The Floating Lands, a song

And you sweep me off of my unsteady feet
With the rising swell and the falling waves
Of your floating lands
And I can’t see over the coming crest
But you never move as we drift along
On your floating lands

I’m floating on
The ocean of your love for me
While waves of joy
Are washing down and drenching me

And the waves bow down to kiss your holy feet
When you lift your voice to calm the surging surf
Of your floating lands
While the current of your perfect will
Moves me a long as we ride the tide
Of your floating lands

I’m floating on
The ocean of your love for me
While waves of joy
Are washing down and drenching me

I can no longer see
The shore we left behind us
And I still haven’t seen
Just where we’re headed for
But the wake of where we’ve been
It stretches out behind us
And only you can say
When we’ll reach that distant shore

I’m floating on
The ocean of your love for me
While waves of joy
Are washing down and drenching me
I’m floating on
The ocean of your love for me
While waves of joy
Are washing down and drenching me

On Lazy Days, a poem

I don’t do well with lazy days.
The slouching silhouette of guilt
That lurks down the dark alley
Of all that idleness haunts even
My best efforts at languid luxury.
The rarest lazy day of all
Never brought the spender
Gilded, glorious works of art
Or sonorous symphonies celebrated
Or mysteries uncovered
Or any of these deepest longings
Of my heart that only blood and sweat
And unwept tears can buy.
Rather than spend them instead I’d invest
And live a fecund prodigal
Off the burgeoning interest of these
Unspent lazy days.
              And so I have, and do,
Until the Holy Hand of the Uncreated Word
Comes settling to rest
Gentle and warm to still my every striving.
Not even Adam in Paradise, it seems to say,
Had to earn his unproductive Sabbath.
His only duty, on the first day of the rest of his life
Was to enjoy a perfect precious day off.

Batter My Heart (Three Personed God), a song

With gratitude to John Donne

Batter my heart, three personed God,
Break my spirit down and build it up complete
O, Batter my heart

Ravish my heart, Three personed God
Take my life from me I lay it at your feet
O, Ravish my heart

I long to know you Lord, I long to see your face
I long to find peace in the shadow of your grace
Break me bend me mould me mend me make my life anew
Teach me to let go of what holds me back from you

Cleanse my life, O lamb of God
Wash me clean and let your Spirit enter me
O Cleanse my life

Take my life, O Lamb of God
A slave to you that I might finally be free
O, Take my life

I long to know you Lord, I long to see your face
I long to find peace in the shadow of your grace
Break me bend me mould me mend me make my life anew
Teach me to let go of what holds me back from you  

Psyche and Eros, a poem

In the back corner of a cluttered gallery
Of the Louvre’s treasure trove
Stands, or rather swoons in ecstatic recline,
The glorious marble embrace
Of Canova’s Psyche and Eros.
Each arching inward toward the other
Reaching, longing, lingering
For the tenderest of kisses never to touch,
Each gazes mesmerized eternally
Into the stone-still face of their beloved,
While iphone-wielding tourists clatter past,
Hunting for trophied selfies with the smiling Mona Lisa.
Few if any, linger long enough to admire
How close they came to consummation,
Before the knowing of each other
Sent them spiraling apart forever.
    The day I saw it,
Young and longing for my own Psyche
To awaken in the arms of its dear night-shrouded Eros
(To hold her gently in a pose so passionate
As to be almost painful.)
I couldn’t pull myself away.
And though the thought that I was seeing something
Even Psyche ought not have seen
Caught in my throat like shameful fire,
I stood and stared, rapt with wild wonder
And burning holy with desire.