Evening Thunderstorm, July 7.16
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From my nature journal, 7.7.16: A summer evening storm unleashes the fullness of its tremendous power: thunder winds bend and thrash the trees with ragged curtains of rain; clouds flash with jagged bolts and electric spider webs, fingers of lightning sudden and lost. The darkening air is fragrant, charged with ions. A small child alive and well in my soul thrills at the unveiling of such beautiful terrible power. Where I stand just under the roof at the patio’s edge, cool windy rain sprays my warm uplifted face.
Under the great and crashing sky I notice a tiny and wondrous light: out in the open meadow, on the underside of a large dead limb in the giant Black Oak, a cluster of yellow-green minuscule lights is blinking, glowing through the heavy grey rain like a distress signal reaching through the storm.
I am struck by the singular beauty of such a small yet bright twinkling, silently glimmering in the immense roar and growing darkness. I even experience a fantastic sense that these exquisite tiny lamps are burning there, somehow just for me. Out of some 7 billion human souls on the planet, I am surely the only one given to see this particular little wonder of living lights pulsing in the very midst of an enormous night storm releasing great gusts of elemental power.
Hopefully, others across the globe are watchful and open to experience similar delicate moments of created beauty, and to reverently wonder at the mystery being revealed. I will not forget the quiet strength of these small lights flickering through the vast flashing darkness and windblown rain so long as my heart and mind have the grace to hold and cherish it.
So I receive this luminescent moment for what it truly is: a gift. And I share it now with you…..
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The heavens are declaring the glory of God, displaying Your splendor in the heavens, O God!. How majestic is Your name in all the earth, filled with Your glory……from John 1, Psalms 8 & 19, Isaiah 6:3.
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–Quilla
November 3.15
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In Passing…..
Ogle, Filkins, Weaver, Banks…..old mountain names
carved in upright slabs of stone, facing east.
Weathering shadow-letters, chiseled numbers
of their brief years help us remember them
and let them go.
The cold gray stones want us
to have new faces, to find fresh ways
each passing moment
to love the ones still here.
November sun, rises
through bare trees. Morning wind
spins the last leaves down.
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–Quilla
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After Cooking for the Homeless Men
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After cooking for the homeless men….
……..I sit down alone beside the cooling grill to rest. Just above me on the bare limbs of a gnarled old Dogwood, a few robins are gobbling the last withered red berries still sweet with last year’s suns. And towering far above them the spire of a tall pine, glowing soft gold in the day’s last fires of cold, smoldering light.
The flowers in the winter flower-beds are long-dead, brittle stems. On criss-crossed walkways of the compound, sad-eyed men walk past wearing heavy faces, mumbling, or silent—perhaps even to themselves. A few of them look up and nod, say thanks to me. But I do not need their gratitude. My heart feels deep compassion for the pathos of their past and present ways. I am glad to cook the sweet smoked meat for them.
The robins cluck and giggle, getting full on last year’s wild fruit. The tall pine glows like a natural steeple, a golden spire as the fire of winter sun goes down.
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—Quilla
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
July 21.14…..”A Walk in the Mountains”
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A Walk in the Mountains
for David Anderson
Three days of steady rain are done.
All the day’s faces and words have quieted down.
High summer stars blink through breaking clouds.
I turn out the lamp.
The black room rattles with night cicadas.
Late this afternoon a friend and I
walked into the high mountains.
The forest was cool with mist,
a few yellowing Buckeye leaves,
autumn’s first small red mushrooms.
We talked quietly of God, His ways
with those who long to know Him,
the ones who desire to see His beautiful face.
Now the black room rattles with cicadas
in the night trees.
Dreams approach softly, mosaics of light
shifting through windy mountain leaves.
The day and its memories escape, slowly
like all days, into the cool light of stars,
the memories of God.
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–Quilla
Summer Evening Lament
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Summer Evening Lament
In memory of David (“Joby”)
A dear one gone from us,
his spirit risen like a bird, flown.
Finally, heat and light go up—
the long day’s sun-baked stones.
