Now, today, tomorrow, and more
is our 5775th opportunity
(more or less) to get it right.
Speak now, make amends, and let go your grip
of whatever peace you keep locked inside you.
May the words of our lips and the
meditations of our hearts
be good enough to be seen
in a world made holy by the spirit.
L’shanah tovah!
God wants you to
hurry!
Hurry!
HURRY!
Drop what you’re doing!
The bell has rung, come running!
This is too good to miss.
Quit your dawdling, now now now!
There’s no time to waste,
put down everything,
and if you can’t put it down, take it with you!
Are you not listening?
Hurry!
Hurry!
God wants you to rush like crazy to
be
right
here
May you live on the earth.
May the trees give you breath,
the rain give you movement,
the goods of the ground feed you
and fire keep you warm.
May you have a family of beings
that caused your coming,
and the coming of your family.
May you have another day amidst
this family of beings,
both living and dead.
May you live on the earth.
May you walk humbly, and know
where your heart belongs.
Ode to a Spinosaurus
(in honor of Scotland, and with apologies to Rabbie Burns)
Huge, freakish, loomin’, petrifying lizard,
O what a hunger’s in thy gizzard,
What would’st thou give to some evil wizard
To teleport me there!
From where I sit, listening to All Things Considered
On my easy chair.
For the futileness of man’s chronology
I offer my sincere apology,
That it keeps thee from phrenology
Of my cranial orb.
We share a nutrional etiology:
To live, we must absorb.
(We’re kinda like the Borg)
I know that thou would chomp my bones,
Ignoring all my desperate moans:
If we were playing Game of Thrones,
Thou’d be a Lannister.
What then? Thou ain’t Mother Jones
And I’m not Roger Bannister!
And now thy time, it has been lost,
Like a wee biscuit to Marcel Proust,
All dino lovers, comet-crossed,
Before the world goes dark.
Ne’er likely to bare teeth unflossed
In some Jurassic Park.
Thou wouldst dive deep for delicious beasties,
Like a juicy onchopristis,
Or a ptychodus shark, and one for the missus,
A wee tasty nibble.
She’d thank you with a thousand kisses,
For all thy tribble!
But alas, you gorgeous kraken,
Thou find the seas are very lackin’,
Not one tasty bit o’ bacon,
In a month of Sundaes!
If I were near, thy lips’d be smackin’
At me panic-stained undies!
It dinnae require a full Greek chorus,
To know the plot the Fates dug for us:
The best-laid plans of the spinosaurus,
Like mice and men, will go to ground.
Whether grand or wise, our clay is porous,
and homeward bound.
But as Darwin found upon the Beagle,
every three-horned giant and tyrant regal
has its chance to write a sequel
beyond the years’ impeding tar.
P’haps thine is in that bloody seagull
that just pooped upon my car.
The prayers of the reluctant lawn mower
are answered by the rain. Another day
for reading books inside, to live in peace,
excuses falling from the sky as grace.
I ask forgiveness from the summer hands
who clasp at straws, and want for work today.
Though not so green to think my idle hopes
affect the water in our common bowl,
I guard against a desiccated heart
with tears for all who live under the sky.
A few unwhittled hours are gathered here,
a quiet grove where I can lay my head.
I may do nothing and call it worship.
I’m not as sharp as I once used to be –
more fit for children, a happy plaything,
a ragged form made gentle by much love.
Before too long my summer will be spent.
The harvest waits, the scythe that feeds the world.
I would be still, grow calm within these bones,
and someday yield the balance of my time.
May wrinkles find their way into your face,
and may your hair turn white.
May your gait become a tottering challenge,
and may the noises of the world
retreat further and further from comprehension.
May words fail you.
May you know odd pains
in places you had forgotten existed,
May the cold creep a little closer
to your bones,
may you turn susceptible
to every idiotic malady under the sun.
This is no curse.
