would you let me in?
Track Name: Field Day (On which the Shepherd is found to be closer than previously anticipated.)
Field Day
(On which the Shepherd is found to be closer than previously anticipated.)
I.
Is my shepherd nothing? He pastures
water, my namesake, the shadow with me.
Comfort me. Prepare my head. Oil overflows,
mercy in the house forever. Amen.
II.
In heaven be your name, your kingdom,
your earth. As it is, our debts,
our debtors leave us not. In us,
yours is the amen.
Track Name: Good Friday
Good Friday
Come all you who thirst. Come, come to the water.
You who have no money, come and buy and eat.
Come buy milk and wine. Come with pockets empty.
Give ear, follow me, and eat all that is good.
As the rain and snow falls down from the heavens,
watering the earth on leaf and through the root,
so the word of my mouth is bread for the eater.
The seed stays inside until the bearer dies.
Go forth in my joy; go forth in my peace.
Flowers and the hills swell in redemption songs.
All the trees of the fields clap leafy hands,
and briars turn to clover for ever and amen.
Track Name: Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
I.
Your feather is planted
between the strings and bridge of my guitar,
gray as a storm cloud or early night,
and cut with lightning white.
The tiny scroll around your leg,
wrapped and tied with string to hold it tight,
the cardinal direction firm within your mind,
I wonder if you will make it on time.
O! Morning dove!
and your flight thereof!
II.
I never came with a fowler’s snare
or spread a net for all the birds to see,
but if my yoke is not as easy as some,
it is not because I have not tried.
O! Broken wing!
and songs that you won’t sing!
Track Name: Birth Day
Birth Day
This is my confession from across the room:
this day is growing long, and I’ve been prone stray
from empty hands, lifted up, stretched towards mine.
I’m not a boy, but far from the man I should be;
my mouth is prone to move, but my tongue is sitting by idly
Be still my soul, he’s on your side –
bear patiently, his breath remains
around and everywhere you are.
I see things right-side up – take my eyes,
turn them both upside-down. Take this dress and veil
for they are no more than filthy rags. You see
things that are not as though they are, and then
they are because you are. Teach me to forgive
everything, everyone, all the time
Be still my soul, he’s on your side –
bear patiently, his breath remains
around and everywhere you are.
Track Name: The Feast of St. Stephen
The Feast of St. Stephen
I.
Snow and rain swallowed me
and bent the tree. See where I fell
from the heights where mother died.
Huddled there, the branches bare, and I ask why.
II.
Before I opened my eyes,
I could see your hands holding me.
Fed me on, on milk and wine, for a time.
III.
The question is not, “How can I love?”
but, “How I am loved!”
as the thought of I Am comes,
the spinning stillness in dark and light
is far-off but here, the unending sentence
of his love, the unending of “I am, I am, I am.”
Track Name: Midsummer’s Eve
Midsummer’s Eve
I.
January was warm this year,
as she went walking through the field,
brown ground below early night.
In winter’s life, sycamore is dead,
yet her eyes are the Spring.
They tell secrets to the trees,
stories of hope and new leaves.
And she danced in the starlight,
singing Shakespeare to the night.
II.
January turned cold,
as she walked downtown,
June sidewalk in the rain.
Pavement shrugs below pouring sky,
no time to let the rain inside,
but when old skin is filled with new wine,
will it hold, will it live, or just survive?
She is sitting in the rain
with an umbrella that she made.