Faintly, Navaho flute notes
float upward, into the pyre
of sunset clouds,
these lost threads of Pinon smoke
find deep shrouds of summer sky.
Our keen hearts hone, and listen:
just a slight dry breeze
stirs the tall grass stems,
the silent, summer-heavy leaves.
Cicadas keep that incessant wild
droning, some ancient yearning sorrow—
our quiet grief, screaming in the trees.
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–Quilla
Redemptive Personal Love: Like the Rose, Like the Mountain Spring
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Redemptive, Christlike Love is nothing less than the very presence of God himself stirring in me, a living breathing Spirit, giving me creative thoughts, words and acts of divine, selfless caring. Yes, Love is a personal gift of God’s Holy Spirit, but it is something I can not attain, muster up, or ‘make happen’. I do have within me the power to respond, and surrender to Love’s constructive and humbling ways, thus allowing the beauty of Christ’s Person to grow and blossom in me, and to flow from me to others. The power to respond is a wonderful gift in itself.
At its very roots, Love is a holy mystery that unfolds, like the fragrant many-layered petals of a rose, freely opening itself among thorns. I can feed and water the rose, tend to it, protect it from disease, pruning its dead parts and spent blossoms, but I can not make it bloom. I do what I can to cultivate it, but like Love, a rose opens and flourishes from a deeper source within, bringing free and careless beauty of form and color, fragrance and light.
Love is the same way: I can recognize and nourish the ineffable presence of God moving in my heart and mind. His Holy Spirit very personally desires to live His winsome and alluring Life within me and through me. By its very nature, Love is not self-centered or self-contained. It must and will seek out and find others, carefully listening, hearing and seeing their present level of need, and then responding as I can.
We each have varying levels of a nurturing, human love in our personalities, often varying with the erratic seasons of life, and the vicissitudes of our circumstances. In contrast, God’s Love transcends the daily ups and downs of human experience. Pure, selfless sacrificial Love flows from the LORD of Love Himself, the Risen One, and has no bitterness, blaming or criticism. As we deliberately follow the Person of Christ through our days, letting His Spirit and His Words forgive us and truly heal our brokenness, we become transformed beings, we grow to be like Him in the graces of mercy and humility, expanding in our capacity both to receive and to forgive with God’s perfect Love. This is a process of surrender, not of attainment. There is only one “Master”. We believe, and we follow Him, allowing His powerful Spirit to transform us.
The LORD of Love has no rival in all the universe. It is common today to refer to the highest power as ‘the universe’. We need to have our thinking clear on this. The universe is not God. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen.1:1) and “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being….” (John 1: 3). If you take even a cursive look at the other world religions, you do not find any one who even made the same claims as Christ Jesus—Creator, Deliverer, Forgiver of Sins, Redeemer, Friend of sinners, Lover of our souls, Savior of mankind. The power of Love flowing from His beautiful Person is not the same thing at all as the eastern ways of thought (Taoism, Buddhism, etc.). The focus of these religious systems is on the various forms and expressions of “energy”, and ‘harmony’ with the universe, but not personal relationship with a personal LORD, whose very life and name are exemplary, self-sacrificing LOVE.
I have read much eastern thought over the last several decades. I find it interesting (and somewhat disappointing) that “love” seldom appears in their writings or thought. (Love is not the same thing as ‘compassion’, although it includes compassion). The eastern mindset tries for detachment, obviously and persistently more concerned with developing personal ‘power’ and “harmony” with the universe.
But the power and various levels of energy attainable through ‘eastern’ disciplines do not have the power to forgive sin, or to change the dark and selfish bent of the human heart. This emphasis requires much effort, not the surrender and replacement of our egos with the enormous energy and power of God’s personal mercy and forgiving, restoring LOVE.
By our conscious welcome, and deliberate bowing down, we are given to drink from the Father’s Love. It flows out to us, and to those around us like a pure mountain spring of living waters. He (the Living Water) gives Himself freely to all, quenching the parched thirst of love-starved humans. Love builds up with words of forgiveness, encouragement and hope, firmly based on what is real, and eternal—the enduring Love and tender mercy of God, living and stirring, by faith within us: Like lovely roses, like pure living waters.
