Raja's Verses

Waterfall I am a child, with a paintbrush in first grade A colored room, with tools along the walls And all that I can think of is the mighty mighty labor I must start I’m told to paint a cat But all my shapes are funny And I know a great big oval with a tail  Is not a cat, no cat at all…  I manage just to color in, and stripe it  And make do But here I sit again, and I am restless And paint again I must, but paint won’t do! What once was but a trickle is a torrent Coursing, streaming, needing somewhere to break through… What fills a mind, what pounds a heart, except impressions? Colors, images, that swirl like falling leaves A roaring waterfall that gushes through my fingers Each moment never noted, but perceived And far too many gone to be retrieved... And far too many gone to be retrieved. But how the brush is chunky and unwieldy!  How the words, like babbling toddlers’ tottered steps Fall flat and sideways, never stacking neatly One thought upon another, on the n...

Romans 8:22; Ps 84:10-11 Fair flame Bold hues Crimson, dancing in a bowl of blue Swaying in the rays, with ways unmeasured “Pleasure” is a term too cheap, too childish, for this: This moment, like bliss, like Romans, Everything stretching, and, groaning, and growing… If I could live One breath, in color Then give me,  I pray God Do give me no other reality – Grey-scale tragedy – Crackling corpses of colors I trod in November Better the breath Than a whole world of shadows Better one day in Your courts At the dawn of the Son. 

Teach me,  teach me your statutes. And let the gold grain, grown, broken burrow in the earth Teach me, may the songs sung, long ago, in ancient tongues seep into the soil, to the toil-tilled furrows in the dirt.  As I labor, let me savor all the silences - each flavored with a Word, with a Work done well, welling up  to Life Eternal Until each cadence from the breath slip sweetly, like a tasted thing, spring from the soul, from the heart, full,  fruitful, in due season

I hadn’t seen you cry before Back when the walls were full of perfect scenes When plastered smiles  Covered the bright glowing screens When we would laugh at those who wondered what the world means I hadn’t heard The way a voice breaks When a heart aches…  Those cracks were always buried in a darker place Somewhere where the people couldn’t go,     they couldn’t know, you wouldn’t show. You had a real face It was a dull throb -- But it was nothing really Nothing that would linger Past a certain time, Because the next try, next high, One more swipe to get the right guy  That would be the answer we would swear by. If something was the matter It was getting better Even if it wasn’t we’d look at it later These days,  Staring holes into the blank air Numbing, and feeling I’m going nowhere Suddenly I notice how the whites of your eyes Redden as they water on the screen there And I don’t really ...

I wonder,  looking down at the sprawling sight Of the streetlights, yellow and white Bright against the black night  If I'll remember when I enter in,  descending from the stars, What it looked like I wonder if a little girl, catching in her eye, Glancing up, a wistful second, as the engines pass by, A silent green blinking in the indigo sky -- Could see it too... Perhaps we'd share a moment Like a star twinkle, eye twinkle Reminder from afar, that we are So small and all, in the end, will be well

Only those who claim to see are blind And only those who wish to see are cured The others lured In hopes to find The answer to a question That unknowingly they’ve left behind Only those who know themselves as weak And see that human strainings have no force Without a Source Can ever seek The kingdom that was promised to the humble and the meek Yet he was strong, who, humbled in desire For sight, when hushing crowds bid him relent And be content Did call out higher Til Answer come to flood his life with light, his heart with fire Contentment is acceptance of a lesser hope While joys in store for restless souls abound For weighed on scales of truth we are found wanting,  But only truly wanting, are we found.  March 9, 2020

Shards Shattered Rough,    around the ridges Clear,     and keen like crystal Shrapnel Shreds of broken hearts and broken fixtures Fly, and in the slow exploding  Crystal mixture One's embedded deep into my stomach Pain Of all the splintered things that could have been Sharp The thoughts of other worlds we should be in Tender is the wound, in war When Love sustains the strikes from Sin

No Love,  We are not alone, not alone, not alone,  Nor ever have been Not on the rooftops, between treetops and the arching dome Where the pink tinge, in a ring around Made us feel grand, and bold, and vulnerable Nor when snowflakes fell, white on my hood, my head,  My nose, and his… We are not alone, in the familiar streets, All full of sounds, or bare, where all there is  Is feet --   the simple sound and sight  of walking, and of thinking thoughts. Not on the road, all searching restless, Never And when a word will pass unnoticed, When another shoots and misses, And the fiber that we try to build our love with frays Or fails And wishes,  Lost, unsaid, unspoken, fade away…  There is an Always And it peeks in corners, cracks in broken mirrors Something makes a walker stop And turn to look behind her Stop, a frozen second, just to stay And maybe, many, never noticed Until after, ever; ...

Pansy Soul-stricken, by the violet of the pansy by the wayside Just a single purple petal … uncontainable Silken and majestic, royal velvet magnanimity Shimmering in sunlight, with what glorious, secret potency Alive…! She is alive, and all in motion The scintillating purple hues hide galaxies of molecules Which labor,     never ceasing,  keep her stretching, keep her breathing  And she vibrates  It all vibrates, with a silent, humble energy Vitality,   vivacity, and unconcerned audacity What wonders! How Beauty makes her nest  in little corners of existence.  How even when it withers  There is something here I know it's there That’s infinite 

Green leaf, blue sky Ocean deep, heaven high If I fall upwards     into the cerulean.. Would it make a splash?

Yeshua,  Burst of light, Fathomless Free one, Seed and full fruit of the only maid mother You pierced the wall of our earthiness, entered Wrapped in our fleshliness Cloaked in the ordinary Yeshua This I whisper, with ear to God's fetal heart-beating Save us, from darkness and destitute doubting  And teach us to love, little loved one Dear Yeshua Immanuel

Ocean  Ocean, sing your sighing song anew Fill my aching heart and wash me clean Surge, beneath the sky of endless blue Teach my soul the truths it has not seen Ocean, let me walk upon your sand Soft below my feet, and wet with you Let me drink in heavens, water, land Ocean, sing your sighing song anew.