prayer for the day


fill my eyes with invitation
open my ears to hear an unspeaking heart
allow me to bring spaciousness and grace to the room that I offer
may my sitting down give welcome to the weary
my rising up be with purpose

cause wisdom to temper all my speaking
let generosity flow through my outstretched hands
make my feet eager to approach in kindness

let me smooth the worn pathway
 and clear away the mist
to reveal the hidden flower

permit me to carry into the day
the fragrance of blessing


pab
© may 2014

Promises

He allowed death to claim his humanness
gave himself over to dying
three days later He arose
clothed in eternal radiance

going wounded, naked and alone
submitting to dissolution
Life arises in us, clean,
full with possibility


pab
© april 2014

dust of creation


he writes each morning,
this poet who says he is as old as dirt,

up before dawn
pulling on cracked leather boots
caked with red mud
stuffing weathered hands deep into pockets
of tattered brown sweatshirt
hood pulled up tight against the chill,
slowly he walks the windrow

stooping now and then
plucking a blade of grass
calculating the season
by the rise of the river
the budding of the willow

with each measured foot fall
dust clouds rise up in his wake
salutations to the morning sun

poems,
permanence, 
of these fleeting days


- for RA, 1923-2006

pab  © march 2014

forever

I live on the prairie
where the morning and the evening
arrive and depart in splendor
aflame with the passion of eternal beginnings
reposing in the deep silence of God

let not our frivolous voices exploit the wonder
neither our finite thoughts contain the miracle
rather let our small selves explode
into the glory
and live beyond

pb © 9 march 2014

beginnings


timeless
silent
fecundity


sentient
code bearer

emergence



 - pb  © february 2014 -

so it is . . . .

crystal blue tip of icicle thins
night shades give way
to fragrant rosebuds huddled
in mulch
February dawns frigid
and melts fertile

                                            

pb © february 2014

Last night, the longest night of the year, the darkness upon us. . . . Winter Solstice
This morning's sky overcast, trees frosted silver, snow blanket, quiet . . . .
Rebirth, we begin the slow ascent into a new year, regaining the light . . . .



Solstice Dawn

weak rays
pierce snow clouds and fog
meager light struggles
this solstice morn

bearer of hope
breath of determination
I seek the Light
that ignites Holy Blaze

radiance beyond
all understanding




pb © 22 december 2013

red stone

a thousand thousand summers ago
the red stone was cast across the waters
the grandmothers’ grandmothers saw
what was to be

though the furies would divide them
and Earth herself would split in two
the red stone was cast
and it would be so

for eons and eons more
from deep within the cold abyss
snows rose up inside the echoes
to plunge life into darkness
not even the Sacred Tree
would hear the songs of birds
or flourish for the celebration

celebrations withered ere the morning star
would show its light
or the psalmody be chanted
from the greening moors
or the caves below the ocean’s floor
would shout

fires scorched the bones that cried out
till stars rained down their blessings
till at last the Sacred Tree
bore fruits of gold and honey
yet withheld its holy nectar for
the coming of the Chosen One

then, though countless yugas
suspended long between them,
one by one, the twenty-eight of twenty-eight
eternal grandmothers
from across the great divide
did pronounce:
“Yes, she is the One.”

no matter the detours and dead ends
nor choices seeming freely made
but never untied from
Destiny herself
it had to be.
She arrived
today

the day
vouchsafed
when the Ancients
carved her name upon
red stone

       ~pb © november 2013