Poetry

You who are looking only on the surface of things know there’s a world beyond what this one tells you. The secret within the mystery: dive into the well you stand at the edge of, pearls glinting on the bottom. Go on. Prove them wrong...

In burst of light, in rent of sky, the undead shall see it—hear the trumpet cry! Listen, I tell the mystery: We will sleep not, but be changed all. Trumpet! In a flash! In a twinkling at the last. For sound the trumpet will, and the dead will: Be raised imperishable. Be changed!...

In the space between elements, distilled to the core, the individual is sifted. Valuable extracted from worthless, turquoise and iron from carbon—the unformed diamonds we might yet become. Yield under the heavy hand that brings the crushing!...

Divine the internal river, flowing inside your praise. Sense it, man, a buried gusher, black as oil in the vein. But first, this small matter of access: You must tap the source with your own hands. Tell me, why is the pickaxe still in your belt?...

You’ve come through flame, that’s why you’re glowing. Don’t be so alarmed others speed to your light. It is the soul smelted down that has proven its worth. In the same way, you cannot buy compassion but must carve it, heart-shaped, of your own flesh. Your furnace is their freedom—burn!...

You felt nothing coming, a horizon of sameness that pushed your heart into the ground like a seed. Little did you see the tendrils rooting outward, green and white with expectancy, all the hope you had to lose to become. Is the kernel bursting open a death, or an orchard of apples out of winter?...

The heaviness you feel, a weight of gold on you, embroidered purple on that mantle you’ve always admired, what I am giving you. Oh, sure, it’s a drag, carrying an other-worldly burden that requires the full participation of heaven to bear. Such increase comes to those who obey the hard way, what would kill a lesser man...

Wandering through a barren decade, thirsty the entire time, I didn’t realize sweetwater springs were there running, subcutaneous and dormant, beneath the skin of my mind. Foolishly I thought water was a surface thing, available to all, when rather it is divined by those tuned to a finer frequency...

Get up on a high place, stop only at the top. Near me on a rock, I’m passing by. See the back of me, don’t look away...

The secret is, see, don’t stop when you hit rock. Hit back, hit harder; hit with your head until you become stronger than what assails you. Ha! What assays (tests) you likewise assays (proves the gold in) you. Be both definitions...

I am learning: Stillness is a colour and rest is a place. Do not be hasty to leave the green room. Stay awhile, he says. Sit with me. Let us hold silence in our mouths and taste the centre...

Follow my example as I follow the example, holding to the Christ teachings. It is the Lord’s Supper you eat; for as you eat each of you goes ahead. Received from the Lord, I also passed on to you—the Lord Jesus on the betrayed night was bread and He (taken, given, broken) said...