On Mount Zion

Then King David went in and sat before the LORD.

After three decades of Christ-following,
I am not often surprised.

So I confess my astonishment
When I learned that
During the time of David
The Ark of the Covenant
Was kept not in
The Tabernacle at Shiloh

But in David’s tent
On Mount Zion
In Jerusalem.

Sacrifices of animals,
The showbread,
The shofar
In Shiloh.

A new dispensation,
A sacrifice of praise,
Of instruments and voices,
Ascending to God
In Zion.

And a closer intimacy between
God and man.

Resurrection Proof

God never rewards disbelief; he always rewards faith.

After Christ was raised,
He did not appear to
Pilate, Caiaphas, Herod,
Those powerful rulers.

He went to the women,
The disappointed followers,
The inconstant disciples,
And gave them the proof

Of his resurrected body.

The Scriptures

Sixty-six books.
Sixty-three of them
Written by
Sons of Abraham.

Hebrews,
Without proven author.

Two written by Luke,
A Gentile.

Early Morning Rainbows

In my bedroom window,
Which faces due east,
I have four sun-catchers.

On sunny mornings,
If Caleb is grumpy when he wakes,
I mention the sun, and the rainbows,
And he perks up
And points, and looks around,
Amazed by the magic that surrounds us.

This morning, small hands on my face woke me,
And I looked up into a beatific smile,
As garbled baby speech said,
Wake and look! Rainbows!

From Five to Fifteen

I have been disciplined
To play five minutes a day.
That was sufficient.
I could see gradual progress.

Then I played an hour one day,
And realized that I couldn’t
Return to five minutes only.

Minuet, Minuet

The first Bach Minuet
Is the sweetest little dance
Imaginable, lilting and happy,
In a major key, always running
Up, up!

The second Bach Minuet
Is somber, minor,
Achingly beautiful,
As it moves
Down, down.

New Year

Of course we know that New Year’s
Is just another day.

And yet, it is a time of symbolic
New beginnings.

I like having a fresh start.
I’ll take what I can get.

Shift

Looking back, year to year,
I think about the end of 2014,
And how almost every one
Of my major relationships then
Shifted dramatically this year.

One almost married: never see;
One deeply grieving: never see;
One busy working and living: occasional, not regular;
One alive with Christ;
One was a weekly friend, now only monthly;
One moved to Belgium;
One dropped me completely.

This distressed me, until I remembered others:
One comes on occasion and we talk;
One comes regularly and we talk and pray and laugh and cry;
One I visit and we are kindred spirits for hours;
And two young people took me to an art museum.

For Sale

We put our herd of eleven
Up for sale three weeks ago.
We asked a bit below
Half of the market rate for purebreds.
(Ours were pure, but the registry
Proved such a pain, we gave up.)

And this has been a beautiful
Dispersal, as six different people came,
And four different people bought:

A set of three,
The bull,
A cow-calf pair,
Five animals.

It astonishes me the different needs
Of the different purchasers,
And the overall ease of selling,
And how it worked out so nicely
Right at the new year,
Where we all get new beginnings.

And even with all the ease, I think:
I am very glad this was not a task
Left to me
Alone!

One Less Concern

I don’t drive the tractor.
One time, going up a hill,
The steering wheel came off
In my hand, and as I rolled
Backwards down the hill
Towards the creek,
I remembered again
Why big vehicles scare me.

This did happen,
But I doubt it was actually
As terrifying as it felt to me.
I don’t drive the tractor.

Isaiah is Phil’s mini-me,
The one who happily backs it
Out of the barn,
Steers around the farm.

But as good as he is,
He isn’t experienced
At driving in slick conditions.
Or maneuvering in tight spaces.

It has been a concern of mine
That if Phil died unexpectedly,
I would not only have to deal
With my grief,
And the grief of five sons,
I would have to deal with
Keeping alive large animals
Who eat hay in large bales,
Delivered by a tractor
That I don’t drive.

Today, I have one less concern.

Free of Farm Animals

Since August 29, 2009,
We have not had a day
Free of farm animals.

Tomorrow we will wake up
To our first day of
New freedom.

I've Waited a Long Time

Nine and a half years now,
I’ve waited for a book to
Captivate
My son.

A book that he will pick up
And read because he is
Desperate
For more.

He was listening to the Henry Huggins series,
And I expected he would
Laugh out loud.
And he did.

And I liked that.
But I liked it more to see him,
Book in hand,
Reading along.