In Stillness Greet The Dawn

"In Stillness Greet the Dawn" Poems for Morning Meditation

In Stillness Greet the Dawn Daily Meditations Dedication Table of Contents

2

In Stillness Greet the Dawn

3

Sparrows

4

Alone?

5

Imprisomed

6

New Vision

7

The Seed

8

Does He Love Me Still?

9

I Thirsted

10

The Shack

11

Easter Thought - 1

12

Easter Thought - 2

13

Son Rise

14

The Cleansing Flood

15

Doing The Math

16

Zion Horizon

17

Three Times

18

The Stone

19

The Price

20

Cycles

21

In His Presence

22

Skin

23

Who You Ultimately Are

24

Rumination or Illumination

25

A Prayer

26

A Prayer

27

Deep In the Well of Disillusion

28

How Marvelous the Voice of God

29

God’s Promise

30

In Stillness Greet the Dawn

In stillness greet the dawn Inspire air Exhale despair Release the gathering throngs That just distract And counteract Your soul distilling longs By pierced hands That understand This train of trials we're on And what we face At such a pace For God's still on the throne Inspire Life Exhale strife In stillness greet the dawn.

3

Sparrows Little friends who visit my window sill, Shivering in the winter, Chirping in the spring. All life before you is set And implanted within you are all the tools You will require. I, on the other hand, must look for meaning, Must look for purpose, Am restless, vigilant, Constantly sifting ideas. Your quick little movements fascinate me, And give me pause: We share the same Creator. You, it seems, have learned to completely trust Him.

4

Alone? I thought myself alone My voice a mere moan Emitting from my cave Of loneliness... While thus enslaved The mirage You staved Saved, once again, This claustrophobe.

For thousands and thousands and thousands of souls Even this moment do You extol My voice a mere morsel compared to the feast That's offered up daily and laid at your feet. Significant? No, My rhythms and rhymes Are doomed to succumb

But just for this moment With souls in delight We all raise our voice To light up the night.

To the pressures of Time

5

Imprisomed The light imprisoned In this prism Begs to be released To breach the daily grind And with transcendent colors Shine

Reversing pulseless pallor's Grip upon this world Ending bloodless screams That all around us whirl Providing pigment needed For dreams to be unfurled.

6

New Vision Beyond the grasp of mortal mind You work unseen and though I'm blind And deaf and dumb to your true ways There is a part of me that prays To catch the smallest fleeting glance Of your true power, then I'd dance With joy at seeing my true source No longer from this source divorced. Alas, I must accept the fact My mortal mind has cataracts That keep my spirit's vision dim And though I focus straight at Him My mind picks up these strange distortions Tinting all with mental torsions So I'll pray new life begins When I receive a brand new lens.

7

The Seed The miracle of the universe Packed within a little seed And planted on Golgotha's hill A gift to all humanity Received God's wrath, besieged by pain, Enveloped in a deep disdain That poured from Heaven and from Earth It died ignoble with a dearth Of friends who faithful 'til the end Found the seed a resting place And mourning things that might have been Resigned themselves to ebbing grace But not for long for with the dawn A tree stood on the fertile lawn And branches reached into the sky Connecting Earth to Heaven's eye Who watched in favor as His Son Provided shade for heart's so faint And shelter for those wearied souls Whose way had wandered from the banks And desert dry now find their rest 'Neath spreading tree, by living well, The hearts now beating in their breasts Beat to a rhythm God indwells. 8

Does He Love Me Still?

Does He love me still I, who wallowed in the swill Swallowed Satan's pill Followed every thrill, I, ungrateful wedding guest Who beat upon my breast Demanding all the best, Who searched through all the land Failed to understand The gift of outstretched hands? Alone...I did return Atoned...my past was burned A throne...throws Light where there was nil Renewed With death of doubt I know He loves me still.

9

I Thirsted I thirsted There was wine Hopes bursted There was twine World darkened There was light Dawn harkened There was sight. In sadness Find relief In gladness At His feet Grow stronger Day by day No longer Castaway.

10

There is a shack lurking in memory Stiletto-stuck to corners of mind, Where wounds, unhealed, defy hope to enter The air befouled since love's light resigned. The door now shut with windows boarded, Darkness reigns in timeless tyranny, Shame and guilt and anger lorded, Hope and faith belittled, cleaved. Who can breach this stale estate Where failures thrive untarnished, drear, Where justice seems to deepen convictions Our just deserts are unending tears? One day a humble carpenter visits With ancient tools of mystic design, With painstaking effort slowly the Master Upon Himself takes the putrefied grime. The guilt, the shame, all on his shoulders, The dark, the dank, the endless delay, With Master skills He moves away boulders That blocked the Light of undefiled Day. His work completed, devotion restored, Tyranny ended, languor released, The shack now serv a shining reminder How Heaven can heal the most hopeless retreat.

