More of the old...

Before I post a couple of poems that I wrote a little while ago, I have to tell a random tidbit about today. At the pet store today my mom and I marveled over a lizard who had red lips. Mom wanted to buy him and name him Mick Jagger. He was quite endearing. It got me thinking, how odd would it be to live your whole life in a glass box and never know the extent of exploration to be made? I guess not odd at all if lizards really have no idea what they are supposed to be missing. Is ignorance really bliss though? I feel as though I should interfere and smash all the terrariums in a glorious rush of brilliant epiphany or else madness (there's a fine line) and release them into the wild. The drastic shock of being born again through broken glass and the rush of oxygen and sun-light very well might kill them all. But it would be a risk worth taking. Wouldn't it?

On to the old stuff.

This is a poem I wrote in whimsy for my best friend. This of course is the revised version. It makes me happy.

Best Friend

No rule or format can trap the girl

Who's puzzle piece fits next to mine.

She's the reckless rush of a diving bird

Plunging wildly through radiant sunshine.

Her wondrous rapture is raved through songs

By Sheryl Crow, Mayer, and Third Eye Blind.

When she walks into the room it's like dawn

Lighting paths I keep trying to find.

She leaps like laughter from my mouth

Through fields of hay bells and golden heather.

Twirling like children with arms stretched out

We find the world in circles is better. 

Her ideas blink like Christmas lights

Across the pages of colorful journals, 

Where she may write songs or draw a kite

Blowing from her heart into the sky eternal.

Strumming her fingers on strings all in line

To the time of a melody only she knows

Inside of a fort made with blankets of white, 

She looks like a goddess--the pillows her throne.

Her fire hands burn pictures like dreams 

On pure canvas made sacred with color

Flowing like water over stones in streams

That winds around trees growing into each other.

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And now I'm ending on a sad note...my bad.

Yearbook Picture

On picture day you wore green,

Your hair blazed in contrast.

I took a mental picture of you then,

A different angle from the flash.

Your hair blazed in contrast 

To the white-washed walls of conformity,

A different angle from the flash

Of the hallway traffic majority.

To the white-washed walls of conformity

Students taped that picture of you,

But the hallway traffic majority

Didn't cry as much as the few.

Students taped that picture of you

Beside that football player's face.

They didn't cry as much as the few 

When his death you did replace.

Beside that football player's face

His twin brother said goodbye.

When his death you did replace

Your closed casket offered no reply.

His twin brother said goodbye,

While hundreds looked on from their seats.

Your closed casket offered no reply 

Though your picture looked down at me.

Dozens looked on from their seats

Spread out on the human lawn.

Your school picture looked down at me

Reminding me you were really gone.

Spreading out on the human lawn

Mist rolled in like a haze of sorrow.

Your gazing picture said you were gone,

That your seat would be vacant tomorrow.

Gazing through a haze of sorrow,

I saw you in the hall the day before.

Now your seat's vacant--it's way past tomorrow

And from those walls your picture is torn.

I saw you in the hall the day before, 

You were in a hurry getting nowhere fast,

Racing past the walls where your picture was torn--

All these years later it's still hard to grasp.

You were in a hurry getting nowhere fast.

You didn't even make it to your own graduation.

All these years later it's still hard to grasp

That roses replaced you in your chair at the end.

You didn't even make it to your own graduation,

But your picture was taped up once more

Above the roses in your chair at the end

Next to that football player's face so adored.

Those radiant roses raved red on your vacant seat,

Contrasting with my dress--you and I both wore green.

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Courage

"Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her maids, and she calls out from the highest point of the city. 'Let all who are simple come in here!' she says to those who lack judgment. 'Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding" (Proverbs 9:1-6).

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." -C. S. Lewis

I want to understand.

When I say "understand," I mean have the grace to overlook and forgive when I am affronted. To have compassion on people that puzzle me. To have humility in remembering "I too am like every other." To have the foresight to see what each word, each step, each decision may bring. To remember to look for heaven in the dark. And not to hate God when I stub my toe looking.

I want to understand.

But it takes courage to honestly seek understanding. It takes boldness and unwavering trust in a God I can't see with my own eyes.

It is said that King Solomon was the wisest man to ever walk the earth. God gave him wisdom in excess. When two women came before King Solomon arguing over a baby, he threatened to cut the baby in half knowing that the real mother would rather let the other woman have her child than see it be murdered before her. Solomon possessed insight that I will never know, yet he had hundreds - yes HUNDREDS - of concubines at his command. Not only so, but he began to worship some of his whores' pagan gods. Now I'm far from being the wisest woman in the world, and I certainly do not understand many many things. However, I'm pretty sure I'm wise enough to know that the very God who gave Solomon his wisdom would not be very happy with him for worshiping other gods. I don't know Hebrew, but in English we call that "being stupid" and in the south "just plain dumb."

