Dialogue Between Christ and the Soul IV

August 9, 2006

Lord, you have been with me
On walks at night since I was 17, 16, and on.

You are with me in discussion of great books,
The Sophist, Collosions, the Republic.

You are with me during times of prayer,
in the mornings and just before bed.

These oases are growing.
There are rivers forming,
And soon the ocean will overwhelm all.


Glory to God alone.

Dialogue Between Christ and the Soul IV

August 16

My unstable heart is an inn, O Lord,
There’s room for one, not two.
Let the owner be the tenant, Lord,
And, Lord, O let it be you.

The Lord Is With Me

July 13, 2006

The Lord is with me
And I’m beginning to feel his presence
Driving down the 405
Waiting tables at “the Bar”
Sitting down at night to pray
The darkness of the evening air
The bustle of the dinner-hour
The stop and go of endless cars

The Lord is with me
Washing dishes late at night
Chatting with a friend or two
Searching for the deeper text
The plunging layers, seven thick
The pause between a word and word
The soapy clink of cups and bowls

And I’m beginning to feel his presence
Writhing in a nameless pain
Looking to the five-year plan
Renovating growing souls
The trials of becoming good
The dimness of a future life
The truth of death and solitude
The Lord is with me
And I’m beginning to feel his presence


Glory to God alone.

A Prediction Made at the Age of 23...

A prediction made at the age Of 23 upon reading A.E. Taylor’s biographical sketch of the life and writings of Plato and learning that Plato wrote his Republic at about the age of forty, and addressed to fellow twenty-year old poets or aspiring poets who might otherwise be discouraged and give up trying giving their utmost, or reaching their prime


In twenty more years, God willing, will I
Produce my best work. As I learned this July
Did Plato and those who long did invest
Their coins (one or few), our brethren to bless.
If death takes me first, or God will not give
His breath, then please, these youthful words forgive;
But if, youth, like Christ, all true they will be
Then as I am like Christ, so be like me!


Glory to God alone.

Haiku

A house on a hill
In the warm July evening
Quiet, safe, at rest


Like a new womb
Moisture, darkness, peaceful heat
Showering in the dark


Slowly or quickly
Raid sets in while his friends watch
The lone cockroach dies


This cool July 4th
The smoke emerges from mouths
Remnants of fireworks


A verse from the Word
The dead sinner is made new
Holy Book indeed!


Hidden feelings lie
But this music wakes them up
Resonance is truth


Symphonies complex
Speaking to the complex soul
Simplify and sooth


Knowingly she smiles
A long day almost over
We sit on the bus


In Vermont Autumn
A dead man with bright red socks
Farewell, sir Hitchcock


With a book or friend
I turn off electric lights
and light a candle


Fortune’s fickle
Fame deceives, beauty fades
Charity endures


The wealthy man laughed
The poor boy said his small prayers
to a great rich king


Glory to God alone.

Wisconsin Winter

Written from the perspective of a women spending a year in Wisconsin while her husband finishes graduate school
June 23, 2006

Snow falls as I stare out the window
of my small Danish cottage,
on a street of fellow renters,
fellow transients,
fellow wives and their wayfaring grad student husbands,
my eyes passive, transparent, receiving but not welcoming,
receiving the calm vision
of patches of snow that emerge from the asphalt,
stolid trees accepting their chilly fate,
a fire hydrant,
the blur of red cars, white cars, blue cars,
quickly passed and out of focus.

The room is filled with winter air,
the aroma of reheated pasta, chicken,
the steam of a steamy cup,
a stiff carpet, scratching my itchy feet,
a half-filled bookshelf,
The Iliad, notebooks,
forgotten knick-knacks from previous tenants,
too weird to be used,
too maybe valuable to be thrown away
without that subconscious sting
of trashing something someone maybe loved

I notice how pale this light makes me look,
as I look for Aloe Vera
for my finger
which I burned
swirling coffee to keep it warm,
as I find a Band-Aid
and return to waiting for my husband to return.

