Wadi Cherith

In honor of St. John of the Cross, today.

Wadi Cherith
 
Thin water ripples on the shingle,
shatters the sun, yellow sparkling
swells slap the dark strand and vanish
drawn into the desert heart.

You sit in the shadow of the overhang
and wait the word from on high
that tells you the mission has begun,
the time has at last rolled round
to begin whatever God has planned.

Had you known then of the prophets
of Ba'al, had you seen the challenge
of Ahab, had you seen the night cave
where you heard the sounds of God,
would you have fled? Running through
the desert like another madman,
another who would come to bathe
in the Jordan and cause others also
to be made clean.

                    And like another
who also would feed the hungry
with endless food from nothing?
     What would you have done?

          Isn't it better this way, alone
     in the desert fed by carrion birds
          and resting in the shade?
     Better the silence of God
     sometimes than His speech.

© 2002 Steven Riddle

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Ten views from a Summer Boat

Ten Views from a Summer Boat

Moonlight on the stream's
inky surface, whitewash waves
ripple toward the shore.

Mosquito harbor
the wooden boat
alone, broken ripples

The slap, slap,
slap waves
that have not
found their way

Where are you
in the flickering
night? Where now?

Rope trailing
weeds in water,
underneath all.

Even at night
even on water
shadows of shadows
whiteness worn to silver.

Wave
water and wood,
the gentle slip of oars.
Where are we?

Candle-gathered unknown
spirits, paper boats
from chrysanthemum night
suddenly spring dive
in the memory of the river.

It is said the poet drunk
reached out to embrace the moon
and found himself
wed to darkness
as how could he not?

Water washes reeds in still
slow eddies
In pools so quiet they
have the
memory of ages, water so deep
it bleeds.

[042803]

Chains of Desire

Chains of Desire

Desire-memory
of heaven painted on things
as we see them now.

Object of desire--sure sign
of its maker--Lord of life.

In not holding on
to things we know, need, and love,
we grow heavenward.

The sky is His-promise-blue--
beyond blue--no clouds--no rain.

Learn now how to be--
see--autumn sky, fall leaves--cool
promise of winter.

Desire--good as it seeks He
who is end of all desire.

Desire--ill wind that
keeps blowing as it is fed--
seeking self alone.

Desire teaches us good, shows
us how to see, be, and want.

I want the ocean
broad salt, the great rivers, I
want and do not need.

Desire stretches want into
need. It doesn't know its end.

Stalk the white egret
for its plumage finery
for a woman's hat

whatever we want becomes
the end to which we will go.

The heart's home, the warmth
of the breath breathed at the start,
Holy Spirit's flame.

How then can we know the line--
want and need, shadow and light?

Seek first the kingdom
and His righteousness, all else
comes to you through these.

But the human heart is trained
to want far beyond its means.

Trained to desire, chained
to desire--the will gives way
in the face of it.

So we must learn to not want
to have without having now.

To enjoy all things
both for themselves as they are
God's own goodly work.

But also to see within
them God's shadow. Taste God there.

Desire would hold you
bound, pining, dying not
for itself but for want.

Desire is the spur, the goad, God's
direction, arrow pointed home.

Love without keeping,
take without taking, gold chips
in the chilly stream.

Glint for those who come after,
for you, the moment God spoke.

Hear Him in every word,
see in every motion, not one
thing is without Him.

Desire calls us home-answer
and discover where home is.

[092310-2//043005]

Love Poem

Love Poem

where you were
you are not
now begins
time and our
minutes are
muted only
the space you
once filled speaks
in ways you
never did

your warmth is
absence your
whisper cold
your eyes my
comfort blue

[05052005]

Hear His Voice

Hear His Voice

I have heard His Word as spoken early
in the day. I have followed in His Way
as He says stay, wait awhile with me. See!
I am God indeed, the very seed from
which springs life, all earthly things that sing His
blessed name, that same name that seals open
lips with His seal and the real song that brought
forth all that is is heard. His name is made
holy when all creation, fallen and
redeemed intones as one, at once a lone
and plural voice, calling to all--Rejoice!

[051605]

Song of Creation

Song of Creation

You have heard, but have you listened? The tale
of the stork clatters out against the dark
purple of the evening, and this noise marks
the start of the tale. You listen but fail
to make sense of the story. The pond and
the wood are too distant, too alien--
the words cannot make sense. You see God's hand
in the lowering night, and wonder when
the Word He sends can be heard and heeded
by you, by those around you. You don't know
why the heron and wren know what's needed,
and men are so reluctant and so slow
to understand--the evening and the night
the stars, the moon-- all God's created things
Rejoice with a great glad noise, without shame,
Man alone pines, mourns, walks as though he's lame,
Til one Man returns to teach him to sing.

[052205-2]

Hosea 2:14

Hosea 2:14

I   I    I
allure and lead and speak
her her her
into the desert/speak to her heart

How do I hear you
when I am so ready to speak?

I have no ears for listening
when my heart is loading up words
that will spill-a cataract-out of the tomb of my mouth.

I stuff my head with the sounds
of my own broken words
like bottleglass on a fence top
they are enough to keep all out.

