#pietry

seeking a healthy red shade

that never itches

or feels like rough sandpaper

like this damn psoriasis.

.

makes me grin -

eats my bones -

raises the knife -

and there i hold it - back -

the pale hilt

pressed to my head -

the bite - i bite -

the cut - i cut -

the teeth -

i crack

Love always comes back to a noble heart,

Or at least so the poets used to say.

I don't know if my heart is a pure gem

Infused of virtues by the brightest stars,

But love never left its nest between my ribs

If not to whisper poems to those too far

To hear my reverent murmurs.

My love is an unruly bird

That sings without harmony,

Has leaves twined in its feathers

And does not fear being mud-bound,

Nor crucifying itself on a thorn

To make a red rose bloom.

My love lives long after it should have died:

I carry requiems in my chest

And leave flowers on still empty graves.

Love always comes back to a noble heart,

Except for when it never does depart.

she's the steam in my coffee cup,

soft pillows full of fluff,

a warm comforter

straight from the dryer

& all the comforts of home

we've yet to discover

Here are more simple words to ply

My wares with

On the the side of a road

While my thumbs ache

From this pawning that leaves

You students yawning

I grow old and distant

Tired, resisting flow

And current events telling me

“Move on, move on.”

||

I would move on but the heart aches

Like a crime of passion beat it

Two by foured to the concrete floor

Scraped up it appeared

On her stainless steel table

Only to be rejected as too alive

Into the biohazard bin with you

Never to be seen again

||

Nobody ever told you:

Love is not a biopsy,

In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the average life expectancy was a little over 30 years. People, as traditional people do today, lived their lives within smelling distance of pig and human waste. They shared their dwellings with flies and vermin; they shared their blood with fleas, mites, and lice. They were hungry most of the time. One storm could wipe out a given crop for an entire year. Early spring, before new crops came in, was an especially hungry time. Wild animals, or even merely rats, took children's lives. No one traveled much and they didn't have much power. Most people could not read. In short, Medieval Europe was like the villages I lived in in the Third World, or a million villages that have existed for tens of thousands of years. What was different? What raised focus from the backside of an ox ploughing a field, what lifted consciousness from bread, and maybe even – oh, too much for which to hope – bread with butter?

These pitiful wretches heard a story, about a God who loved them and died for them, and that story sparked them to master the properties of space, light, stone, wood, color, and storytelling, and they exercised that virtuosity, year after year, decade after decade, alone and en masse, in calm joy and in cut-throat quarrels, to erect cathedrals that awe millions today, in a way that nothing else can, in an era of instant satiation, education, and empowerment. And they did all this, knowing that they would not live to see the fruition of their handiwork. And they did it anonymously, because it was all done for the greater glory of God. But their attempt at anonymity is thwarted by the sublimity of their creations. These people who lived briefly and smelled bad stand as giants of our species stand. They were artistic geniuses.

The artists of Gothic cathedrals lived lives rooted in nature – milking cows, chopping wood, tending bees. Given nearly universal illiteracy, images from nature were the only way to convey abstract ideas. These churches' artworks illustrate a God who shows his love by embodying a shepherd rejoicing over a found lost lamb. A God who insists that the splendor of lilies outshines the wealth of Solomon. A God who knows, and notes, each fallen sparrow. In Chartres cathedral, there is a famous window that depicts Jesus as quite literally the pinnacle fruit on the tree of Jesse. These peerless masterworks, Gothic cathedrals, were built without petroleum, plastic, electricity, or earth-moving machines. Lovers of the earth should love Gothic cathedrals.

Materialism? When I mourned Notre Dame, I mourned the verb more than the noun. Yes, I value the palpable thing, the touchable cathedral itself. But I also value its erection. I value the faith, the community, the patience, the humility, the unity, the dedication, the vision that produced these wonders. I recognize that I inhabit an atomized, selfish, impatient, easily distracted world. I despair that we can't build a Notre Dame today. Those leftist scolds tut-tutting about materialism lack the imagination, the vision, to recognize this.

"What about the poor?" leftists rage. In their raging, they remind us of a story. "A woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on Jesus' head. There were some who were indignant. 'Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? It could have been sold for more than three hundred days' wages and the money given to the poor.' They were infuriated with her. Jesus said, 'Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them.'" Emphasis added. Nuff said.