Tag: poems

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solace | autumn playlist

It’s been a brisk, clear-blue-sky kind of day here in Indiana – the perfect start to autumn.

Of all seasons, autumn is by far my favorite. Though I love the changes – the reminder I need that every day is another day closer to Christ coming back and making everything right – autumn somehow captures my heart. It stirs me up. It’s bracing and invigorating, full of the weight of harvest and the impending weight of winter snapping at its heels.

It’s also the final season in my book SOLACE, and the one that somehow comes to terms with so many of the things the other seasons have wrestled with.

Autumn is a complex season. It signals the returning power of freezing temperatures, darkening days, and the death of living things, while celebrating the joy and abundance of harvest in a riot of gorgeous color. It is preparation – for sleep, for hibernation, for the long dark days of winter. But the preparation is exciting. It’s laying down root vegetables and winterizing pipes and raking leaves into fire pits and making cider.

I find autumn to be the natural capstone to the overarching narrative of SOLACE. The book begins in darkness and encounters it often, and it finds light and grace and goodness in unexpected places. But in the end, the cycle will return to the dark and cold of winter. I know this. I know this about my own life – that darkness will go away for a while, and then return. Perhaps it will be lighter this next time, perhaps darker. Perhaps it will be shorter, or longer. Either way, it’s as sure to me as the hope I hold that more darkness lies ahead.

But autumn is stacking firewood inside the mudroom door, so that throughout the winter we can keep the fire going. It’s carrying bushels of the harvest in so we can feast well. It’s cellaring joy and stockpiling grace and preserving patience for the long winter ahead.

And that, my friends, is an invigorating, hope-filled thing to be a part of. Death is coming, but it will not find us unprepared.

The songs contained in this final playlist for SOLACE, poem for poem, match autumn words with autumn tones. And because I just couldn’t choose between the two songs I wanted to use to end the book, I kept them both.

Cheers, friends. I hope you enjoy.

Get your copy. Take a listen.

TRACKLIST:

chicago in season iv / Pulaski at Night (Andrew Bird)
familiars / Slack Jaw (Sylvan Esso)
through fathoms / Autumnal (Teen Daze)
blanks / Shatter (BAYNK, Martin Luke Brown)
US-20 in october / Big Smoke (Tash Sultana)
bleeding in, bleeding out / Humble Heart (Jess Ray)
suspension lament / Maranatha (Jackie Hill Perry)
ode to autumn / The Fall (Ben Shive)
but now i see / Explaining Jesus (Jordy Searcy)
bon-fire / Dream State (Son Lux)
crowns / Virile (Moses Sumney)
perhaps the sea / Dissolve Me (Alt-J)
wanton / Just and Just As (Penny and Sparrow)
and there will come a time / Be Kind To Yourself (Andrew Peterson)
burn on steady / Lift a Sail (Yellowcard)
bonus track / Into the Darkness (Drew Miller)

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pride (four poems)

mountainous

The mountains will always rise up before you as
castles to be crested, proving the gold in your veins,
cast on the earth merely for you to crumple into crowns.

They will always rise up before you, for their roots
run deeper than your ambition, their arms spread wider
than your visions, and you crawl across their backs

like an insect: planting flags to prove you are Significant,
you are higher than the peak, you are enthroned atop stockpiled
conquests. And then one day you will age beyond your ambition,

more quickly than the hills, who have waited long to welcome
your stillness, O crippled conqueror. They will open their mouths
and swallow you up, and get on with being mountainous.

four

I am unique,
just like everyone else:
a carbon copy of originality,
and some days I want to scream this
to the trend watchers and number counters:
“I won’t add up!”
I am me, meaning
no one else, so shove your labels
where the sun don’t shine,
subtract my numbers from the census,
write me out of your economy.

Until
I get lonely,
and take a number.
Because it’s kind of nice
to know there are others
just like you.

burial

But then he left
and we filled the hole in
like a socket in the soil.
We pressed the dirt down
and scraped the top smooth;
in hope,
we planted no seed but one:
a single stone.

It all keeps sinking further
as we strive to raise it up.
Perhaps it’s true, the only thing
we agreed on:
he could not be replaced.