Solomon lacked courage. Courage to put his wisdom into action. Instead of using this incredible gift that he was given by the one true God of the Jews, he ignored it.

He reminds me of the rich man who spoke with Jesus. He was an upright Jewish man who followed the law of God to a "t." He had done nothing wrong in Jewish standards. He stood proudly in front of Jesus, smirking about his righteousness. Yet when Jesus simply asked him to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor, he walked away defeated. He walked away like a coward.

It's hard to really follow the one true God. King Solomon knew it. The rich young ruler knew it. I know it. You can have gifts or fruits like wisdom, righteousness, compassion, kindness, self control, but only with courage. Where does courage come from? Relentless faith. Headlong pursuit of the God who created us.

It is true that we are not saved by our works. In Ephesians chapter 2 it says, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith - not by works, so that no one can boast." BUT active faith that pursues the living God and fans the flame He lights within us WILL produce his good works.

And active faith takes courage.

Catching up: A Year of Writing

I thought I might post a few things I've written over the past year that I never published on here. So here goes.

"We Watched the Night Light Up With Fire"

That night we caught a glimpse
Of Beauty's elusive silhouette,
We shadowed his footprints
Through a corridor of trees
Whose branches pointed above,
Behind, below--each a broken compass
Confusing our sense of direction.

Autumn air rushed in our windows,
Weaving its song around us.
Our speakers blared the scat
Of Dave Matthews, but we heard
Beauty's song above the beat
--he sang like a male siren
Luring us into his secretive embrace.

He led us to the overlook
Where we lit match after match,
Pleading with the heavens to still
The damp wind long enough
To ignite the tobacco in our pipe.
Attempt number twenty-five
Bore the cheers of success.

We sat cross-legged on your station wagon
Like statues lost in a sanctuary
Of crickets, each chirp in time
With our heartbeats. They whistled
The solace of Beauty's song,
Enveloped us with peace so sweet
We could almost taste it.

Subdued by the strange mist
Sliding down the mountain like
A slow stroke of worship
Across piano keys, our words
Emerged slowly from our depths,
Swirling in the air around us,
Creating smoke signals of their own.

Beauty breathed on us behind trees,
Enchanting us with perfumes of pine,
Mesmerizing our minds with his scent.
The mountains helped the trees point
Us north to the stars shrouded
In silky midnight fabrics,
Hiding away, unlike city lights.

We looked up to see the eyes
Of heaven timidly peeking down
On us, as if peering through poked
Holes in the sky. The natural
Light in their eyes shined into
Our souls like lanterns in a storm.
We trusted their luster as unwavering.

As I searched for their faces,
I wondered at the mystery of hidden
Beauty. Stars shied away while city gleams
Flaunted their jewels like gypsies
Dancing at the base of the mountain.
The capriciousness of their flare
Made me wish to blow them out like candles.

How I wished to be a steady mountain,
Or a luminous glint humbly light the path
For the wanderer like me lost in the forest
Where trees point every which a way.
But now I burn with the revelation
That I will always be the wanderer
Racing after Beauty through the thick of time.

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"See All the Pigs Dressed in Their Finest Fine"

Sitting on the edge of the lake,
We watched as it grew darker
With every descended inch
Of the glowing sun. The moon
Shown silver in it's place,
Casting images of ghost ships
On the mirrored glass before us.

I listened to you speak of your past,
Sitting as still as that wise man
In the Heart of Darkness who looked
Like Buddha on the sprawling yawl.
You told me you casted your pearls
To swine who couldn't keep you--
Now they wear your finest fine.

Your reveries reeled through me.
Revealed secrets of your own
Helped me realize the fools
I once chase, the swine who
Wore stolen pearls of mine,
Who flaunted the once loved
Treasures I wore around my own neck.

I used to wear them like the belt of truth--
Those white orbs delicately graced
My collar bone with purity.
Tugged in all directions, the chain
Broke, and the pearls scattered from my neck
Into the hands of thieves.
They laughed raucously while catching them.

That night served as therapy for me,
You the unknowing shrink--
Those rocks of rose quartz, my couch
Where I sat properly healing
My past, consoling my soul
Next to the fire you fed with driftwood.
That night was a miracle--water turned to wine.

When we had our Ulysses moment,
Standing side by side, shin-deep
In the shallow waters, I started to see
New pearls floating along the current.
Scrambling to snatch them up, one by one
I strung them back around my neck
And there they have stayed as my own.

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More to come later...