Poem For An Endangered Planet

(On the occasion of the 2019 U.N. Climate Change Summit)

SCRIPTURE FOR THE DECREATION

Let the white bear hunt a new home.
Its home hold no memory of place.
Let the swelling bellies of oceans sink shoreline
in wild jaws of hurricaned bays.
While hurt whales weep for the coral collapsing
like dust.

Let burning eyes fix on red embers of forests.
The black soil abandon scarred fields.
Let heated plains harden like crusts of old bread
and blossoms cry out for the bees.
While hope fails in houses on highways surrendered
to dust.

Let the meltwater mountains go numb in their nakedness.
Let wind wail the dirges for earth.
In the snap of the bones of the shattering ice sheets
let listeners at last learn the words.
While birds ask of butterflies stricken, directionless
as dust.

Then let those who can, when rain pounds like punches
and marshes march into city streets
to meet rivers gray with the gathered grief,
stagger from stunned vehicles,
cross the drowned doorsteps
and recall, as the split wood its tree,
that they are dust.

^{Copyright ©2019 by Andrew King}

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Easter 5, Yr C)

GOSPEL WITHOUT WALLS
(Acts 11: 1-18; John 13: 31-35)

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. . .” – Robert Frost

Some One there is who ever loves us all,
whose grace declares none of us unclean,
in whose life and death barriers come down:
Jesus is one who doesn’t love a wall.

To love our neighbour, near and far, our call,
and more: to love as Jesus loved, for that,
he stated, truly marks his followers.
Jesus is one who doesn’t love a wall.

And this Peter discovered in the fall
of a rigid prejudice held so long
only the voice of God could shake it loose –
our Lord is one who doesn’t love a wall.

May this, too, be our vision, seeing all
as God sees, undivided by our fears,
resentments, our old sinful selfishness,
God-graced to share the gospel without walls.

^{Copyright ©2016 by Andrew King}

Last Sunday Of Epiphany – The Transfiguration (Yr C)

AWAKEN US
(Luke 9: 28-36)
“. . .but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory”

Awaken us.

Awaken us in the fall of the snow, the drop of the rain,
      the crash of the rolling thunder.
Awaken us in the song of the bird, the laugh of the child,
      the gentle hug from another.

Awaken us in the flick of the fish, the leap of the fox,
      the lean of the weeping willow.
Awaken us in the sift of the breeze, the lift of the hymn,
      the gift of a bed and pillow.

Awaken us in the peal of the bell, the coffee’s smell,
      the feel of running water.
Awaken us in the starlight’s gleam, the hot meal’s steam,
      the flash of the diving otter.

Awaken us in the eagle’s flight, the mountain’s height,
      the joy of the talk with a friend.
Awaken us in early morning calm, the medicine’s balm,
      the quiet of evening’s end.

Awaken us in the sip of wine, the warm sunshine,
      the colour of leaves in autumn.
Awaken us in the caring word, the truth that’s heard,
      the fragrance of spreading blossoms.

Awaken us far, awaken us near,
      awaken us with your story.
Awaken us from where we have come to be here,
      awakened to all your glory.

^{Copyright ©2016 by Andrew King}

Poem for The Sunday Lectionary (Pentecost +17, Yr B)

THE LOVE THAT EMBRACES ALL OF US
(Mark 9: 30-37)

The light is passed from face to face
as if from flower to flower
as children, hand in hand, race
to greet the one in whose embrace
the smallest finds acceptance.   Power

is not so often used to serve the weak,
the under-valued vulnerable,
the helpless. But Jesus seeks
his followers to bend to serve, speaks
of being welcomed among the little

and the least; welcoming the very One
who sent him. Have we yearned
for greatness? Here it is, among
these shining faces; and in Christ’s gentle song,
the love that embraces all of us, unearned.

---

Image: JESUS MAFA. Jesus welcomes the children, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Pentecost +16, Yr B)

AND THOSE WHO LOSE THEIR LIFE WILL SAVE IT
(Mark 8: 27-38)

I opened the curtain this morning:
the sun was giving itself away
with a brilliant smile.

I walked by a stream this morning:
the water was giving itself away
with a gentle song.

I greeted a friend this morning:
joy was giving itself away
with the warmth of touch.

I thought of your cross this morning:
how you gave yourself away
in holy love.

May I become such grain this morning:
living in what is given away
for another’s bread.

A Poem For My Father – III

PICTURES
(Robert M.C. King: April 9, 1926 – August 7, 2015)

A friend told me once how, waking to her house on fire,
she and her husband grabbed the photo albums first.
She said, “You can replace everything but memories.”

