Sunrise
He awoke to the sound of bagpipes
In a mountain meadow surrounded by pines.
The white chapel with the gravel road
All in honor of St. Philip.
Like all children, Godlike in his simplicity
Stories of father and son, he the third of three.
A mother whose faith was passed from her father,
A father whose faith was passed from his mother.
A family of five living on the mountainside,
The quiet of Colorado winters would pass.
A move from nature’s serenity, and proximity to the lord,
Into a land where the idols were plenty, and the lost were many.
This exodus cost the family its’ peace,
This exodus turned son against father.
And as the bonds were stretched thin,
Wounds inflicted that only time could heal.
Morning
Once an infant, now a boy,
Left free to wander and decide on his own.
Adventure was his in backyards and wooded streams.
Imagining a world where he was king.
As brothers fought, and father steamed,
Mother cried, with child left to wonder why
The peace of the lord had left his house.
A family sailing into the storm.
In time the losses mounted, brothers departing,
Grandparents onto other worlds.
The child saw these passing spirits as memories,
Their ghosts in his mother’s eyes.
Alone in the home of his father,
The child seeks refuge from the parents’ dispute.
To a city on the Hill, to a home for boys,
Looking for the brothers who had gone, the peace he could remember.
Afternoon
The growth of his soul, through books and youth’s trials,
Is encouraged through the guidance of surrogate fathers and brothers.
The spirit grows, as the boy becomes young man.
The spirit finds reflection in art, music, and history; his success and his failure.
A baptism signals transition, setting out on his life’s path,
Back to Colorado and the memories it holds.
The falling snow calls him, the reckless adventure he thirsts,
Soul mates found in both man and woman.
With each powder shot he finds his God.
The hard lessons love teaches, he has to learn more than once.
The struggle inside between communion and agency,
Is played out on the nation’s highways and the back roads of the Southwest.
A brother he has found, devoted to one another.
Apostles of their own doctrine of compulsion in deed.
To believe in one another above all other, sustains them on their way.
They find the unknown in all but themselves.
Evening
Love lost sets him adrift, to points northwest.
Cursed is he who trusts in man, his heart departed from the lord.
This deceitful heart he thought he did know,
He drowns in spirits most reckless and crude.
With his body turned against him, he struggles to find himself.
The mind begins to wander and hide in the fog of forget.
But the soul tugs the heartstrings, fighting the desire to give in.
Mindful of his inner world, he begins an ascent out of the hole he is in.
Attention to the troubles of his past, and recognition of the help he needs,
He turns to sobriety and salvation in the service of others.
Again, books and community carry him through a land of distress,
To a place of Evergreen that asks in him of surrender, trust, and fidelity.
These first steps burdensome like each day’s movement,
The tightness in his feet begins to fade, the levity will light his way.
To hold close the fear, to find the truth in the unknown,
Seeing the Lord’s love as love of self.
Sunset
To believe, to belove, to belong to God, and love that which God loves.
This radical trust leads to forgetful-ness of self, forgiveness of self.
His prayers no longer in service of change in the world outside him,
But prayers to change the world inside.
No longer in a rush to make sense of things,
But to live in the paradise of inward tranquility that is faith’s reward.
He brings those around him closer,
Seeing life as a path lit only by the light of those he loves.
Surrender, trust, and service, essential to the spiritual life.
Through surrender to the universe, he trusts in the universe.
His trust in the universe encourages his service to the universe,
Seeing services to others as the greatest expression of self.
Loving himself fully, no longer entertaining the voices of doubt,
That break his heart and strip him of the compulsion to live.
Seeing fidelity as being always in love, with a heart full of hope,
Sleeping soundly in the arms of benevolence.
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