The heater is expensive
I sit in the unpleasant winter air,
the outside air inside,
in the living room,
wrapped in an old blue blanket,
holding an old book,

of a Russian mystic
who speaks of the way of negation
through darkness to light,
through pain to joy,
through separation to unity,
the way of loss,
the way of rejection,
the way of confusion,

a real lover of God, she,
a real wife,
a sweet companion,
an international lover,
an interlunar, interstellar, intergalactic lover,
wrapped in old papyrus,
wrapped in the arms of old gods.

I wait,
wrapped in old blankets
that still smell like So. Cal.,
Elizabeth at daycare, Michael at the library,
a wife at home,
a home away from home
Wisconsin,
where the four seasons play out,
the sun shines, the leaves die,
the flowers bloom, and the snow falls.


Glory to God alone.

"Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus, Deus Aderit."

June 10, 2006

Every once in a while, a flash of insight comes.
"Insight" of course, being sight in to the nature of things,
a moment, a relationship, a lifetime, a struggle, a choice...

Every truth disguises itself with a patchwork of falsehoods
and every falsehood attains this remarkable status by gathering about
truths like silken strips of fabric, purple, gold... enchanting, but mixed.

The passing through these things (or the struggling to do so)
Through words, through relationships, through conversations with friends and brothers,
This passing is life. Life passes as we make our way through this quilt of truth and lies.

And every once in awhile, the hard work pays off, observing and comparing colors,
Noting truths and keeping track of its graceful disguises, as well as
Tricking falsehoods to undress and show themselves as the nothing they are.

It is these moments, through the sweat-stained sheets through which we've been swimming, alone,
as on a late Saturday morning when summer is starting to make the days hot,
that we see something... Oh, God! The sight!

The patch behind the patch! This for that; what was is no more; what was not suddenly comes to be,
and I... see... you... see... we, each staring at the nature of things through thin, worn-out sheets.
The moment passes, and again we are lost, swimming, searching, but recalling,

Wondering: "Did 'hard work' really pay off, or did the insight come in a flash
like lightening, unbidden, from the realm of unknown?
Do I keep going with this tiresome and endless vanity?

I do not know. So in the meantime, I keep sleeping in this bed,
dreaming of the next vision,
passing the time flipping through quilts with friends.


Glory to God alone.

Later in the Day

May 19, 2006

I have forgotten my past. Not by any intention of mine,
but by omiting to refresh my memory on a regular basis.
All I have our flashes: a blue pool, a half-blind border collie, pain.

Love is learning to let go. Robert Puff said, “I knew what to give up.”
Each choice eliminates infinite possibilities once open, fresh, vital.
How, then, can we choose, and stay happy? Christmas morning is so sad.

Does my past belong to me? How could it? I did not choose it,
I did not prepare the way for it, and, now, though I carry it with me,
it is shrouded in darkness; “My” past is not mine, but in relation to me.

When I sit still, I hurt. My mind starts remembering for me,
The slow drain of loneliness, being teased by my brother's friends,
Or (darkly) the terror of waking up, 6-years old, alone in the house.

When does the human race ever sit still? Do Buddhists get together and do nothing?
Children are sometimes at peace. The West loves to plan ahead
Working ahead, looking forward to the day of rest.

Keith, the pain will go away, in time. Joy is not merely in memory, nor soley momentary.
If “our body is our sub-conscious mind,” then these pockets of darkness
are presents, waiting to be unwrapped in the quiet morning light.

Glory to God alone.

A Dialogue On Domestic Life

March 2006

A series of poems between Thomas Ward and Keith Buhler regarding the virtues and limits of the life of managing an estate, raising a family, etc.


I once unsuccessfully tried to help Keith feel my enthusiasm for domestic life. Here’s another shot. - Tom

A Poem for K.E.B. (By Thomas Ward)

God is will and intellect
Three speak holy dialect;
God’s the Type of other things
Red grapes, girls, and Saturn’s rings.

God is golden, God is green
Let’s thank Him for everything!
God is silver, God is blue
Give Him all that is His due!

Look at all He did create
Joy and sorrow gravitate;
Everything within the world
Is a God-flag far unfurled.