Oh my heart is full to breaking
full of myself, my thoughts, my ways.
It is not a tender place but a thicket
and forked and poisonous as an adder's tongue.

And still it keeps filling,
filling until bursting--
bursting completely
with my self.
Bursting with the poison of the self. 

How can I hear you over
the chirrupping, clattering, clanking,
drumming, roaring, droning,
humming, buzzing, chiming,
ringing, three-ring circus I call myself.

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Prisoner

Prisoner

Who knew
that so much
of who I am
and what I do
hangs suspended
in a leaden
cage that throws off
my center of
gravity?

[092210]

Ascension

Ascension
"Arise, alight, away, I must go
to help you. When here, I am hampered
by my presence, a single person
bound by body to a time and a place.

"And yet, I must be for all in eternity,
and as I arise, the light that is
love, unwinds for all who have a heart.

"This trace is more than a promise
its is everything that I make real,
wrenching it from oblivion and outer
darkness, damned by its own refusal to see

this light slashes through the deeper dark. "

II

When fleeing Pharaoh across fierce sands
they received a fiery funnel by night
and dust by day, that gave them life
and light and hope, the surety of safety
from archer and enemy, slaver and slayer--
they walked in perfect peace.
The train from God's temple had
slipped down to surround them, isolate
them as chosen children, people of the promise
saved and assured, the fruit of the firstborn,
destined to bring Him back again.

So when He ascended that train from the temple
dropped down again, and twined around us--
the certainty of salvation and safety in His shade.

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Water

Water

Isn't it
astonishing
that ice cold
or boiling
water has
appeal. But
at room temp
it's simply
necessary

[092210-2]

Raw Beauty

Raw Beauty

The heart is stunned
with certain knowledge of sheer
isolation from the source.

[091710]

This Heart

At the Heart of the Heart of Me

This heart at the heart
of me refuses to beat
instead prefers to slide and slump
and sit like a leaden lump
at the heart of the heart of me.

It bears no convincing,
no cajoling, no joy,
it turns its arterial back
on the world, and I feel
with a jerk, the twisting
at the heart of the heart of me.

At the heart of the heart of me
there is a blackened cinder,
all that is left when the Holy Spirit
up and quits the house, driven out
by years of use and abuse
at the heart of the heart of me.

This heart has no motion I can move
it cannot be stirred or pounded
run three miles and still it doesn't stir
at the heart of the heart of me.

Leaden lump, oh, my heart
what will make you move?

Neither lust, nor love, nor hate, nor beauty,
nor pride, nor passion, nor sense, nor longing,
nor hope, nor faith, nor long-standing grief,
nor storms, nor powers, not even God
Himself can squeeze this
fleshly fist and make it live.
For at the heart of the heart of me
I give no permission.

[083110-2]

Before and After--Disappointing World

Watch the poet at work trying to make sense of what he has scrawled:

Before:

Disappointing World

And so, now that the world
has shrunk to this pinpoint of light
and bright blue water
how do I make it big
again? How do I shift
Swanson-like to say
"The world is still big,
I've just bloated."

 
After:

Disappointing World


Swanson-like I say
"I am big, it's the world
that has gotten small."
And so, now that the world
has shrunk to this pinpoint of light
and bright blue water
how do I make it big again?


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Disappointing World

Disappointing World

And so, now that the world
has shrunk to this pinpoint of light
and bright blue water
how do I make it big
again? How do I shift
Swanson-like to say
"The world is still big,
I've just bloated."

[082510-2//072210]

Being Born

Being Born

I wait to be born
knowing as I wait
it will be a still-birth:
the mother of this child
is exhausted.

[072810]

Water Poems

Water Poems

I

If there is water
does it matter where you are?

II

Wherever I am sitting
if there is water
I am home

III

Blue light
lit inside
green glowing out

IV

Close your eyes
to see the color of clear light
as it breaks.

V

Over the shimmering mirror
a skin of water
ever almost silver sand.

VI

All my memories are water
the ocean,
the great lakes
rivers and streams
streams that flow to the clouds.

[082510-2//071510]

A Waltz in C# Minor

A Waltz in C# Minor

From Chopin you drew
your own breath, four sharps
you say, and your fingers
travel up and down the keyboard.
Days of work, days of revision
and now your own waltz
that speaks the way music
speaks to you.

[082510-1//081010-2]

The Breath of the Sea

The Breath of the Sea

is salt and live and blue
and flesh and fish and sand
and shell and gentle swell
and cool breeze and river-flow
of current and darkness and coral

[082510-1//080110-2]

Images of a Father's Love

Images of a Father's Love

I

My Papa's Waltz we read and watch
and know that Roethke's papa danced
him drunkenly around a room
and yet loves him in a way he
could not say--a way that made him
waltz each day in drunken stupor.

II

His small hand, even now, sometimes
finds its way to mine, and I'm made
speechless with the moment of it.

I would wrap him in water, roll him up
in clouds both white and grey.

[082510-2//081310-1]

Reflection

Reflection

At the wall
wide as water
flatter than
the summer
sky but not
at the mirror-
plane of silver

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