So we water the stone with hope
that someday it will wake
and take on flesh.

ex nihilo

I made something, and it made me back.
I will one day receive again
the stuff of me I pressed
into the pages, letters sent across
borders from someone in my past,
the one I will eventually hide from the world.

Yes, I plan to hide
in embarrassment at being seen
as I am now,
young and full of it, brash and passionate.
I will one day stuff this young me into cardboard crevices
and pilfer it from shelves, relieving the world
of the burden of knowing me
undone,
for what else, when you are young, can you be but undone?

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fear (four poems)

full moon

The night descending
took me with it
into the long row, laid open
like a wound in the earth.
I wished to plant myself
within it, and knelt,
craving the coolness,

but then
the moon came peeking
round the corner of a cloud,
full and round as a belly,
and deep in me old hungers arose,
and with them the fear:
Must I always hunger?
Will I always be torn apart
by the cloak of flesh I wear
and the devil within?

I fear the night
not for its darkness,
but for leaving me alone with myself.

unleashed

It was all a dream:
the scrabbling at midnight,
three long scratches
on the glass, the crack along the frame
where the lock once was,
the splinters on the floor
next to his tracks.

It was all a dream:
the skittering along the floorboards
suddenly stilled at my footstep,
then rising in the walls to a fever pitch
until the paint crackled
and peeled back
before a million slender legs.

It was all a dream:
the rising shadow in the corner,
the tall one with holes for eyes
and long fingers pointing
at my children in their beds,
the widening grin, stiff and creaky
and rotating like a wheel.

It was all a dream:
the house emptied
of anything precious
except a single figure
weeping in the dark,
sinking slowly down
into the dark.

If only
I could
wake
up.

of the soul

For this one long night
Evil has its say,

Speaking
from borrowed lips
in a purloined tongue.

little light of mine

The merry scrape echoed
as the candle was lit
in the other room,
and my mother’s face hovered
with it into ours,
covering the cowering
with a blanket of light.
We huddled then,
together, pooling our little flames
into larger beams,
to wait out the night,

hoping
to be swallowed up
by dawn.

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meekness (four poems)

war

Could it be that being
is the greatest
act of war?

very serious business

Bend
lower, still lower
until your eye is level
with the little creatures.
Take note of their business,
the very serious business
of being
chipmunks, beetles, and ants –
your claws upon the furrow,
your nose to the stone,
sniffing for a snack,
filling up a home.

Maybe there is more up high
to being human,
but I think not.
These little ones know,
(by virtue of proximity)
that the earth is alive,
and how to live and die upon it
in the very serious business
of being
small.

needle tracks

I’m more comfortable
keeping company with addicts,
cozying up to junkies,
sharing needles
over stories passed
out like methadone –
a retreat from being better,
but knowing all along
the path leads inward past the scar.

Inside, I know who I am:
Can’t sit still in the pew.
Falls asleep in the alley.
Not suitable for polite company.
So I listen
to songs sung
by despondent drunks,
broken stories
worn by beaten-down ruts,
because they feel familiar,
like the tracks that I’ve worn smooth.

But I don’t,
really,
know all of who I am,
until I look along Your scars,
and see
an addict, yes;
despondent, true.
A broken child, yet
loved by You.

groundwork

But how will we come to know ourselves
except framed
by the place we have not left
or do not plan to leave?

It is in roots clutching earth
and leaves grasping sky
that we take hold
of our own heights and depths,
and know them all better.
It is by long lingering
in one place
that we begin to see it,
and ourselves by it.

Stay a while.
If you have feet,
sink them into this soil
and let the quiet dawns do their work.

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rage (four poems)

bon-fire

Before it got too dark to see
we gathered 
fallen leaves 
and snap-dry sticks

and tepeed them there
in the pit.

My father crumpled up 
yesterday’s newspaper, 
my brother struck the match.

With our backs to the night,
we gathered 
together, half of each
lit like the underside of a leaf.
We stayed
until the flames 
licked the bones
down to coals,

and spoke our stories 
over the ash.

let me love you

Oh, let me love you like the errant flame
that burns the field to ash before the wind,
a wand’ring knight with neither place nor name
except that which is given here to him.