These little gifts for the lucky,
crescending notes in beauty’s urgent love song
for what is changing, and won’t last,
are candles that light the way
from a dark room
to another gorgeous, gorgeous, impeccable day.
Your Monday Blessing (Labor Day)
Blessed be the work of your hands.
Whether you hold a welding torch, tap a touch screen,
tend to an elder, or clean a restaurant,
may the work of your hands be a blessing
to the world, and to you.
May your hands find connection
to the world’s need, helping one being
live a little better, and another.
May your hands be put
to meaningful use, treated well, and content
with the work.
Blessed be the work of your mind.
Whether you are creating, analyzing, observing,
learning, playing, loving, or grieving,
or just whiling away the tedious working hours,
may the work of your mind be a blessing
to the world, and to you.
May the seeds of your innermost mind
plant fruit trees in the world,
making life sweeter for one being, and another.
May your mind be challenged at times, rested at times,
engaged with the work of the world,
and free to whistle its own tune.
Blessed be the work of your time.
May the collected moments of your life
be a blessing to the world, and to you.
Your presence is a great gift, may it be recognized as such.
May your time be valued by others and by yourself,
and may your time give shelter
to one being, and another.
May the the healing, growing, saving, affirming, creating, changing
work of the world be accomplished through your time.
May you have rest time, too,
time to throw away liberally, conserving only love.
May your time be a house
raising many moments of joy and generosity,
and a dear home to you.
Later there were mutterings
at the bar, and throughout the law courts,
that Jesus only showed at the gay pride parade
to love the jewel, but not the quality,
to love the potluck, but not the food,
to love the vessel, but not the wine,
to love the hot rod, but not the driver,
to love the baby, but not the drool,
to love the embrace, but not the erection,
to love the rock, but not the cathedral,
to love time, but not history.
To which I say:
if you saw him on the float,
his arm cradling the jubilant and the grave,
his head thrown back in ecstasy,
harboring kisses without restraint,
if you had heard the songs
which rose among us to possess
the city’s tender hearts in common,
if you had desired as we had,
ached in the body’s soul places,
you would not so easily doubt
the divine, particular, gushing joy
that told us we were his own.
A lot of people play hide-and-seek with God.
I play tag. It’s not easy. God can cover a lot
of ground, and chasing after Her
will get you nowhere.
So I wait, go
about my business,
build temples out of the corner
of my eyes.
When I am long past playing,
She bursts into laughter,
and I know She is near.
I reach out my hand,
and God is It.
God never fails
to take Her turn,
for a while.
My burden loosed,
I run free. The best part about being
not It,
is that your job is to go
wherever you want,
and the catcher’s job
is to find you.
I am nothing if not true
to the game, so I run as fast
and free as sunlight.
Hiding behind trees
is not for me.
Our game is played full tilt.
If you’re not almost falling over,
you’re not doing it right.
Sooner or later, though,
I feel Her touch
of presence
and departure.
She doesn’t want to be It forever.
Who can blame Her?
I am It again,
chasing shadows,
in charge of running the world
while listening for laughter.
OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI
Write like Shakespeare, hurriedly and without
regard for precedent. Throw metaphors
as if they were mud, on a hasty wheel.
Do not hoard your hours like precious baubles,
they are not meant to be kept on a shelf.
Pretend you are in debt, or make it so.
Desperation burns all ships that cling to port.
Your plot is what has happened. Add everything
that’s in the fancied shadows of your mind.
Turn a light on the world, then block it well.
Let actors be their naked selves in drag.
Your style is, the curtain’s up tomorrow.
Your motive, hunting bucks and earning crowns.
Integrity’s for rubes and circus clowns.
Shakespeare loved to write, and expended words
as murderous generals use bullets.
He trusted in his cause, and sovereign good,
then put his arms in service of the piece
commissioned by some faraway regal.
Two choices wait on every scribe inspired:
be not as good as wished, or be retired.
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| Sowing Seeds | Whoev… on Idiot Wind |
Rev. Bob Janis 