I was sitting in a lecture on prayer, which has been very moving and exciting, and she was nearing the end of her lecture, the lecturer, that is, and I was thinking about my desire to speak or tell someone about the insights I had been gleaning from this lecture. Then an image came into my head, to describe the way I was feeling, and I immediately flipped to the back of my notebook and ripped out a page and began to write, and the images and music, the structure and, well, the words, kept flooding, until I had this poem in about two minutes. It's very exciting when this happens, but it's never happened this rapidly, and with such a complex and integrated poem.

I have words

I have words
Waiting to cry out
Waiting to scream and wail
Through weeping sing.

We know that words
Wait in worlds around us
Looking like the shafts of light
To settle in the movement of my soul
Like rays that lend a gracious hue.

And I have words to the Eternal
And though they came from me they came from You.
Once waiting on Your dwelling heart
They wait on You
Through groaning truth
And ceaseless praise.

Here are a few more poems that I have written since Bible School started.

Written Oct. 9

Lord, You have set my mind upon Your thrown
My heart upon Your glory.
From where else can my hope be found?
You have set my soul upon Your steadfast love
My body on Your Sabbath’s endless rest.
And You have set Your Spirit on my spirit.
You’ve unearthed joy to seal my very soul.

Here’s another. Oct.11. If you have questions about this one, I’d love to answer them…it’s about how God really put a lot of my spiritual journey into perspective. Very pivotal, to make a huge understatement. Here goes:

My spirit was embittered
And I wondered if Your word had
Once or ceased to light my path.
But then You laid me in green pastures
Let me see the quiet waters
Living waters which You used to light my way—
Like Asaph in the comfort of Your temple,
Which I know in me You’ve made—
And then I understood.

Like Moses, You have made me stand,
But You lead me in Your promised land.

And one more. This isn’t spiritual, in the faith sense. I’ve been listening finally to some heavy Rachmaninoff. It was funny actually, the other day it was work day and the women of Capernwray were going to clean our rooms..so we set out tea and cookies and chocolate for them to consume while my “Tea Time” playlist of classical and romantic music played on. They loved the music, and lately I haven’t been able to put the piano concertos down. Anyways, here’s the poem, inspired by his second concerto in C minor, the best key.

Piano Concerto

Rachmaninoff bids the whole world listen
With brightness hope, with sorrow sing.
Each conjecture glowing in its fermentation
Beweeps each melody to its grave.
In wrestling we cede our sighs.
In rest our aspirations writhe in pain.
Sweet glints of specters vibrate in our bones
And we, entrenched in darkness, glimpse
That passed climax
The denouement
That zenith spent.
What souls behold no mind can breathe.


In other news, I have had delicious Yorkshire pudding two days in a row now, and I finally sent off my absentee ballot, with the help of a charming English lady who couldn’t believe I was from California because of my “very clear diction.” One more vote in the bag for my old baseball coach, and a presidential nominee I’ve never liked, and the propaganda mail didn’t help…READ the book of Exodus…it will change your life!