Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Angels in the Sky

There is something so amazing,
so breath-taking
about Christmas
that it is difficult to distill it into words.

But that is the way it should be.
Christmas.
The day we celebrate the moment
our salvation was born
and given to us.

Before, we were like shepherds
in the fields
going about our meager lives.
Then wow!
Angels in the sky,
a multitude of them singing.

They not only sang, they spoke, they announced
the birth of a king.
When else has a king’s birth been announced
to anyone
in such a manner?

Never.

The shepherds were wowed, terrified, and
at that moment, their whole lives changed.
They knew it, and they ran.
They left their livelihood, their sheep, their home.
This thing that had happened imported life.
Nothing else mattered.

The good news! brought to them, and
nothing else mattered.
A king, a savior, the Messiah, the anointed one

God with us, the amazing good news
God—the creator
God—the healer
God—the provider
God—the one who loves us
God—came and nothing is the same anymore!

Table Rock Charge Fellowship and Prayer Meeting

The three came together
to break bread
and pray

Amid the disasters, floods,
famines, dysentery, mental breakdowns,
deployments, plane crashes, churning seas,
goodbyes, flipped SUV’s, depressions, chemo,
empty pockets, and the other cascading terrors
of existence

There was joy
Unbelievable as that sounds
There was joy

Since the three came together
broke bread
and prayed

Friday, November 04, 2005

Winter Reprieve

Semi-Inspired Musings

The caw, caw, caw of a coven of crows
sprinkles the landscape in mock aggression.
Toby ahead on the path, trotting in Z’s,
nose bouncing to the ground, grinning his dog grin,
tongue extended, eyes as bright as a brown marble in sunlight.

What does he smell?
Rabbits, turkey droppings, deer tracks?
He lingers over a matted clump of weed, momentarily motionless,
then on, blazing the trail.

I sit down in the warmth of dead grass shorn close to the earth last fall,
the loamy scent familiar,
and upon the jetty of river bolder, the chugging of rapids
cast a spray of fresh fragrance, icy damp.
I breathe it in and am thankful.

Give Attention

When an angel appears in your presence
give attention
for it may be Good News he brings

When a new star adorns the night sky
give attention
for it may be the light for the darkness

When a virgin gives birth to a son
give attention
for God may come anytime

Thursday, April 28, 2005

We Have Stood

We have stood the harvest,
the cutting away from the earth.

We have stood the picking up,
the stacking, the drying, the bending
the breaking of our bodies.

We have stood the congregating,
the laying down,
the crushing from clomping feet,
the calamities of the curse.

We have stood becoming
a pure powder,
our brokenness mixed, molded,
privately, publicly, and then
panned together, a perfected people.

We have stood the Holy fire,
the kindling, the match,
the conflagrating heat,
the flesh scented smoke rising skyward.

We have stood the hot, hot oven
triple digit degrees,
the baking, the broiling,
the fixing solid of our parts.

We have stood,
alone.
Yet now,
we stand together.

One loaf,
blessed, broken and given
from the Master’s hand.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Thea (tea)

hot, iced, honeyed, lemoned,
cupped, capped, mugged, lugged
over hills in burlap sacks, sorted

dried, crushed by the other, dark
skinned Asians alive in
valley tenements twelve to a room

tatami mat unfurled, a red carpet,
red satin slippers padding, tiny steps of
a gashed red mouth in chalky face

ganga smacked junkie, chasing a
dragon, mouth smoke and
lungs sucking Acapulco gold

skirted scabby-kneed girls and teddy bears
with tin cups and teapots, cookies
on a wide platter, munching

biscuits and tea keep growling
from the royal belly of
Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, 1

who conceived for afternoon
at four, unknowingly led to
Cop Killer2 and death

for new thought hemlocked
in time numbed from feet
up to a Celestial sky

high on Teaberry, sweet
juicy teeth chewing chi
black, barley, and green

from racing clippers pulled to port
Cutty Sark and Stornaway,3 slant-eye
wabi-sabi inhabits Camellia leaf on bush.





1. Began tradition of afternoon tea in 18th century England.
2. 1992 song by rap artist, Ice T.
3. Mid-19th century clipper ships that competed in races from China to the London Tea Exchange to be the first to action tea cargo at market.

Khaki Man

What did Daddy do

when he caught his hand
in the cornpicker? His thin
baby finger healed with less
than half a nail. He trimmed it
with a pocket knife sitting
on a blunt-hearted tractor
seat.

He was a khaki man,
in shirt, pants and plastic
panama hat that stood up
to storms.

He classified the trees
and lay on cold ground pointing
to constellations he learned navigating
to war-time ports.

In hot July he drank russet tea
from a Mason jar and breathed in—
herbicide from the weed sprayer.