The Shack

11

Easter Thought - 1 the very hands that held the scroll washed the feet broke the bread BECAME the broken bread the healing heart that spoke the words raised the dead changed the water BECAME the poured out wine the obedient spirit that anguished in the garden languished on the cross relinquished up his entire fate and future forever into the hands of his Father BECAME the mystery the Way designed for Truth maligned to Life assign ... to you ... and me.

12

He is risen He is not here

Easter Thought - 2

He is risen He is not here

The cross is past

So Hope's alive

But now brought near

Beyond the spheres

To all who bow

Of earth and sun

And call upon

And home and hearth

The One who hung

Where Light dispels

And died thereon

The deepest dark.

He is risen

He is risen

He is not here

He is not here

He's lifted spirits

And from beyond

Dried the tears

Our veil of tears

Eased the burdens

We thrill to think of

Shown the way

When we'll hear

Released the bonds

That He is risen

And freed the slaves. And He IS here.

13

The silent giants pass in the night, Influence unseen, but gravity felt, Invisibly pulled by these spiritual spheres My soul seems suspended as offers are dealt. A promise of plenty from yawning abyss That Vader-like calls from the planet of Self, A path for ascending my personal throne To rule as I will with my pride left unknelt. This path is a crowded, well traveled route, Invitingly paved with promises long, But while I am packing, preparing to leave, My heart hears a distant, winsome song, A song from the ages and pages of time, A song of decidedly different plan, It calls for the actual dying of Self That's ruled ever since The Falling of Man. It calls for rebirth, a New Creation, New hope, it promises, now can be found, It calls for reunion with the Father, The breaking of Bread, a cross and a crown. The planet of Self invading my dreams Dissolves as an incubus, darkly devising, Fading with early morn's offering of beams, I throw open the window and see the Son Rising. 14

Son Rise

The Cleansing Flood These old ears have heard an ancient voice

Surely I'M not responsible for all of my mistakes!

Stating the choice:

Forgive if you seek forgiveness

Forgive if you seek forgiveness

Release if you seek release

Release if you seek release Well...OK… God, PLEASE...its not that simple Life is complex now

I release anyone who has ever hurt me

Interactions need to be analyzed,

Knowingly or unknowingly

Compartmentalized, systematized

I release all against whom I

And sometimes sanitized

have held a grudge

Don't you tune into Oprah and Dr. Phil?

I forgive, I do.

Forgive if you seek forgiveness

Immediately I said this - it hit me

Release if you seek release

A crimson spatter at first

But God, I was born with a bad temper

Then a flood

And then there's the bad upbringing

Ecstatic immersion

And what about the bad breaks?

In a saving sanguinity.

15

g n i Do

T

M e h

h t a "Life is the increasingly rarefied experience of the beautiful."

LIFE = BEAUTY

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know and all ye need to know."

BEAUTY = TRUTH

I (Christ) am the way, the truth and the life."

_____TRUTH = CHRIST____

CHRIST = TRUTH = BEAUTY = LIFE

16

The highway leading to Zion A mirage? A whimsy? A flimsy deduction from a desperate mind? A product of traveling too long in the desert With withering winds that beggar and blind? Have you not known the burning sands The insatiable longing for pastoral lands The call of a castaway deprived of escape The plight of plethoric plebe reprobates? Ignited, the questing refuses to die, Intrinsically weaving its way to the eye, Projected from there by retinal lamp It colors the landscape and there encamps, Awaiting an answer.

Zion Horizon

In morning dew, before the dawn, I tiptoe out on waiting lawn Then lying down and resting deep Entrenched and drenched from head to feet My thirsty soul now finds relief My vision clears and sees the street That stretches on beyond this day Through desert lands and disarray To crocus blooms designed to cheer My focus zooms and sees no fear But only joy at Zion's end And peace in knowing In timeless flowing It's just around the bend. 17

THREE TIMES

TIME TERRESTRIAL

With ticks and tocks And millions of clocks Dividing our day

TIME CELESTIAL

Spoken of old

Another matter

And transcending itself

With momentous clatter

Where all things are new

Of galactic collisions

And thus a wealth

And atomic divisions

Of wisdom's bestowed

With nuclear scatter

On those laboring beneath

Taking millions of years

A terrestrial burden

But looked on as brief

And fleeing time's heat

For stellar careers.

As this ageless kingdom

Like curds and whey

Predating the stars

All nicely displayed

Sends Word to The Earth

With minutes and hours

And now bears the scars

Wielding the power

A terrestrial reminder

To rush us to work

Of celestial import

Or hurry to bed

Though Time slips away

We are wed

It still waits in this Court.

To Father Time.

18

TIME VATICINAL

The Stone

I have been a stone But He can make even stones sing, Or use them to build a shelter, Or hurl them to break down a wall. The wail of my will has been stilled, A tsunami tide from the fall of pride Devastated my house of cards, In shards I lay broken But the mystery encoded From the beginning of time Refined what remained And restored my soul.