Can it be possible?—-that same intense beauty of Christ’s Holy Spirit and nourishing wholeness could flow through me, through you? Yes. He waits for you—to forgive you, to restore you, to change you into His beautiful person. It is your part, and my part, to invite Him, to allow Him, to believe in Him, and to daily follow Him
Into His Deep Shalom!
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–Quilla
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“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Woman, give Me a drink’,
you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water”.
–Jesus, John 4: 10
“The only thing that counts is Faith, expressing itself through Love” —Galatians 5: 6
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The Third of June…..
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“It was the Third of June….”
for Bobbie Gentry
I’m pruning the winter-killed twigs
and winding spring tendrils of Trumpet Vine
on the side of the old woman’s house.
A warm east wind blows across the village
the acrid steam of roasting coffee beans
from the shop on main street.
The air is sweet with honeysuckle musk.
Purple finches are trilling in the branches
of a large Sugar Maple, spreading
over the narrow lane.
Very slowly, silently thick gnarled roots
break the concrete, letting little weeds
come up, and have their way.
I rest in the deep shade, listening,
letting sweat cool and dry
in the pungent smoky breeze.
From somewhere down the street
I can hear children play.
It’s ‘the third of June’, and that entrancing
low-country tune, forty-seven summers back
returns again, round and round
on the turntable of my seventeen year-old mind.
The leaves of good art, of spirit, do not wither and fall.
All this time, the sad flowers of broken loves
have kept dropping, dropping “into the muddy waters
off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”
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–Quilla
May Sixteenth, The Old Fisherman
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The Old Fisherman
Late this windy, silvery green afternoon late in spring,
I was driving home beside the lake—it was shining
with setting sun, fresh breezes stirring the surface,
glittery riffles like scales and fins, glinting flakes of watery light.
All down the shore the trees were fluttering new leaves,
riffs of cool north wind. An old fisherman, sitting
on an upturned five-gallon white plastic bucket
had cast his thin line far out into the rippling silver surface
where tongues of water licked the scurfs of wind.
Purple shadows of a departing storm were still brooding,
hovering over darkened mountains to the east.
I’ve driven by the lake unnumbered times through the years,
but today something was different: the cold deep waters gleamed
a certain imagined translucence— As if I could, for once, see
into the depths, beneath the shimmering scales of windy light:
Hundreds of fish, all sizes, were swimming there
suspended
below the broken surface of the lake, they moved and paused
with unschooled mystery. Perhaps it was the old fisherman
that helped me see them—his thread of line cast out in faith
like a crust of bread, a wagered stone, an ancient angled hope,
reaching cold depths unseen to us, unknown.
I watched him. He simply sat and watched, waiting for something
he knows is there: to come out of darkness, strong and silver, quivering,
Alive and nourishing, to find and take his outcast line.
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–Quilla
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–Quilla
First of May, 2014…..Translucent……
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Translucent
Late-afternoon, the translucent
lacy green light of mid-spring,
old gray oaks again
filling gnarled limbs
with flutterings of new leaves
Soft breezes now, how slowly
the low sun moves down
with long tree shadows, like ghosts
across the greening slopes of land.
Two crows fly up together, alight
upon a dead branch, as if they were
an ancient Japanese poem.
They are crafting a nest of dead sticks,
a new clutch of speckled eggs.
In the far meadow, brown horses
walk slowly down the emerald light
along the fence line, into the trees.
The quiet music of their movement
walking out of a long winter
is one clear wordless picture
of the mystery, of grace.
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–Quilla
March Twelfth
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Spring
These bright afternoon hours, brisk winds
sing the towering pines, shining furls
of bristling torn green silk.
Down worn dark hollows, the sparkling creek flows.
Old maples in new blossom, glow scarlet fires,
shimmering cold spring light.
Crow shadows cross windy spaces
—those harsh calls rasp
our wintered spirits like rusted files.