Daddy sweeps the floor for fun
Mother hugs her wounded son;
Lashings on the broken fence
Soon the roses will be dense

Brother knows it’s time for bed
Sister spells her name in red;
Snowdrops came up late this year
Beech leaf buds dispelled all fear

Brother strokes the tired face:
Bearded Dad who laughs with grace;
Husband’s life is in the brook
Wife returns the open book.

Colored Lord of starry choir
Shadowed in the heart of fire;
We rarefy you far too much
Divinize our sense of touch!



A Poem for Tom

Father wills to gaze on Truth:
(See Him see'ng himself, for proof!)
He enjoys himself and us --
A Type of heav'nly Narcissus.

Plato said, "They circled 'round,
And, unlike us here on the ground,
Feasted eyes on things which are,
Above the shadows where we "are."

Just as he from Kempis said
"Forsake the company of men;
Only pour out prayer devout.
Be ye pure within and -out."

And, (finally,) it once was said
By Endurance (Italian-bred):
"Diverse light in diverse spheres,
Down here, quite diverse appears."

Touch is great, but I just might
Prefer a holy sense of sight.
(That's not to say that I am sure;
But, God help me, it seems more pure.)

Perhaps my nature I resent...
"Your non-angelic bod' present..."
Living feels like sacrifice
When I could just be seeing Christ.

But, then again, Adam has seen
His girl with God in gardens green;
And Logic once became a man,
And slept and drank and used the can.

And we were bade to think and eat
(And drink the wine, the bread and meat.)
"Be ye faithful in things small," and
"Let them come, the young and all."

Perhaps I don't yet understand
That holy Scriptural command:
"Whatever you do, sweep or pray,
Do it as unto Yahwah."

Brother writes a happy poem;
Good friend finally comes home.
Dishes washed, just one to go,
Waiting for an herb to grow.

Golden God, and mottled Son,
Teach your small and pinkish one
To see all colors hid in white
To love the low, high, dim, and bright.


Glory to God alone.

One of These Dreams Must Be False

March 23, 2006

What is love for
But to dream?
And to (hopefully) discern,
Which is false and which is true,
And to then arise, (eventually)
Having earned the right
To say,
"I have been to that grey land of the dead,
I have walked in the black and white land of the coming-alive,
And I stand, now, bright-eyed, in the white land of the living."

Who is to say
Which is the dream,
But the lover, or the fighter, or the philosopher-king?

Who can compare what dreams may come
with today's waking life
but saints and mystics, and those who nearly die...

I
do not know,
yet, which is true.
Then let each man and woman lie, prostrate,
In the mud, for a spell;
Let them kneel before live statues, and repentant fools
With eyes sewn shut;

And let them learn, they that will,
Whether to be in love is to live a lie,
To pine, and hope for life, and then to die,
Vanishing in a puff of desperate smoke,

Or whether to be in love is to be alive is to be
floating, flying with the gods, knowing,
"I see that I was once asleep."


Glory to God alone.

Be Still and Know

January 8, 2006


Be Still and Know
The only Knowledge;
That Is, My child, that:
I AM GOD.
And the Second, Which is like it;
My dear child, that:
you are not.


Glory to God alone.

I Serve a Hidden God

October 27, 2005

I serve a hidden god
who loves me more than he can say --
(that is, more than I can stand to hear.)

Silence is a wildcard; a joker, or
the blank square in Scrabble:
it can serve as any word, or letter, phrase, or book.

The best communicators -- Plato, Virgil, Jesus--
Strauss asserted, speak their message quietly
under a layer (or two, or more) of lesser words.

Some say silent prayer (not unlike to TM)
is the best or only way to hear
the word the word is speaking;

They also say the state of sleeping deep
is close to bliss: eternal, without change,
quiet, effortless, painless and divine.

Could it be the eight hours of my day
wherein I cannot speak nor think,
are those wherein my god is hearable?

I wonder: if I were conscious at that precise time
Might I hear him singing happy and humungous songs
of love to me and my fellow siblings, all?

