Doubt

When doubt feigns discernment, he dons his holy robes and steps into your path, politely urging you to reconsider things. And if you don’t catch him, he’ll debate forever the validity of the road you think to take while you forget to walk at all.

The Ilakoman Vale

Beware the Ilakoman Vale. There’s something in the waters there— As sweet as honey, strong as ale— That clasps our souls, enchanted there. Beware the Ilakoman Vale. Beneath Beluren’s crowning peak In fields where wilder-poppies grow, They say one hears the valley speak just where the ancient waters flow— Beneath Beluren’s crowning peak. Come […]

Like an Ocean

Life is one long ocean strand just touched by the horizon. It surges, swells, and dips like dells, and presses ever skyward. – Reaching shores unrecognized, it slaps against a castle then swishing foam, retreating home, it heads for open water— where whirling wind betrays the calm in gusts and squalls and lightning, and ships […]

On Changing Minds

False virtue boasts undying constancy, entrenching roots in soil she did not test. She lifts her shield against the burning sun and shoots her views like arrows from behind the walls that stand against all diff’ring thought. But were not minds designed to grow like trees? To stand as strengthened by the light of truth? […]

Justified

Your grace Fell like snowflakes On my dirty heart. Now, as if covered in snow, My heart Is white and clean.

A Good Conversation

The softened light that spills into the air, The scent of coffee rising from your cup Will fade away as we unlock our minds To roam together in the air between— Invisible until our thoughts emerge Like building stones upon each other laid. We watch the walls jump up to greet the sky. We run […]

Swapping Orbs

The year will end in shards of shining glass— the days of life now known, now longed, now lived; the crystal balls once full and promising now gone; the good and bad spilled out along the ground. And even as the final, shining sphere is dropped our hands are stretching, surging for the new. For […]

Our Emmanuel

One word, God spoke, and light blazed forth— The day and night beginning. With words He spread the farthest stars And set the earth to spinning. With words He brought to life the beasts Of earth and sky and sea. But with His hands He shaped the souls Of first humanity. Chorus: Adore the […]

My Lot

The puddles shine like glass on dampened, trampled trails; the rivers run each day where the forest stays and stales— well fit, they say, for me. But I can hear the sea. Perhaps the pond that rests among the browning hills? The crystal lake that skirts the mountain’s cedar frills? Enough for all but me […]

Medieval Advent

The frost lies hardened on the frozen ground, the trees encased in glassy slips of ice. A lonely raven calls across the field of silent white. The air is fresh and hard. I stand outside among my fields and look down at the rows of dying, stubbled corn: the husks of harvest—gone until the spring. […]