He toured his last lima
field, felt the wadded sod and
fretted for rain. He died
wearing a diaper in his
granddaughter’s bedroom,
blind to the blue dot
wallpaper Crayolaed
with corn stalks
and brown beetle bugs.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Gentile Daughter*

She whispers in a foreign tongue
and crawls the base of the garden gate
like a cornered bitch, at home among
the stench and stone. To congregate

she crawls over the garden gate
to dance naked on the road
tapping stench and stone to congregate
with Satanic hosts, as if she owes

a naked dance on the road
to unclean spirits and other
Satanic hosts, unaware she owes
nothing, not soul, nor mind. Her mother

for unclean spirits, another
priest she prays to find
to free the soul, the mind, the mother,
finished with remedies so unkind.

This priest, she prays to find,
is a Jew from Galilee.
She’s finished with remedies, the kind
of fire and flogs, amulet and poison tea.

She finds the Jew from Galilee,
who walks on, ignores her plea, her ache,
offers not even fire or flog, amulet or poison tea.
He shuns the dog, for children’s sake

and walks on, ignores her plea, her ache
“Just one crumb,” she begs, head hung,
“for dogs shunned for children’s sake,”
she whispers in a foreign tongue.






* See Matthew 15: 21-28 as reference.
(The form of this poem is Pantoum)

He, the Bread

I cannot see him in the morning mists
as blind to hope I’ve found myself to be.
What grace is there to open eyes to see
if love at all in this garden exists?

Here earth weights stubborn as sour grapes amassed
on vines that grow from soil of rock and rums
where wheat and rye a seedless chaff becomes
so parched of rain that fruit produced can’t pass

as food good for any use. Yet, from this bed
a meal is formed intended for a child
to eat and drink as open eyes be formed.

It is a bread broken, but blessed instead,
a wine pressed out as from a vein so mild,
love’s nourishment that clears the mist of morn.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Keepsies

At 6:30 a.m.
the darkness impedes the light still
yet morning has fired through
my sleep, a bully shooter
scattering my dreams like marbles
they roll beyond the boundary
of my consciousness
where a rough knuckled fist
scoops
and pockets them

I’m clouded
I can’t remember
my crimson swirl aggie or
from whom I snared my last mib or
the circle where I sported and nudged
and lagged and plunked

Now in the dark morning
my senses perceive only a hint of
those alabaster glasses
which once inhabited me and
befriended me and
were as known to me
as the night

Across the barren land in march

tree, stick of frail arm and swollen rusty digits
standing, a mourner amid the dead
musty forest floor, littered, brittle leaves
curled like empty cocoons
field, sucked dry, cracked in angling lines,
pits where blood of grass and grain
seeped away, leaving behind the
withered blades, bent and broken
pond, ripple free, all life
sleeps, forgotten, in Sheol

and in three days,

a reverie of sound, wind chimes,
beneath my window alert me
the spirit is moving, blowing,
God’s Marching Wind,

Oh!

Spirit of resurrection

the fierce Grace of Him
who is not dead
awakens His creation
to live again

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Jedidiah's Brother

Tiny suckling body cradles a fever
of unforgiveness, then succumbs.
The passion of a king was loosed
in the Spring, when lambs are born
and lie, their coats slick and glistening
like oiled olive skin.
The blameless bred lust and riled
rape into being.

Power’s prerogatives are covert.
Innocents are pierced without
recourse. From dying lips a question
escapes. How many lambs
are required for redemption?

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Bust of Wisdom

…where there is doubt, faith…

The book was placed
on a slant-top pedestal
like a Grecian bust
of Sophia

I decided to take inventory of her
checking from many, (though
surely not all) angles

Dragging a wooden stool
from the nursery, I step up
to peer down onto the top
of her marble head—so hardened
was the surface, I discounted there was
anything beneath that was worth gathering
a hammer and chisel for—and step off my stool

Squaring off face to face, I stare into the contours
of her inanimate eyes, the unbreathing nostrils,
the unspeaking lips

this illuminates?!

In a last effort, I whisper into her
stone ear, hoping, praying that
Sophia will hear, and by some miracle,
wake up,
react,
reach for me,
reveal herself,

but she does not,

so cold is she,
even a nod she doesn’t extend

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Enemy Camp

Here in the enemy camp
my hand is bulleted with
small cups
indentions from grasping
rosary beads over the last hours
in which your heartbeat has slowed
to an imperceptible drumming
even softer and slower
than the tick of my pocket watch.

I think of the years I’ve listened
to the whisper of breath you
drew and blew into the nights
as we spooned
like matching ladles in the soup.

For months I’ve been amazed
how vividly my memory has videoed
your face as on hot summer evenings
when we groaned together,
you above, me below,
our hands clasped together
as you rode about on
our carnal charger.