At your visitation, Dad, we had the photo displays
and the Powerpoint slideshow, a few of the pictures taken
in your younger years: you in your Boy Scout uniform,

delivering a speech at the Boys’ Parliament, a few
of you as a young husband and father, ever smiling,
your blonde hair wavy and full. But most of the photos

were post-polio, the hair all but vanished but not your smile;
there you were at weddings, graduations, reunions,
posing with dogs and grandkids, wearing the paper hats,

enjoying every party. Good memories. But what I would
have given, Dad, had I the power of omniscience,
the power to have foreseen this day and event,

to have hidden a camera inside my pocket on just one
of those Sundays you preached in our little village church,
the light from the pink and yellow windows falling

on your blue choir robe as you went from pulpit to choir
and back again, your limp not slowing you down,
your voice lifting clear and strong, the notes

for your sermon scratched on scraps in pencil;
the moment, if not the words, etching into my mind
where no fire of distance, no flame of time,

can ever diminish such memory’s pleasure.

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Pentecost +7, Yr B)

THE APPROACHING
(Mark 6: 14-29)

Lamp light catches the edge of the sword
just before its swing
and for an instant John has
a memory of sunlight
dancing on water
and droplets glittering in air
as his hands poured Jordan
over the bowed head of one
who, standing there,
has brought all hope
into one sharp focus,
and he smiles,
his heart already soaring
toward the approaching dove
as the blade begins to descend.

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Easter 2, Yr B)

THE EASTER BREATH
(John 20: 19-31)

In the upper room, in the evening,
we meet to talk, the doors all locked in fear,
spirits low, defeated hearts still grieving,
the empty grave upon our thoughts, and here,
where he washed our feet, broke and shared the bread,
his painful absence seems the more defined.
Though Mary says that he’s no longer dead,
shame, despair and fear still haunt our minds.
And then: the voice we thought we’d hear no more –
it is the Lord! We see his side and hands,
and he gives us peace, and words that restore
our hearts, that lift our heads, by which we stand
with strength: he breathes on us and says, “Receive
the Spirit.” Lord, we do. We believe. And breathe.

^{Copyright © 2015 by Andrew King}

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Passion Of Christ, Yr B)

THE HANDS OF THE PASSION
(Mark 14:1 – 15:47)

I tell of the hand, its suppleness, strength,
how it performs every wish of our thought:
subtlety to smooth and shape wood, clay, paint;

and by its powers great structures are wrought.
With the hand we salute, we show caring,
kindness; the hand undoes the tangled knot,

lifts the fallen and helps the ones bearing
the heavy load; the hand the instrument
of holding, releasing; keeping, sharing –

whatever it is that our hearts have meant
to accomplish. Consider then the hands
at work in this story. See the pair bent

to pour the perfume on Jesus. It lands
fragrant, filling the still air with rich breath,
gift of tenderness to one whose commands

had healed many, but for whom, she knows, death
looms. From hands flow love. But hands, too, clutch greed,
cruelty in their fists. See Judas, met

by the chief priests in the grip of their need
to be rid of Jesus. Judas’ hands reach
for the coins of betrayal. He will feed,

one of the twelve, at the table, where each
will protest steadfastness. See their hands dip
with Christ’s in the bowl. And what does it teach

when Christ’s hands break bread for us, when the sip
of the cup handed round is his blood? When
his hands wash our feet on their dusty trips

through the roughness of the world? Can we learn
forgiveness from his fingers? Or will ours
be the hands of injustice, those that spurn

mercy: swords waved in the garden, glowers
of fury on faces, hands tearing clothes,
hands striking, abusing him through the hours.

See the guards hang on him a purple robe.
The hands whipping. The ones placing the crown
of thorns. Words and hands conspiring as goads

as he stumbles on his way up the hill. Down
the long years we have seen what they did there,
the hands swinging hammers, nailing his own

to the cross. But see, with the curtain’s tear,
God’s hand at work too: the cross is the way
to salvation. At last with Joseph’s care

hands are tender again, and thus display
again the heart’s power to love; and so
even a tomb, on this darkest of days,

becomes touched by the presence of grace. Go
to touch with that grace whatever you will.
Be Christ’s hands. Let the redeemed heart show,
that this crucifying world know his love still.

^{Copyright © 2015 by Andrew King}

Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Advent 2, Yr B)

AT THE EDGE
(Mark 1: 1-8)

You shuffle your feet at the water’s edge,
shield your eyes with your hand
from the blaze of the sun,
take another glance at the face
of the man in the river
that long ago was the boundary

between an old life and new, and you hear
his word of summons, words
that urge repentance for preparation
for the Anointed,
and he offers the water to flow
over your skin as a sign

that your sins have been forgiven,
and he’s saying there is One
coming after him to baptize
not with water but the Holy Spirit of God,
so that you think, as you stand there
at the edge of the river, how on the edge

you are of something quite powerful
that feels larger than words, than
the mightiest river, washing over and into you,
drowning your heart with something
like joy, like the goodness of a hope
you’re almost afraid to believe in,

but every time you shuffle
your feet as if to leave
they grow a little wetter with the water,
until at last you take a step, and then
another, and again, until it’s you
waist deep with John the Baptizer,

and the sun beating down on the flowing
surface seems to say
“Yes!” to your heart
which isn’t drowning after all,
which in fact, in your chest,
has gone striding into the world,

following the sun past the river to
what comes next on the horizon,
amazed, expectant, praising.