God’s Presence in Your Life?

Who? Whoever it is I’ve shrugged shirked
cringed avoided
too big for me

Not fear, not friendship

Tolerant mutual avoidance

Polite refusal to mention certain arrangements:
            suffering
            my own tendencies

So many subjects to avoid,
            and not much room for conversation,
            a lot of conversation killers,

though sometimes thoughts align
                        to a thank you
                        to a howdy-do

Your Relationship with God?

Disappointment,
                        definitely.

Father / cipher
                        factor in an equation beyond my grasp.

The president of the presidents

Silence of things when they suddenly appear

A generosity maybe

Energy left over from brute mechanics

Sometimes in Scripture starkly human especially
                        when I see the stretched body in a tree

A figure latent in all landscapes

Parts of You That Need to Be Put to Death?

Well.
            Fishy, compromising, mealy-mouthed...

Do you believe a word of this?
Don’t trust a word of this.

Is this what you want?

Tell me what you want,

you

                        Reader you.

And grant me
            grant me please
            this:

            that I am earnest,

            tone deaf but
           persistent

As the Angel of the Lord Commanded Joseph

Trees along the Taconic sheathed in ice,
ordinary from a distance then at a certain angle

on fire, electric in light

that is all in the angle, the hour, the slant,
a sight soon gone in the ongoing

            So Joseph hears the angel quote Isaiah—
            Behold: the virgin, etc.—

            and decides the child
           will be Emmanuel.

            He’s taking Scripture
            in a surprising direction,

            but the angel was the permission,
            the angle, the instruction:

                        elaborate.

These poems were written in response to the daily readings from Meeting Christ in Prayer.