The ruminations that occupied our lives,
the hours spent hashing out the details of our days,
our speculations and ciphering over long-range finances,
the wonderings about the exaggerations of the enemy,
our prayers in the midst of conflicts,
all these our quiet mortars of resistance.

I’ve held the ramparts for too long
watching the end encroaching,
our territory threatened,
the space allotted to us by the Timekeeper
plinking away like the sweep of a Sten gun.

Maybe, my breath will cease just when yours does,
and maybe, my heartbeat will stop.
Embracing we’ll retreat
unseen from this fire line of days,
go together
far beyond the enemy’s battlements
and build a bulwark impenetrable.

Winter Window

Before prayer meeting
they fidget and scurry
together,
the minor Tit-mice perch up front
on Oak heavy arched-backed benches
looking like scholars in their peaked hats and dark-
distinguished suits.

The Blue Birds scramble around
in the spotty brown grass gathering the naughty
Juncos, the belligerent Robins, and
the wild Jays, standing them in lines and
daring them to back talk.

The Nuthatches are in the fellowship
hall, making coffee for later, and plopping
seeded cookies on round platters for the
visiting Cardinals, and the Downy
Woodpecker, who drops by on occasion.

The Goldfinch choir is in the
choir loft warming up and
bickering over the placement of their
chairs, the temperature of the room, and
which Amen should be sung at the close
of His sermon.

Then at the peal of the gathering
carillon, which some have said,
sounds like
the rush of a mighty wind,
all are inside and seated,
even the black-capped Chickadees
have sneaked in
through a crack in the door.

And when He arrives,
all are awed and behaved, because
the expanse of His wings
fills the whole house.

Monday, February 28, 2005

If I make my bed in Sheol

A frightened widow
hung on to her son,
her broken heart,
her tears unceasing,
while darkness approached,
invading and dimming the light
he shone

and the darkness suffered
until the heavy purple clouds of heaven
wept and gave water
that mixed with the son's blood
and washed in variegated rivulets
through his matted hair,
down his stripped back,
around his bruised breast,
across his bear loins,
over his pierced feet,
a whelping flow which
poured onto the dry, hardened ground,
and sunk below its brazened surface.

Even below,
where no light had ever shone.


©Judy Eurey 3/04

Saturday, February 26, 2005

God Talk

How many languages does God know?
Does he know Tai, Lapland or Congo?
Does he know French, Welch, or Chinese?
Can he speak in Portuguese?

Does he talk to a storm,
and to the bees when they swarm?
Can he converse with a dove,
and explain the ways of love?

When tornadoes roam about?
Can God command them to leave out?
Can he tell them what to do?
Can he make them listen too?

Does God speak to the snow,
and tell it exactly where to go
And what about the gentle rain,
can he speak its perfect name?

Does God answer the wind’s low moan,
and calm its fears and take it home?
Does the blue of the sky
speak to God and he reply?

Through ceremony and wedding vows,
does God merely stand around,
or does he whisper into ears,
that love can last a million years.

And what about the angry man,
who holds a weapon in his hand.
Can God make him understand,
that hate and death aren’t His plan.

And in the dark of a Hospice bed,
when our prayers have all be said,
and there’s no strength to utter words,
does God speak, and is he heard?

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Surrender

"I surrender all. I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all."

the notes trail down, down, down.

It’s like saying to me, a voice,
from somewhere far away,
"Give me all your money
give me all your food, your house and all its rooms.

I want your talents,
your voice, your pen,
your time carved out for yourself,

I want your thoughts, your friends, your lust,
your 401K, your car, your clothes, your children,
your husband, and your ministry."

"You don’t need them at all,"
is the whisper.
"Give me the key, too, the one to that room,
the one at the corner of your heart, the one hiding
the you, who,
no one sees (but me)."

The Voice sounds like mellow oil
being poured from a vessel of alabaster,
white and hard. I sense its sagacious fragrance
seep down through my soul, a caressing
not unlike my lover’s.

My mind rushes
and questions
and cries
and flees
but the Voice hastens closer,
closer,
until I feel the presence of the Voice
echoing within the recesses of my fractured heart
whispering at the crack of the closed door.

Deliberately I steel beneath
the Presence
knowing that if only
I remain as I am
I will silence the Voice into retreat

Then I will bathe
in the milky presence of myself
washing away the slick of
fragrant surrender.

Monday, January 03, 2005

Table Rock Charge Fellowship and Prayer Meeting

The three came together
to break bread
and pray

Amid the disasters, floods,
famines, dysentery, mental breakdowns,
deployments, plane crashes, churning seas,
goodbyes, flipped SUV’s, depressions, chemo,
empty pockets, and the other cascading terrors
of existence

There was joy
Unbelievable as that sounds
There was joy