Saturday January 10.15
To the Drunken Muse:
No.
Leave, take your enticing cup of lies,
leave the room of this life,
close the door and go, do not return.
I want nothing to dull or dazzle
this beautiful mirror I’m given.
These reflections, perceptions
are to be keen with physical edge,
and with Spirit: from here I can see
in the low meadow there
the wild grass-blades, shining and sere
in lean winter sun, stirring slightly
with sharp curled knives of wind.
A Red-Shouldered Hawk is perched high
in the Black Walnut, folded and still, waiting
intently watching, for his very life.
Many autumns ago, far to the north:
I sit beside a deep, high-mountain lake
alone, long after midnight.
The yellow moon is glowing
above a jagged black forest of spruce.
The golden light reflects perfectly,
silently, on the black windless water.
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–Quilla
Missing. . . .(revised 10.4.12)
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Missing
We like to think we like ‘mystery’—
those clever conundrums, resolved
by pretty actors, fifty minutes on tv.
But true Mystery—sometimes God gives us
real and pain-filled drama,
scant and reticent clues.
We’re caused to stoop and crawl
our musty closets, face our blue mirrors
more deeply, perhaps find a trace
of something true among the rubble,
what’s been taken, lost.
But only precious clutter—
theater tickets, dried petals, empty shells
and dried seaweed, heartfelt cards
and messages left like footsteps in the sand.
The walls still hold the echoes of her voice.
Images on the refrigerator door
haunt us, twenty times a day.
They tell us nothing now.
The one we love has packed her things,
left her home, and gone.
We can not find her now: the one
who promised faithfulness and truth.
By her own choosing, a hard refusal
of those she loved, the words are gone
as summer flowers turn to autumn mist.
Still, those of us she left behind:
we’d like somehow to win the one we’ve lost,
replace the ravaged board of life, redeem
our broken pieces, pay what cost.
Yes. We’d like to think the force of wrong,
the Queen of Self, and her chosen pawn—
the easy lies She tells, so easily believed;
—that somehow She’s relented, given
a reprieve, let our dear one’s heart return;
that our earnest little pawns of prayer,
Love’s true words of searching light
with all the unseen might of faith
break through, depose the shadow Queen.
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–Quilla
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“We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers
and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world,
and against evil spirits in heavenly places.” —Ephesians 6: 12 (NLT)
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” –Romans 12: 21
A Few August Haiku
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Gaunt old mountain pine—
the risen sun shines through
needles, glistening
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Latesummer morning:
cool cloud-shadows. Long silences.
Old trees, waiting for the Fall
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Teen-age prostitute:
her thin black dress fluttering,
hot concrete and thunder
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Another summer ends.
Why does it feel each year begins
with Autumn?
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Late August morning
crossed with cloud-shadows
silences, cicadas
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Our pain-filled prayers lift
with twilight mist, deep shadows
a small owl sings
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The young prostitute
one black silk stocking, missing. . .
hot winds scrape the street
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Ruach 333, by Quilla 