19

My sin stood there naked Alone Stripped of excuses Devoid of veneers Convicted and conflicted In a sea of guilt Unatoned. Nailed at the point Where truth and justice cross Left to die. I unleashed the cry of the lost Then listened... Echoing from a timeless realm, A Man in anguish, overwhelmed, A willing victim of a verdict Not his own. My sentence was transmuted. Set free from a sordid past I stand aghast And gratefully bow To the One For whom death was undone, Who hung upon the tree As the nails of my iniquity Disappeared Into my heavenly home.

20

The Price

Spring it has sprung as frost has been wrung

Cycles

From mornings through which the crocus were peeping Forests in bloom and meadows well groomed Grant boon to the bees and birth to the sneezing. Life full of wriggling, growing, amassing, Elongating days with short shadow casting Temperatures rising and daylight providing Fuel for frenetic intrinsic dividing Of those cells comprising this burgeoning mass A wildly unfettered frivolic morass. But what next? This laughing, cavorting and sensuous song Continues as days grow increasingly long But equinox passed and solstice attained The raucous disorder just seems to wane As order returns, the solar friend burns, But not nearly as brightly and foreshadows fall, Then death and decay insist on their say And cold winter's grip puts an end to it all. The waves of life, peaks and troughs, Forever they're found washing over the earth, Am I just some flotsam along for the ride Tossed to and fro since the time of my birth? But, Oh!, what a ride! It's been quite a journey The heights, the depths, the moments so still, The times the waves were waves of rapture Sent by His hand, aligned with His will. 21

In His Presence I: Called and enthralled Installed in His presence I shook and shivered Quivered. My sins: Naked, alone Should have been stoned Who will atone? I groaned. Love: Such an outpouring With blood, underscoring The ancient prophet's Predicted adoring. The LAMB: Fresh from the slaughter His blood on the altar I rejoice with the Church He bought Her. Skin

22

I: Returning, discerning My life full of yearning Is now full of Spirit Burning.

The interface of skin and air Holds more than beauty secrets fair Cells stand guard, arms interlocked, As heat and rain and sleet are blocked But underneath this bold facade

Skin

Behold! a living esplanade With winding, weaving, narrow streets That hustle life to head and feet Daytona burns and winter blasts Attempt to pierce and then slip past

Far across the reach of time

The layered, locking ranks of cells

Protecting Man in every clime

That work so hard to threats dispel.

And echoed in our family tree

From time to time a layer sloughs

In time, this sloughing's passed to me

When tour of duty's deemed enough

For generations gone before

Then junior guards march front and center

Have held the line and watched the door

Set to seamless service render.

Protecting Life still beating there

Protecting Life still beating there

Ensuring progeny a share

Ensuring progeny a share

And though they're battered where they stand

And though they're battered where they stand

Its worth it for the little hands

Its worth it for the little hands

Just learning how to reach and hold

Just learning how to reach and hold

In time, the guardians

In time, the guardians of the Gold.

of the Gold. 23

Who You Ultimately Are Who you ultimately are Not a scar Of a tortured childhood Not a marred remainder of society's detritus Not "just" a checkout girl, a delivery boy, A nursing home resident...a streetwalker You are the embodiment of a divine declaration Robed in garlands of grace Gifted by hands that are willing to pull you up Offer you bread Wash your feet If I had eyes to see your true nature I would bow before you...and your divinity For He is in you.

24

Rumination or Illumination Rumination Or Illumination. The endless chewing on secular cud Vernacular crud Mendacious mud Or The endless viewing of transcendent light Increasingly bright As world takes flight And with it...night.

25

A Prayer God May I be hidden in you Splintered from view Rendered anew. Christ Please take my hand When I struggle in sand With nowhere to land. Spirit Please set me afire With crystal desire As sights are set higher. Life Let me come to enjoy And with Son employ The gifts of this voyage.

26

A Prayer Heavenly Father, I lay before you my checkered past Vast are the voids where I worshipped self Where I walked alone, But bones are weary and spirit sore The Door...is it still open Is there room for one more? Is it too late to walk The Galilean shore?

27

Deep in the well of disillusion I sit and suffer in silent surrounds Nursing the pain of palpebral contusion A black eye reminder of things above ground. Life knocked me down, I didn't get up, I withered and slithered and sunk in this hole, And now I find that I'm feeling quite stuck Not relishing living the life of a mole. How could this happen, things were just fine, The job, the spouse and even the pet, So what if I skipped over matters divine, Those things never mattered, at least, not yet. I fight with this subterranean thinking In low lumen vision, with no human friend To lend me their light of comprehending To lift me to heights and sorrow suspend. Perchance it's really the perfect arrangement And all that's required, the single task, The simple solution to end this estrangement "If you would receive, there's a way...just ask!"

28

Deep in the Well of Disillusion

How Marvelous the Voice of God How marvelous the voice of God As delicate as unfurling pea pods As loud as a thundering herd And as sweet as a child that is sleeping...undisturbed. How marvelous the heraldic hands That formed all the beaches, all the sands, Tickling our fancy and funding the feast Fermenting to wine, our souls, with His yeast. How marvelous the chance to obtain An audience, then join the refrain With Him who holds no disdain But bends low to hear those who whisper in pain.

29

30

31