We fling wide the doors, raise windows,
welcome new finch songs, windy yellow light
fresh as cool sliced lemons
the brisk air stirs our cold ashes and dust:
old pages, and the must of old thoughts
scatters across the rooms.
–Quilla
Epiphany…..February 10.14…….(revisited 2.20.14)
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Epiphany/Redemption
(for Joan)
Those long-gifted with the radiance of joy—
we expect them to speak, but only words
sweetened with the countenance of hope.
How we love keeping souls
both good and bad, imprisoned:
stay there in the cell where you belong!
But we are called to steal the jailer’s keys
and set all prisoners free!
She herself is finally unchained, unafraid
and cares enough to follow her Lantern down
the dark stairs of love, among cool cellars
and tombs, and brings up the cold shadow-relics
carefully hidden there in buried rooms
and shows them to herself, to us at last —
—see, how the sunlight burns them
of spiders, time and dust, and turns them, glorious
white sea-birds soaring with windblown joy!
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–Quilla
Saturday, August 24.13
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Late summer, dried river mud, mussel shells
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Saturday, Late August
By an open morning window of late summer:
breaths of cool air stir the trees, fresh breezes
wash my waking face, fill this thankful being.
Hands, heart, mind stand open, grateful
to the Father of the morning, waiting
quietly still—a child, a window
welcomes new, the unlived day.
Muted long piano notes, breath of a wooden flute
float across, dissolve into the sibillant August music
of insects, the songs of summer wrens.
A distant chainsaw snarls, and snarls.
Already the tall meadow slopes are turning brown
fading toward fall, bending with seed.
The cool, mauve-grey music of doves
lifts into the cloudy light.
A few yellow leaves come flickering down.
–Quilla
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“Be still, and know, that I am God”
–Psalm 46: 10
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“. . .the Father of the heavenly lights,
Who does not change, like shifting shadows”
–James 1: 17
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March 2.13
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First Day of March
Down the windy grey morning light
thin flakes of snow come spinning.
A day with no shadows.
The drab blowing land is all one
shadow, folded under
somber oceans of cloud.
I walk out to the woodshed—
six dried sticks of split locust,
enough wood for the day.
Pausing to stand still
a few long moments:
tiny stars of ice glitter my dark sleeves.
Listening. A thousand leaves of bamboo
scrape and sweep the shed roof tin.
The tall stems make soft music
with the wind, cryptic phrases
like someone whispering
the ancient Psalms.
Perhaps I should remain
long, and learn new songs.
Back indoors, a cup of hot tea
and the fire snapping, gives its thanks
for the fresh fuel—releasing
the suns of summers long past,
locked in rings of wood.
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–Quilla
December 29.12
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*Bereft
Once again, the frozen pewter cup
of winter dusk—lifted up like this—
our thirsting hearts fill slowly:
thin salt-crystals of sifting snow.
If honest, we know this glistening darkness
is how our spirits and our flesh
may drink, and fill, with wonder.
Always thirsting, we know
some sweet vintage ripens
beyond the winter sun.
I pause from making soup, go outside
in my apron and listen intently—
late December blowing darkness, ice.
The long year past,
scent of cut onions on my hands
in the sharp wind, all I’m given,
I thankfully receive.
Still I am bereft.
I stand watching thick black hedges
of evergreen: fine needles stitch together
the shreds, the last lace-white edges
remaining of the day, the spent year.
And I wonder: what now is left?
Deep in the rusted empty forest
of oaks, one brown wren chimes
his solitary vesper bells.
Through the slanted wind
a West Virginia coal train
rumbles that hollow, practical song.
We live each winter night by soup, and heat.
We must live in the long, by hope.
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–Quilla
December 27.12
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Days of feasting, music, fleeting
faces, talking, listening, broken
conversations, giving, receiving
—much of it good—
And the festive papers quickly burn
magenta flames, fading fast
everyone finally leaves
like smoke
How serene at last
this dust of morning snow:
crystals of silence, clinging
gnarled black limbs
the winter trees
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–Quilla
Oasis…..(you’ve crossed long years). . .
