Photo: Brian Federle, Desert Sunrise, Dec. 2016
I, John, declare.
Listen!
Can you hear?
Open your eyes and see.
With outstretched hands reach and
proclaim to the world of endless strife
the Word of peace,
eternal Life!
ref: 1 John 1:1-4
(22 December 2011)
i
When I last saw you
Your hands were clenched
With a rage foreign to your voice
And you were rushing inward
Away from the moon, beyond the glowing
night
Of my grief.
Yet on my way home
I saw the moon rise.
Where have you gone, then, If not
to that land behind the moon?
ii
In the emptiness above the earth
In the terrific clashing of jet with atmosphere
I heard your new voice
I saw your new hands
Tearing at the cold, hurtling steel,
Casting off silk shroud
For dark soil
And even darker rivers.
iii
If stars loom too large
Is not my window too small?
(11/24/1978)
A voice said, “Cry aloud!”
and I said, “But what shall I cry?”
Shall I sing to the people
a song of spring,
hills aflame with green,
dry grass igniting
with joy?
In darker days,
when the high meadow fell fallow
and flowers of the valley
dried to dust,
I thought you’d turned
away, took your giving hands
to other lands.
Despairing, I wept,
stung by tears
from angry Hell,
and doubted
your love.
Oh, forgive me, pity your child
and make your enduring rain fall
on the riotous grass,
on the bold crocus
and passionate
rose.
Photo Brian Federle: On the Pacifica Path, 2014
Photo Brian Federle: Mendocino Sundial 2016
falling sun, life swarming
in the liquid light
as I gaze west, through trees,
over houses, over slatted-fence,
towards the waiting, unseen sea.
a foraging bird drops to my mown lawn
(taking note of my still form)
and pecks out her meal…and flies away.
My apple-tree bends towards heaven
new leaves unfolding;
surely it will be leaf-full by Easter!
so I’ll wait for the world to turn
yet another slight degree, for the lines
of golden light to lengthen towards me
and then end in gentle night.
Photo: Tree in Desert by Brian Federle
“What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is not wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid, and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion.” Thomas Merton
I’ll wander with you
in our pain.
Though dry days
and star-drenchd nights
we’ll search the sharp rocks
for pools of cool tears.
Forty days and
forty nights shall we journey
through the wilderness,
to the green oasis
where we’ll flourish — audacious
lilies in hidden springs —
and there
we’ll possess
every good thing.
(13 Oct 2012/ revised 7/31/2018)
Photo: Brian Federle, San Francisco Homeless, 2014.
Gazing into bright desert space
we see endless highways, distant
mountains we never reach,
sharp hills, steep cliffs
receding
as we move closer,
closer,
to the pacing sun,
creasing dark canyons,
casting amber light
into the gauzy sky —
yet our dark dreams trouble
the faint stars; the reeling planets
throw wide nets over
our haunted, lost souls
when, morning at last,
we begin again,
pursuing the tumbling edge
of this turning globe
believing that
it will never end, will never
end,
will never
end.
Photo: Brian Federle, Sun in Clouds, Hawaii 2016Clearing the tallest
eve of the big house,
the sun overwhelms.
Then the mockingbird chants
intricate psalms —
All praise to the
lord of the sky
and with glory
fill the land!
Photo: Brian Federle, “Camping” 3-25-2008
the green glow
of our cottonwoods
newly clothed in the gentle April sun ….
our apple tree,
still skeletal,
intimating cotton buds
promising green glory to come,
and the grass!
all winter-yellow evaporated,
shouting like a
third-grade leprechaun
skipping across the playground
in the school’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
but most unforeseen,
along the rough fence
the vinca
blazing with royal light
in the deep, verdant shade
of our cottonwoods.
(12 April 2010)
Photo by Brian Federle: Seagull, New Brighton Beach, 2009
“Once we enter again into contact with our own deepest self, with an ordinate self-love that is inseparable from the love of God and of His truth, we discover that all good develops from within us, growing up from the hidden depths of our being according to the concrete and existential norms laid down by the Spirit Who is given us from God. “ Thomas Merton, The New Man
Go beyond
the surface
of things,
deeper
than thin soil
fecund
in the rain,
but dried to dust
by the summer wind.
Dive head first
into the darkness;
have faith
that someone
will catch you,
that you will
spash into
a warm sea,
that a strong hand
will reach out
and save
your life.
If you wait
for proof
you will find only
a solid stone
at your core.
Death
is like that…
facts dash
your brains,
bring you
to the edge
of nothing.
But faith
will lift you
beyond
your limitations,
will bear you up
on golden wings,
make of you
the Royal Ordinate
of time and space
and you will dance
to the music
of the spheres,
as without fear
you reach out
to your Beloved,
the Abscissa
of the soul.
**********************************
Author’s Note: In mathematics, ordinate refers to that element of an ordered pair which is plotted on the vertical axis of a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, as opposed to the abscissa. on a graph, the “x” coordinate rises or falls on the vertical line, but never moves forward. Alone, it is doomed to fail, to fall to its eventual death because things that do not move forward always die. But with its abscissa, it has forward movement… purpose… life… and can continue to soar into the ether. I am not good at math but quite good at seeing things.
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