Blue

The Blue Basin

The blue basin
Oil based paint
A bit of orange
Under the mirror on the wall

With patches of bright sun
Lighting your face
What do you feel right now?

When you look into your eyes
See your pupils dilate and change size
Ask yourself the question

Do you love the person in the mirror?
Do you see the stars in your eyes?
Do you see God behind it all?

What do you feel now?
Tears dropping into the half-filled blue basin
Holding in your life

WHO WILL CARRY THE WORLD?

One
Brush oil paint on burlap tightly woven
Crisscross patterns with large wooden
Stretcher bars
Let it dry under sunlight, starlight,
Moonlight, go out there tonight
Listen closely to your heart beating,
A symphony with blood and air and life
Rushing in
Think of crickets and fireflies
Hopelessly trapped here on earth, joyous
Creatures
Light the candles on the table outside
Apply new paint with brushes and pallet knives,
Mix in the tear drops as you paint with shadows
Drawn in from candles and moonlight hearing
The lonely distant trains sounding out as they
Pass through
Now it is time to tell God what is on
Your mind knowing the paint dries slowly
And God is patient, especially with you
What will you say
And will it all be true?

Two
The stars blink once or twice every night
They are busy now, making light
The neighbors try to sleep
The dogs and cats up late
Wondering who will be left when
They leave
Who will count the waves at the sea?
Who will ponder riddles and walk the maze?
Who will carry the world on its back?
Make light of darkness and fill outer space?

Frivolity cannot perform the calculations
Nor supercomputers with highest speed internet
Connections
What is needed is undiminished joy offered
Up in spite of every problem encountered
Outstretched hands dipping water out of the river,
Expecting nothing
Listening to crickets, watching fireflies
Allowing the world to carry itself
Wherever it wants to go

Ledger Still

He sits on the bay, every day
For eleven years
Staring at the city across
Wondering what it is like there
Wanting to be there
Finally a man asks him if he’d like to
Go, only he cannot bring him back
And he goes, thinking surely, it will
Be better there than here with so much
Longing to be somewhere else

Once making the journey across he
looks around, decides life is better where
he was, fewer people, home to live, friends,
less wind and rain
now he sits on the bay, every day,
staring across at the other side
wanting to be there, wishing he could cross,
waiting …