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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

RETROSPECTIVE

        "Were not our hearts burning within us
        while he was talking to us on the road?"
                    -- Luke 24:32

-- You know, Cleopas, I really did think there was
    something . . .  well . . . compelling . . .

Yes, yes. How when we rounded that last bend
    and the setting sun fell full on his face
    . . . an illumination . . .

-- Oh well, yes, I suppose. I was thinking more
    of the way he bent toward us as he
    spoke, almost prayerful in earnestness and . . .

Prayerful?  No, no, surely not! He exuded strength,
    authority. He told, not asked. He commanded,
    he . . .

-- How can you say that? He came to us gently,
    with questions. Don't you remember how he . . .

Ah yes! Questions. Each one designed to reveal
    the power he alone wills to wield.

-- So then, my astute friend, why did you not
    see and say who he was just then?

I almost did, I think.

-- Almost did? Amost did? You were as blind as I,
    and well you know it.

We saw him different. That's all.

-- We always have.

And maybe always will.
  

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

DILEMMA

Someone once told me that whenever he hears a siren he pauses for a few moments and offers a prayer in which he calls to Heaven's attention the emergency situation and solicits divine protection of behalf of whomever the vehicle is heading for as well as the driver of said vehicle (or vehicles as the case may be) which struck me as an admirable thing to do and so tried it a few times myself wondering if it did any good for the people involved or if it merely made me feel virtuous and also if in the case of a police car chasing a perpetrator I should pray for his escape or his capture (or hers as the case may be).

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

THE HOUSE

The house they moved to when
he was two sat at the top
of a hill and was called,
he later learned, the Temperance
House. Years back it had been
an inn whose owner found Jesus
and threw out all his
bottles of booze to the chagrin
no doubt of his formerly
pie-eyed patrons.

At three the house cribbed
a sister. At four he and she caught
whooping cough but survived.

There were more rooms than
they had things to put in
and he was told never to go up
to the fourth floor. He did not
ask why not. He was not
at the why-not stage (that came
later) but one winter afternoon
he climbed the cold back
stairs and looked at the empty
floors and discolored walls
and shadows in the corners
and began to believe in ghosts.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

NOMINATION

I propose an award:
    "Most Unnecessary invention of . . ."
No, change that to:
    "Stupidest Invention of the Modern Era."

I also have a nomination:
The Leaf Blower.

Yes, its roar is irksome
and yes, it gobbles fossils;
that merely makes it a pollutant,
not a stupidity.

But if you've ever spent a sunny afternoon raking golden contributions from backyard maples into a hip-high pile and then thrown yourself backwards into its feathery embrace . . .

well, then you understand.