HOLES

Death rules everywhere,

               Yet everywhere

Things are

That

Contradict death.

Light shines

Out of darkness, as if

Darkness is full of holes.

For the ear,

Birds cry, triumphant,

Passing in the silent hour.

The rocks would be quiet,

But water sings over them,

Breaking them,

Making them food for roots,

Turning stones to dogwood flowers

On the tree.

Given long enough,

Stones do turn to bread,

And that with no

Whispering devil’s suggestion.

.... Matthew R. Brown, 2004

STONES SPEAKING

I once saw slippery elm trees,

Near a waterfall,

Rooted in solid rock

With no appearance of soil,

Roots looking like

Desperate, gnarled hands,

Getting hold, getting nourishment

(“It is good for us to cling to God

And to hope in His salvation”).

A poet, even in letters,

Dianna says, “I always imagine the

Stones speaking to us

In silent endurance, in beauty

As the water shapes and reshapes them,”

And changes never leave us.  We are always

Becoming something.  A tiny change in trajectory

Sends an object far, far from its course.

Watch the trajectories.

“The wind blows where it will.”

The Holy Spirit blows us over;

Waters of life run us over.

This fluid life is here, once, for us to become

His image and likeness.

SUNDAY OF THE PRODIGAL, 2004

Beginning the Lenten Spring.

Four degrees, and snowy sunlight.

Candle wax from last year’s

Paschal feast, against the oak grain

Of a railing.  Signposts for our

Journey.

OAK

-for Richard Dauenhauer-

"...this perfect oakleaf

is melting through the ice

and resting

in a perfect, two-inch deep

sheer-ice wall outline

of itself,

under a quarter inch of

clear ice water..."    --R.D., Phenologies

Saw that a leaf  like your oak leaf

Had fallen on snow this morning,

And had made its way down

About an inch or so,

Collecting energy from the zero sun.

Mine was a pin oak leaf,

Its pointed, narrow lobes

Burning their shape

Into the purity.

I picture yours

As round-tipped white oak,

Though it could have been

Black or Northern red.

Miles apart, years apart,

The sightings link us,

Yours in Madison,

Mine in Fort Wayne,

You now farther away in Juneau.

It appeared to me

A liturgical moment

As when two, in far distant places,

Chant the same hymns.

--Matthew, February 2004

DO THESE TODAY

1.

Early Spring;

Fragrance at the window

From Willow Marsh,

Smoke from grass fires;

Your eyes rising

With their light.

Early Spring;

Out of dark oaks

A sycamore shining,

Not from ambition

Over the oaks,

But its nature being such

As reflects light.

If I could sing, deep into

                            your ear. . .

2.

Do these today:

Bring a branch from Paradise,

Complete with fruit, leaf, and

Flower; a cup of cold water

For the weary world

From its springs.

Preserve memorably

The moment that ray

Separated the dark wind;

The moment green light

Could be seen through

The door of the bud.

And when tiny creatures

Breathe in cathedrals

Of a single bush,

Act as Noah did:

Keep them from the churning,

Judgemented world.

Let’s pray for one another:

Me to be free from the

Skinny shed of my building,

What I thought was a temple.

You to come out of the black

Clouds and the shaking,

Making everything

Appear loud and dark.

Let’s ask for an ark

For the heaven and the earth

And for all that it contains

And for all people.

Put this one down:

A day with stillness,

A breath in all

The windy calendar.

--Matthew R. Brown

EVERY DAY COMES OUT

Every day I will bless you,

Holy Trinity; every day I will bless you.

For with each passing day,

I feel more ready to come to you,

And more in love with you.

Yet, for me that cannot cover

The joy I have in all these moments,

And all that they contain.

Every day comes out from,

And goes back to, eternity,

And is found there.

Or else, if not, the source of all

That is good, and filled with beauty,

The Holy Trinity, remains, and

In you is still more good.

Those I see, I commend to your mercy.

Song birds kept vigil through the night;

At every waking hour

Still singing from the trees

At the stream.  Could your coming

Be at hand?  They remind my soul

That it should get wings, and go to you.

BRIDGINGS

All things are far set apart in space;

Spring  buds pushing out, more distant,

Add to the span of last year’s branches,

And we carry on, from those who lie under stones,

Who built before us.  Those buds, so far apart,

Connect  to sap and earth,

And to the Maker.

All is far set apart in space; atoms, not things,

But relationships and energies, infinities in miniature.

To say “God is” takes no revelation.

To say “God is Love” implies relationship within God,

Oneness, but oneness of different persons.

We are not persons, except linked over distances,

One to another, and to the Maker.

All set apart, the bodies in space,

So far apart that there is not a thing

Except the Trinity—He the only thing:

Only  He goes far enough to span

The emptiness of space between all,

Making something out of nothing,

Linking all things to the Maker.

All things are so far set apart

That without a soul, all things are not.

Your soul holds all the universe,

Though the universe cannot hold one soul.

Mystically, He has put more in one soul

Than is found in all worlds.  As an atom

Is not a thing but a relation, persons are persons

Only as they are linked in the Maker.

Copyright 2004 Matthew R. Brown

HISTORY

And many storms on springtime greens have grown;

And from high branches tossed the birds’ nests down.

The birds, the saints, the children have come back

And found no ground that’s not under attack.

They’ve come again, to find their home on earth

Whose wooded path and garden gate is death.

The richness of our earthly church has roots

Among their relics; all our blowing shoots

Draw from their blood, bathe in their prayers and tears

Which, by a muddy miracle, pry our ears

And wrench our eyes, and dig for our hearts wells;

Begin to float our souls from self-dug hells.

When leaves lie broken on the lawn below,

Then seize the moment; turn; praise the rainbow.

Copyright 2004 Matthew R. Brown

HE TOOK A LITTLE CHILD

In front of icons, behind solemn priests

A boy goes to and fro.

As a priest swings a censer, he laughs

With his feet, censing with a camera case,

Crossing himself, taking a bow,

Making a huge prostration.

The anxious father

Tries to hold a baby

And lead the boy away,

But can’t do it

Until the mother takes the baby.

Parents, of course, have a job to do,

To make things go smoothly.

But it would have been fitting

And very much in keeping

With the words of Our Lord

If they could have allowed

Their little priest to go on

Censing and dancing

With his laughing feet

Behind the big priests,

Counterpointing

The solemn prayers

In their censers

With the Resurrection laughter

In his camera case.

Copyright 2004 Matthew R. Brown

LIVING STONES (The Dispossessed of Palestine)

Once they’ve explained everything away,

Put man down to chemistry, conditioning;

Something of the soul is put aside,

Something in the soul still goes beyond,

Shines with a light not lamp or sun,

And more than mind is the given one.

Each human soul bears a stamp from God

That is not like any other one.

The human soul just wants to be free,

The human soul just wants to be free.

When they’ve wearied everyone away,

Blown up home and factory;

Walled off the world into prison camps,

Put guards and check points in our way;

Crammed so much violence into our day

We never know if we live tonight;

Cut down the olive trees, burnt the fields,

Buried some children into the deal:

They still can’t take away our love,

They still can’t take away our love.