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Oasis
(A poem for Communion, for Eucharist;
a ‘Medicine’ poem of surrender, of restoration—
for you, for me; in three parts. –Quilla)
1. Loss
Looking back from here—a rugged waste
of lost terrain stretches out behind you.
You’ve crossed long years
of desperate miles, made-up faces,
wandered empty desert places,
weathered the dry flood
of broken rocks and broken faith,
faded smiles, the fallen petals of roses.
Your favorite clothes, and your heart
are torn by long thorns,
now deep-stained the rust of blood.
Your neglected springs have gone, turned
to mouthfuls of bitter dust. Your soul drinks
and breathes the unrelenting siroccos
of human and satanic wind.
Those high-blown scarps of sand
keep screaming beguiling lies at you.
You walk outside the tent, look, and listen:
but wind erased all traces of the trail.
So you’ve learned to hole up in the shadows,
blame others, back against the wall
licking your righteous wounds
til falls the dreadful veil of dark.
2. Oasis
But here, a small sunlit stream comes to you,
bends before you now: the bright green lace
of water licks the broken stones.
In this place, the stream widens out for you
under the cool palm shadows of truth;
with easy grace, the peace of fragrant lilies
pours into a quiet pool.
It is time for you to stop.
Sit down here, take off your dusty shoes,
let Someone wash and kiss
your bleeding feet.
Allow your self: to feel the deeper coolness
wanting to soothe your fugitive, weary soul.
There is no other time.
Let your self receive, rejoice at last.
Allow your heart to grieve, to weep
the salty oil of past, and present sorrow.
Feel what you must feel, then let it flow
into the perfect stream.
No longer hide, or be busy, tough, religious
or even “spiritual”—to impress yourself,
your friends, or God himself.
Give up on all of that. In its stead, stay here
before Him, wait, and be still.
Let hurt go, watch it rise like wreathes
of smoke, like hungry flames
at last burned out of you.
Allow yourself to praise: express the deepest
thankfulness, for all of it.
Let your precious bitterness dissolve,
wash away like yellow fungus, crusted
layers on your hard and tender heart,
let it wash into the quiet, fathomless pool.
It is poured out here, for you.
3. Surrender
This holy war. Fierce battles,
so much blood, and time, already lost.
But Someone you ignored
walked up the rocky hill
and poured your empty goblet
red and full.
The fragrant living Bread
of His being is broken open, waiting for you
to feed: hundreds of pages, furious love, scribed
in the hovering shadows of doves.
Eat and drink—this risen Bread,
this crushed and holy Wine.
All of it. Stand completely healed
in the luminescence of forgiving love.
Savor the alien flavor, delicate scent,
the subtle radiance of halos, spun
with unnamed colors of holiness.
You can begin to hear the songs of birds
and feel the open sky.
Give thanks. It is given, for you.
Yes. It is for you.
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“Your lovingkindness O LORD, extends
to the heavens, your faithfulness
reaches to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains
of God; your judgments are like a great deep.
How precious is your lovingkindness, O God.
“And the children of men take refuge
in the shadow of Your wings.
They drink their fill of the abundance
of Your house, and You give them to drink
from the river of Your delights.
For with You is the fountain of Life,
and in Your light, we see light.”
–Psalm 36: 5-9
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Savoring (revised) ….for Stephan
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Constellations of dew drops, spider silk
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Autumn rose petals, ferns, lichens, granite
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Savoring
(for Stephan)
Inexpressibly sweet, this late September morning—
cool air still early with shadows,
shreds of night-mist linger, lifting from the land.
A well-worn shirt of many autumns, softly holds
this pulsing warmth of heart, and bones.
Steamed black tea from the Oolong Mountains
is pungent on a thirsting tongue.
Opening the leaves of thin pages, I relish
their crispness in my fingertips, wrinkled
fine white rustling papers—the ancient Book
tastes like rusted nails, like blood
the joy of holy wine. Slowly I drink
the long-aged words of wisdom’s love.
