Tag: poetry

A Woman’s Role

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Poetry15 Comments

 

 

Mary II

Without opening the door

the curious host

let the Teacher in.

Beside him the once-dead man,

having left his grave clothes on the stone,

reclined to dine.

 

Beside the calloused feet

of hungry men

the sister flitted

with bowls of ripened fruit,

slabs of risen bread,

platters of spiced meat,

pitchers of waiting wine.

 

In the doorway

the listening one,

emptied of darkness,

loosed her hair.

 

With no authority,

no covering,

no office,

no documents,

no priestly garments,

no holiness of her own,

she broke the box,

poured out her adoration,

and anointed

the King of Kings.

 

(The story of this dinner party is told in John 12 and Mark 14)

But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim
the excellencies of him who called you
out of darkness
into his marvelous light.

(1 Peter 2:9)

 

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Night Vision

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Poetry9 Comments

Painting: Night Vision, acrylic on canvas

This poem goes with the painting “Night Vision” of a woman dreaming on a crystal sea under a night sky full of lights. It uses the imagery of the lovers in the Song of Solomon and also makes reference to the story in the book of Hosea of a man who keeps rescuing his unfaithful wife. Ishi is the old Hebrew word for husband/saviour/hero. Through the prophet Hosea God tells his people there will come a time when they will call him Ishi and not Baali (master). The ancient Hebraic written symbols for seer are a wall, a cutting implement and an eye. For kindness they are thorns, a cutting implement, and a door.
Night Vision

Come away with me,
her lover calls.
He peers through the lattice;
he tosses pebbles against her frosty window.
Arise, my love, my chosen one
and come, come away with me.

The winter is past; the sleet is gone; the flowers lift their heads.
The season for singing has come.
Leave your compass on the desk;I am the way.
Our secret place lies in the rock’s cleft.

She stares through the glass darkly.
Ice shatters her view.
Where are you, Beloved? Where are you?

She rises, lifts the bar
and crosses the threshold on freshly washed feet.
Behind her ears, the white wolf,
descended from the city’s seven mountains,
accusing
cursing
threatening
yelps as his howls
meet the linen fence.
With her newborn eye she cuts a hole
through the thinned place in the thorn wall
and climbs into greater truth.

A pillar of lilies awaits her.
With one look you have ravished my heart, he whispers.
See? I rend the curtain of heaven
and like a gazelle leap the hills for you.

Let us swim in the sky, fly under the sea.
Come dance with me, my bride.
We are like children spinning amid the galaxies’ swirling skirts.
Together, let us puzzle the pieces
adding breadth and width and depth and height
until you sit at my side,
the earth our footstool.
Your eyes will hear.
Your ears will see.
Your fingertips will taste and know that I am good,
and in the language of the Spirit
write of colors you’ve never seen before.

Her lips move gently with the mouth of sleepers.
Ishi, my breath, she breathes.
Ishi,  my hero.
Yeshua

Yeshua

You may feel some discomfort

On By Charis PsalloIn Poetry, Uncategorized5 Comments

Photo: ceramic dome

(Inspired by a Learning Channel video about a Canadian surgeon who taught brain surgery to doctors in a tiny Russian clinic. The patient was required to be conscious in order to participate in the procedure.)

 

You May Feel Some Discomfort

Perhaps I had my eyes closed when your assistants bashed

my horizontal chariot through the swinging doors.

I didn’t see that sign.

Just as well.

If I had known

the surgery you intended to perform

(removing the run-away tumour of mal-formed thought)

required me to be awake for the procedure

I may have searched for an alternate practitioner,

one who would anesthetize me

with framed platitudes hung beside

hand-penned personal testimonies

of painless probes

and joyful function (temporarily) restored.

I would have,

at least,

googled the back pages of ancient pdf-ed medical knowledge,

or youtubed reports of accidental new age discovery,

or followed the links to a parallel universe of  pharmacos deliverance.

I confess to some disrespectful misuse of your name

when the raucous drill began its breakthrough,

(can you really buy those at Walmart?)

but once my thoughts lay open before you

I merely concentrated on

raising my arm

and opening my hand.

Thanks for letting me rest

as you reassembled my humbled dome

(and for being careful to leave room for expansion).

There.

Done.

Invader gone.

Mind renewal.

Thank you, God.

You’re good.

Very good.

Dappled things

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Photo: Lungwort and bee

Being a bit of a dappled thing myself, I have long appreciated this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Pied Beauty

 

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

As a mother

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Just folks, Poetry3 Comments

Photo: Preciousbaby's foot charis

Mother’s Day can be horribly painful for some people.