And let me love you like the passing rain
that cools the fever in the furrowed gash.
A salve of justice choking out the pain,
a promise that the fire will someday pass.

But let me also love you like the sun
that drives its drowsy flocks to pastures new
and lifts the heads of those who live undone,
that they may enter in through gates of dew.

My love is still untamed, a trinity
of doubtful forces, yet He harvests me.

speak

When it’s wrong
do not withhold
the fuel that sets the blaze
to reveal
what it truly is
beneath the shine and glaze.

Do not hesitate, my friend.
Strike the spark and lay it deep
within the pile,
Let fury split the ash,
that what remains 
is only purer for the trial.

What burns within you now
but a joining torch
of the Eternal Flame?
Let all other fires falter
but the Holy One, the Same.

solar flare

yes, 
we carry fragments 
of the sun 
with us
into the void,

but
I am not God, 
and that makes all the difference.

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wrath: four poems

i. zeal for this house

I’ve been so long tending
this old fire in my chest,
that I forget what sparked it.
But it still keeps me warm
when I worry that
I might someday be wrong.

I’ve been so long raging
against things I couldn’t know,
like a line of cleansing fire
taking field and forest too,
like a pyre for the witch,
for the stranger, for the son.

I am angry at so many things
and none of them at all.
I can’t look straight enough
along the lines to see the source.
But I fear
it’s nearer still than all of these.

ii. look, the sky

Look,
the sky
is unfolding
like a magnolia blossom
and the long tender ears of corn
are reaching up and up
to touch it, bounty to bounty,
sea green to rose gold,
but this idiot
is driving five under
in the passing lane.

iii. wrath is a man

Wrath is a man
who is righteous
but was just told
otherwise.

Wrath is a man
who has never
lost anything
until now.

Wrath is a man
who loves for
what he gets
not receiving.

Wrath is a man
on the brink of
seeing himself
for the first time.

iv. whales and worms

I am too easy with anger
for someone with no control,
like a prophet
under a broad green leaf,
hands extended in
hope of brimstone warmth.

And the heat is in the word:
the tip of a whip
opening your cheek.
How is it that I pierce
this heart that I hold so close to my own,
beating
together after
the blow?
How is it that we ever recover
from these wounds?

Sometimes it takes
whales and worms,
sometimes different words.
Sometimes it takes long
and lonesome
to quench this flame
until you matter more
than me.

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gluttony (four poems)

“The storm, the blackout, the quiet sea
You went running right into it, away from me…”
“So Far, So Fast,” The National

maelstrom

He said then,
“Do not free me.
The sea is hungry,
and I have no strength to turn my ear
from the song upon the waves.”

As he spoke the lightning flickered,
mirrored in aquamarine.
“Do you hear it?”
And creatures moved in the deep.

When the rope snapped at last,
he looked long through me, luminescent:
“The call is stronger than the fold.”
And then he leaped, heeding
what he held
in his heart.

The morning brought him back again,
floating in the tide.
He never looked
more human
then when seeking
to be filled.

erosion

I want more
of Your blood, one cup is not enough,
and this book ended too soon
for my liking, I want 29 sequels,
spin-offs, and backstories.
And while we’re on the topic,

the life You promised me is hardly as exciting
as the one that I read about in the brochure.
The least You could do is show up
once or twice, a little fire in the night,
a miracle or two, a modern-day revival —
seems like You would be into that sort of thing,
at least, that’s what Your flyer suggested.

I guess if there’s not more than this,
I’ll have to take my business elsewhere.

floodplain

Falling down
is something I know.

It feels at home in my hands,
like the hungry fingers
of my children,
who also know it.

We are like rivers, I guess.
It is in our nature to go down, and down again.
and only when we are cupped in a hand
or folded into doughy clouds
is such a law suspended,
only when we fill
the thirsty earth.

Now is not enough
and never will be,
so we roll on to the ocean.
We wait to be lifted, filtered, fed —
to fall again.

golf-ball sized hail

We were standing in the line
for ice cream when the hail started,
so we hunched our shoulders
and endured
for the sake of
“two scoops peanut butter cup in a waffle cone, thanks.”

and it’s true,
we were made to eat and drink,
to like it,
but if I see brimstone
I’m out of here.