In soft autumn light, savoring deep flavors
of the sacred Mystery—it is Mercy,
stronger yet more delicate
than steeped mountain tea, longer
than seasoned centuries: forgiveness
given us, for some scant trace of faith.
This, at last, the weathered taste
of deathless Love.
Night’s thick dews glisten, cling
to withering petals, the autumn rose.
A faint breeze rushes through the birch.
Flakes of light and shadow
fall across the page.
Still, the truth of living Words
keeps whispering down the ages, yellow leaves
keep drifting, spinning down.
This time of year, everything seems falling
and undone, spinning round us
windy silks of thistle-down.
Yet the shapes of perfect Love remain:
the thorns and silk of truth,
soft flakes of shadow, hard blades of Light,
His living Words remain.
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–Quilla
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September thistle-blooms and thistle down
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“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
look at the earth beneath.
the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment.
But my salvation will last forever,
my righteousness will never fail”
–Isaiah 51: 6
“How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth”
–Psalm 119:103
“Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will never pass away”
–Jesus, Matthew 24: 35
Receiving the River. . . .
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Receiving the River
Summer dusk, the shining river.
Low sun flickers gold, trees lean across the broad waters,
a dark ridge looming the other side.
A slow train of loaded coal rolls past.
I read Rilke’s poem, but wonder:
what does it mean to ‘receive a river’?
The small sandbar is formed and washed
with long rhythms. Little waves litter the damp sand,
tiny purple mussel shells, pebbles, bits of broken glass.
Sharp edges of the past are tumbled smooth.
I find myself wanting to be lost here—right here
a thousand years ago, before the roads and factories
came, before the river was an open sewer: dirty water,
plastic flip-flops, bloated pampers, beer cans,
you name it, all our refuse washed up here.
As if infinitely resilient, the slow river sighs.
The water speaks words of joy and sorrow.
The river pulls my thoughts like a tide, with it to the sea.
Watching, I become washed stone, a drift-log tossed
and bleached, weathered shell, shadowy heron tracks.
Held up to the Father’s light, I see myself
translucent—a shard of tumbled, sanded glass.
Another summer night comes on.
The night air falls cool and blue, flowing like the past
over white rapids.
Cicadas start their long chanting in the trees.
Moon will rise, an hour or two.
I think of my mother’s darkly quiet father—a kind man,
the ancient stream of Cherokee pulsed his veins,
far away Tsalagi drums.
I remember his laughter, his singing, the working man-smell
of shy gentleness and country strength.
I’m told he got away often and sat, countless hours,
his years beside this river, sun and lantern-light
fishing, pretending to fish: Receiving the river.
So much lost between us, he died when I was still small.
How could he have known one of his grandsons is here,
decades later trying to remember him, those who went before.
Learning to let go of things, to receive the Spirit’s living flow.
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–Quilla
January Nineteenth
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We’ve Never Been Here Before
The first light sparkles, new crystals
of thick night-frost, the virgin unlived day.
A tiny wren lifts her jubilations
into the vastness of the morning air.
Strokes of winter sun
touch the opened page of ancient Words.
But the Spirit himself
kindles them: strikes a new fire
laughing in the ashes
of our wintered hearts
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—Quilla
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“Rejoice in every good thing which the LORD your God has given you.”
—Deuteronomy 26: 11
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“In everything give thanks. For this is the Father’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” —1 Thessalonians 5: 18
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A winter moment
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A Winter Moment
Long hours indoors I went outside to stretch, and breathe
the sharp December air, watch the falling sky, remember where
and who I am: eternal spirit in a torn brown Oregon tee-shirt,
worn out moccasins, a pair of faded jeans.
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I was raising my arms and hands, my eyes
my longing heart, to a break of blue in the winter clouds.
These frail wings lifted over the tangled snowy marsh.
^
I began to hear what I had not heard:
a neighbor’s distant tinkling chimes.
Wind faintly whispered the bamboo leaves.
I watched a large hawk soaring high and bright, silently
above the winter trees.
^ ^ ^
Ruach 333, by Quilla 