Thatcher's Island, 2001

If you close your eyes just a bit,
And gaze past the dying birch near the road,
Through the ashen spaces between branches
Soon filled with green, or else glance
Over while driving past the swells near Thatchers
Or Good Harbor, or perhaps just squint a bit
Around the room, setting your book on your lap,
The kids asleep now upstairs-if you close your eyes
So the light becomes that gossamer haze of distance,
You can nearly capture this moment, you can almost
Pan out from the room and street, lift far above the rooflines,
The clouds and atmosphere, planets and suns and their coursing
Through the hours, through the centuries. You'll say
"What's that bright jewel there below?" and in an instant
Find shelter there: bathed in faceted light, songs
Of angels all round (heartbreaking, heartening), praises and laughter,
Words of love and comfort at every turn, all swathed in
The distant and half-remembered scent of roses, sea-salt.
My darling, here's early heaven--some pure
And perfect gift, some secret garden we two now share. (I've heard:
"But a foretaste"--but a foretaste of honey is sweet from the start!)
Life together, with you, is the loveliest bit of heaven ever on earth.

--2001

Brim

Beyond your eyes, graced green
and dazzling beyond all spectrums,
comfort comes (in your words, in your laughter) and always, always,
kindness cascades through your love--too, too
often ignored, assumed, a luxury always lavished
upon this family, this man,
this lustrous life we have together. Magnificence,
opulence like this--how were we so blessed?--our prayers
festooned this love from the get-go: garlands of gladsome
amens, heartsick sighs, woeful worries, hushed hallelujahs.
Let's two together remember our only hope (from the beginning
lifting us when we were leveled, afflicted, careless)--that nothing
thoroughly planned out, not the most beneficent strategy
had much success apart from the Love that carried us
in far stronger arms always, always.
So my darling--whose beauty, voice, and grace glances
now like light against everything in my world (my dreams,
our talk, this family, our prayers)--here's praise for you,
winnowing beauty somehow from even drab, shabby days,
tenderly easing children's hurts, bearing more than beauty
ought to bear--carrying, being carried--always, always.
One time long ago we sang out full-throated hymns to heaven's
music and mercy--we danced for a moment--we yearned, yearned together
upon a crag in a seaside meadow, laughing heavenward that night and
chattering from a chalice of hope, uncertain the days ahead.
How I love you, I said: your eyes, your voice. How I love you
forever now I say: a friend fashioned like no other, no
other--a mystery to me even now, brimming with delight and laughter,
radiant, heartening--your breath twinned to my breath, hopes pinned
upon each other's hope in a Strength carrying us together,
singing love songs, lullabies, victory hymns forever, forever

--14 February 2010

Homily

An old homily from 1996, in full here.

A snippet:

But even as a small child, I’d wondered about loyalty and love.

I recall mornings long ago in California, full of citrus and peach-fuzz and school-bus diesel, mornings already warm when Dad’d clop wing-tipped through Mom's sweet flurry of goodbye chatter to rev up the Chevy, while my brother and I trotted school-bound beside him until the station-wagon honked out of sight.

But I recall with equal clarity, real divorce and real rancor, and my brother and I whispering before falling to sleep:
“Who should we love, Mom or Dad?”
“Who should we live with, Mom or Dad?”