I held more than one sobbing child in the big rocking chair during the darkest nights of their little lives. More than once I heard, “Why doesn’t my mommy love me?”

As a foster parent my own heart was torn up by the pain of little ones whose mothers chose alcohol or drugs over their kids, and with one exception all of the 24 children who arrived on our doorstep were there because their mothers’ own pain left them with nothing left to give. In the midst of drowning fear and emptiness they forgot their kids. It was hard to forgive them sometimes, but I realized that a person can’t give what they have never received, and these moms needed to be loved themselves.

God understands that too.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget,

    yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)

None of us were parented perfectly. Even the most outstanding mother in the world has moments when her own deficits get in the way. That’s when Abba–Daddy-Father God, our Mother, can fill in. The Bible speaks of his gentle nurturing motherliness –something beyond gender.

For thus says the Lord:

“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,

    and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;

and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,

    and bounced upon her knees.

As one whom his mother comforts,

    so I will comfort you;

    you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;

     your bones shall flourish like the grass;

and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants,

    and he shall show his indignation against his enemies. (Isaiah 66: 12-14)

More than a foster parent he adopts us and makes us full heirs. This is why I love adoption. It is a picture of being chosen and of lives redeemed by a perfect parent –without age limit.

Sometimes he also uses someone else with skin on to be an agent of this grace.

Paul wrote: For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed— God is witness.   Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.  (1 Thessalonians 23: 5-8)

A few years ago I wrote a hymn for Mother’s Day recognizing God as a mother and thanking him for all the “mothers” –biological, fostering, adopting, step-parenting, hosting, caring and mentoring (regardless of gender) he has put in our lives who have nurtured us in some way.

As a Mother

As a mother, on whose bosom,

rests a child in total trust,

so, oh Lord, You love and comfort

‘til our earth-bound fears are hushed.

As a mother guides and teaches

little children to obey

so, oh Lord, you firmly tell us,

“Listen child to what I say.”

As a mother waits with weeping

for a child who’s gone astray,

so, oh Lord, You wait with longing

‘til we find our homeward way.

As a mother who rejoices

when her child says, “I love you,”

so, oh Lord, Your heart rejoices

when we sing, “We love You too.”

We, your children, come before You

to give honour and to praise.

Thank you for the precious “mothers”

who have shown Your loving ways.

Help us, Lord, to love and nurture

those entrusted to our care,

‘til as one united family

we will live together there.

(suggested tune setting: The Welsh folksong, “Suo-Gan” )

God is good.

Where were you?

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Poetry, Sky, Uncategorized3 Comments

Mourning

I cry, Oh God! Oh Christ! Oh Jesus!

Where are you when the ones who say
they speak for you –those who squeeze us,
press in on every side, demand
that we respect authority,
obey their rules, come (cash in hand)
to hear their words, as only they
have got the regulations straight at last?
Where are you when the weak are hurt,
aggrieved and stumbled in your name?

Don’t you see what they have passed?

I sit entangled with the chords
of bitterness around my feet.
A plant blows over on the boards
that fence me off from outside world.
The petals scatter on the grass
and now the gust of wind that swirled
their frail wings in electric air
becomes a greater blast of rage
that showers ashes in my hair.

Flash tears the sky –breath rent apart,
and splits the veil of one who mourns,
with lightning striking to the heart.
Deep groaning rolls across the vale
from craggy peak to worn down ridge
and rains pours down –beats down in hail.

The sun withdraws beneath a cloud.
and saplings hang their weeping heads
as thunder rails against the proud,
who dare to claim the earth their own,
–and in the woods from hill to hill
creation echoes back the moan.

My tears obscure the sky from view.
Oh God! I cry. God! Where are you?

My child, I hear.  I weep with you.

(written during the struggle)

Letting Go

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Mountains, Poetry, Sky9 Comments

And Forgive Us our Debts

Nothing left to give.

Look into my empty sack,

my empty jar.

See my cold black torch.

How am I to live?

I cannot pay back what I owe

‘til I get payback for my lack.

And they took it.

They squandered it.

They spent my joy on riots.

They spent my innocence on games.

They threw my peace on the bonfire

and danced around it.

Let go

I’ve squeezed my eyes until they bled,

I’ve held my breath

until my heart pounded on death’s door —

still I cannot disappear

into the disheveled dirt bed

And here you are

–and you want more.

How dare you?

How dare you, God?

How dare you?

How dare you shove

your saber hand into my chest

and divide spent spirit from sullied soul

to reach the hissing python.

Let go

I can’t let go!