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envy (four poems)

envy_four_poems_angel

“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy)

i. set in stone

I envy the arciform angel
in the far corner
of the churchyard:
eyes heavenward,
lyre uplifted.

He watches the sliver of sky
between the belfry and the rectory.
His is a direct line to the lips of God,
the determination to see.
At vespers, he hovers over
the shuffling congregants,
wings reaching
to the way, an arrow eternally aimed
at the heart of God.

As I exit I too watch the waning sky
for a sign that flight is possible, and all I see
are
birds:
an arrowhead of geese,
a pair of wood ducks
(they mate for life)
and a solitary sparrow,
who nests in the angel’s ear.

I envy the arciform angel,
for though he will never fly,
he wakes to birdsong
at matins,
and is forever looking
into heaven.

envy_four_poems_starling

ii. starling

the morning after:
feathers of a starling
on the front lawn.
the cat snoozes sunward,
slit-eyed, in regal repose.

envy_four_poems_ostrich

iii. flightless

The wealth is in the wandering, they say.
I’m running far afield to prove them right.
I have no equal when I race the day,
not one to welcome me into their sight.

I see the insides of these piles of sand.
I’ll never see the sky the way you do.
I am becoming as the broken land,
and all because I know I can’t be you.

The flight is for the blest, not for the lost.
When sprinting, flying seems like but a snare,
for it is not a freedom at such cost:
a loss of ground for grasping at the air.

And yet I see the sparrow flying free
and wonder if he thinks the same of me.

envy_four_poems_phoenix

iv. caged

I got this bird from my parents.
I kept it well, enjoyed
sweet songs and rich plumage,
until it wasted away
within the cage,
dropping scarlet feathers
on the floor.

I had just looked
over the top of my book
when I saw it fall,
featherless,
and at the impact
it burst its bounds
with white-hot flames
and melted the metal bars
to syrup all over my rug.
Then it blasted the window to shards
and flew away.

I sat still and stunned,
wishing to own
what I could not contain,
and knew desire.

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joy (four poems)

i. nestling

I woke today
to scrabbling in the nest,
an irresistible urge
to leap.
In looking past the edge
of all I knew
I saw a vast expanse,
alive and impossible,
and in taking a lungful of it
I knew that
embracing air
was all it would take.

So I woke to the world,
I woke to the sky,
and I took it as it stood:
empty and full.
In climbing to its back
I spread my wings
and met the ground
violently,
like an old friend.

And I knew I could
never walk again.

ii. albatross

The battered beams below
frame fathoms of color, and I am
as one who paints – immersed
in another world. The horizons
spread like boundary lines
of pleasant places,
pleasant all the more
for the freedom to stay within them,
and I journey,
awash in aquamarine.

Paint me an ocean
of far-off hope, brimming
with white-caps,
ringed ‘round about by
luminescent creatures,
an end to the longing.

The current lunges
sleek beneath me, and I am
as one who fights – forgetful
of another world. I taste salt
filming like blood, the scent of
quickening metal,
quickening all the more
for the unknown dangers below,
and I am lifted,
awash with fear and fire within.

Guide me by little lights
above and below, dimming
only when consumed
by brighter joys. Set me
upon the wind,
that I may end.

iii. snowbird

If not for
seed flung aside
by raucous jays,
the winter
would be lean.

If not for
vibrant plumage
that draws the gaze,
the talons
would be keen.

Let me be
small and brown
and content
with thistledown.

iv. blackbird

It’s always spring
when I hear it – feathers in the wind,
the hollow-boned chirrup
of the red-winged blackbirds.

They perch
perpendicular
upon the weathered posts,
old boundary spikes
at the edge of the next field,
naked of wire and lonely
as a wintered heart.
They perch there,
like petals pinned to bracken,
a thicket of red –
and they sing.

I don’t remember the song
until I hear it, but I think
the lonely thorns
can’t help but
love the rose.
And I, a passing soul,
remember things I’d forgotten
and go forth
rejoicing
with the blackbirds.