Your voice, o God, puts me to sleep;
its heavy, low, and deep. Keep whispering
in layers thick, until the day I wake and hear.


Glory to God alone.

I Hoped to Be a Pure Image

October 11, 2005

I spoke with a friend of mine tonight…
We walked, and talked, in circles, ‘round our neighborhood…
He asked a question first, and listened…

I tried to fill his empty sentence with a sentence or two of my own,
filling with meaning, raiding inarticulate, waiting for meaning to come.

There was a long pause, a long space, no words, only walking,
mist and smoke emitting from our mouths, mine and his.

The quietude of the neighborhood, the universe, filled me up.

Empty, in turn, I then posed a sentence,
so without meaning, the word filled it up,
and it hit, it connected, it communicated,
we communed, us both, another, many.

As I listened,
while he tried to fill my empty sentence with a sentence or two of his own,
I noted
that I hoped
to one day be
a pure image.

I hoped to be securely naught, to waiver not, to flicker not,
but as a candle steadfast, burning,
casts a shadow in the air
when air, not stirring, keeps it upright
so to be a shadow,
nothing, turn
in space around the light of lights.

I hoped to be such liquid glass
of heat and substance, purity,
that pour it this way, feel it that,
it would show clearly what’s beyond it
and behind it, and beneath it, and below
it is not noted, can’t be known,
nor seen or heard but filled with hearing and with seeing
by recasting sight and sound.

I hoped to be a human being,
not a beast nor yet a god,
so filled with wisdom, filled with lacking,
that through me would be wisdom seen…
so formless to receive formation,
still, as to receive all motion,
so near dead to be alive.

And as I hoped, outside of time,
the hope of glory smiled at me,
my roommate talking,
as he said: “I want surrender.”
“I do too.”


Glory to God alone.

In Response to Arnold

September 26, 2004

The quiet work of the poor laborer,
Poor in heart, and therefore blessed,
Is the goal of the hasty businessman
Who heeds not signs of his failing,
Who curses the truth (isn't it charming?)

But "toil unsever'd from tranquility"
Is so far off, so far off. (Or too close to see.)
If only,
In a dream, we could be aware,
And yell at the phantasm "Begone! Thou art not real!"
And chastising our dreaméd self
For foolishly fearing the fangs of an unknown beast
We would awake, and be saved.

Then why, you who yearns for the vasty halls,
Do you not also stand up straight, finding the mean of the mind,
And stare at what is, always becoming what it is not,
Challenging it to show itself as real, or begone?

But you are gone. Have you seen the stars? Were you right, after all?

One thing I ask, one thing I desire: Awareness of the dream.
Brought on by sight of the courts of the Lord,
So real, that to imagine them pains my flesh
And mortifies it (that is, both kills and embarrasses).

And to gaze forward, tripping on shoelaces, and falling as well into Thales' well,
"My, so nice to see you. Have a scone. Have you seen the stars?"

Glory to God alone.

Beautiful Contingencies

September 26, 2005


Reaching out, re-creating.
Foundationless
or out of sight.

A subtle risk,
disproportionate,
grips me with a terror not divine...
not divine.

I want one thing, and not the other.
Will I buy the second for the first?
Pursue it... and love it...
Never linger until I quench the thirst.

I want one thing, but not the other.
Will I buy the second for the first?
Pursue it... and love it...
Do not linger until I fill the thirst.

Reformation happens over and over.
Reformation finds itself within itself.
Look out!
Come on in.
Just branch out,
and reach in,
to start out at the same place it begins.

It flushes,
Yes it ditches,
but to salvage
and to save.

Don't be afraid; we've prepared you a place.
You will like what you are like.

I want one thing, and not the other.
Will I buy the second for the first?
Pursue it... and love it...
Never linger until I fill the thirst.

I want one thing, but not the other.
Will I buy the second for the first?
Pursue it... and love it...
Do not linger until I fill the thirst.

The galaxy is simplicity is complexity is me.
Reaching out to find myself
Without the answer where do I look?

I want one thing, but not the other.
But what's it going to cost, the first?

What is purity -- Life or destruction?


Glory to God alone.