It’s only anger —

it’s only hate

that coiled around my crooked spine

enables me to stand up straight

and curse them!

Let go

Aren’t you gentle Jesus

meek and mild?

Go take your love to some purer child.

And stop that!

You’re hurting me!

Let go

They poached my song!

They caught my rhyme!

They raped my soul!

They took my time!

They grabbed my mind

and jammed it on a fearsome pike –as a warning.

They took my gates forever.

I’ve damned the light

and sealed the sash

with dark green plastic meant for trash.

What good are thickened walls of stone

when the door’s been burned to ash.

Let go

The bill’s right here;

I have kept track.

My hands will tighten ‘round their necks.

My hands are strong —

they’ll not be slack

‘til I get everything I lack.

Give it back!

Give it back!

Give it back!

Let go

You let go!

I’m offended by this “loving hand”

that feels more like a gunshot wound.

Let go

I can’t let go!

I won’t let go!

I don’t want to let go!

They owe me!

Let go

Help me.

Let go

You know if I let go it will kill me.

I know

It’s hard.

I can’t fill your hands until you empty them.

Who is going to help me?

I am.

(This poem was written about one of the toughest steps in healing from chronic depression  –forgiveness. To me forgiveness is about letting go of legitimate debts owed me and allowing God to supply my needs.)

Hamartia

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Poetry1 Comment

Hamartia

The snake asleep lay cold and hard,

Deposit of forgotten age

My path crossed its eroded rest,

determined by sequestered rage

How long it takes to bear without

the pain that wears so deep within

I stood atop the withered bluff

and nudged the heart of willful sin

I cannot curse you, man of dust,

for pain that keeps the truth from view,

for all alone on bitter hills

I have killed Him, too

The Woman at the Well

On By Charis PsalloIn Neither animal nor vegetable, Poetry11 Comments

The Woman at the Well

My soul longs for you as a parched land.

The memory of honeyed smiles crumbled

and caught by the wind of too-many-words

has scattered among the freeze-dried roses.

Dust fountains, flowing with artificial love

choke the living well,

and like the foreign woman

I have poured buckets of dirt into cracked clay pots.

Sir, give me this water,

this living water,

that I might not have to

come here again

to lower my craving

into the dark well

alone.

Jesus often chose to reveal profound truths about himself to women first. He ignored a lot of cultural taboos. The revelation of his true identity to a lone woman at a well in Samaria is one example. I’ve heard so many sermons about this woman and her five husbands and the one she was shacked up with who was not her husband. Across the centuries she is still judged as being promiscuous -and probably seductive.

I knew a woman who had been married five times. I admit to some curiosity as to how she managed to snag five men when I had lovely, talented, caring, single friends in their forties and fifties who had not yet managed to snag one.

Then I met her fifth.

Well, let’s just say anyone could catch one of those. Most people with sense would have taken him off the hook and thrown him back in.

The thing about the cultural norms Jesus was defying is that they were different from many of ours. We don’t realize how revolutionary his relationships with women were unless we understand how disrespected and powerless they were in that place, at that time. Women could not choose to divorce. Men chose to divorce. A provision for divorce was made in the Jewish law so a rejected woman would not starve. A divorce allowed another man to claim her as property so she wouldn’t languish in poverty like many widows in India used to, for example.

If the woman at the well had five husbands and another guy, it’s because she was either widowed or rejected five times. The most common cause for rejection was sterility, a source of shame in a place where women were treated like cattle. The likely reason for her to be at the well alone in the heat of the day was not that others considered her a tart, but that she considered herself as damaged, rejected goods. The guy who was not even her husband was probably at the end of a line of very poor options.

Her astounding boldness demonstrated by running back into the town to tell everyone about the man who told her everything about her life at her Messiah encounter speaks of the change of identity Jesus is able to impart. He is not unaware of our reality; he does not reject us for it, but he offers us a better one.

Encounters with Jesus, the real Jesus, the living water, cause us to see ourselves differently. When we understand who he sees us to be, we can leave the craving for identity behind, run in new freedom and make a difference in the world.

Christ Came Juggling

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Trees and forests1 Comment

I love this poem by Eugene Warren in The Risk of Birth edited by Luci Shaw

Christ Came Juggling

Christ came juggling from the tomb,

flipping and bouncing death’s stone pages,

tossing those narrow letters high

against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.

This Jesus, clown, came dancing

in the dust of Judea, each slapping step

a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen — that chuckle in the dark,

that clean blast of laughter behind –

Christ comes juggling our tombs,

tossing them high and higher yet,

until they hit the sun and break open

and we fall out, dancing and juggling

our griefs like sizzling balls of light.