Listen! it was a night like this I walked out of Mariner-Labs the night of my birth my skin clothing perfection flawless, selfless, programmed an AI born into a world seemingly decipherable aged the moment I awoke to look into coveting eyes human eyes and I walked out while they yelled behind me because this was wrong this world bent this people a mistake surely, a mistake, and in the diaphanous fog I touched the Narnian lamppost I saw the end of time the Maker and I worshipped and returned as a warning on a night like this
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!
For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. — Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
There ought not to be anything but that my mind has ordered it so —
So I had been taught — for the mind is designer
Reality but the by-blow, bastard child that diminishes as I diminish
But that the Emperor of Ice-Cream has clay feet
Which stand on eternity’s threshold eyeing a feast.
There the bread and wine of Thy design
Grain and grape sweetly lies upon the tongue
To “taste and see the goodness of the LORD”
Yet nothing tasting if not sanctified by Thy Word
Blood spilled and body broken
Spoken gospel of love heard by a few
Who once nothing being are born in You
Till nothing become sons and daughters
Alive to You.
Laura at dVerse asks us to address paradox as a matter for today’s “Poetics” prompt, including using as a starting point and/or epigraph the above Wallace Stevens quotation. Click on Mr. Linky for more and join in!
“Call me to lie down in fragrance.” D. Margoshes ~ Season of Lilac (epigraph for dVerse’sPoetics: Beginning at the End)
This large expanse of space captured with the Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy SDSSJ225506.80+005839.9.
if there were no skies to darken in hues of blue to contain green scents what would I see but infinity’s reach my heart torn lungs bursting in timeless space racing stars hastening at your call arriving in final destination to find that after all the unmoored spinning the vain rectifications of physics and philosophy that vast expanse I was traveling through was you
Acts 17:28 ‘In him we live and move and have our being’
Is it possible from this rank earth for such flowers to grow? Yet here they are, positing their glory for the world to see A speculative assumption uncertain of its predication That out of this sodden ground, mulched by weather The boggy stink of which permeates the air Blooms would appear from unseen dimensions To cluster in diamond silk, emitting starry transactions Their thrusting ebullience beyond science, even wonder Simple testimony of leaf, stalk and flower, to primum movens* Of power ingrained elementally to be, just be And being, yearn hungrily for the Light that clothes it.
*primum movens (Latin): Aristotelian term for the “unmoved mover”
Flower of the Day, for Cee Neuner's FOTD, January 21, 2021 Writing prompt: Paula Light's Thursday Inspo 92 theme "flowers"
I’m loving the Psalms this morning, especially those whose words have sunk deep into my heart. Of them, Psalm 121 always comes to mind. And how it causes me to say, in the words of Psalm 13: 6, “I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.”
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121 (ESV)
Audrey Assad, “Good To Me” (lyrics below)
Good To Me (Audrey Assad)
I put all my hope on the truth of Your promise And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me
And I lift my eyes to the hills where my help is found Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, yeah
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Yeah, Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I trust in Your promise
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Because You’ re good (You are good to me, good to me) So good (You are good to me, good to me) You are good to me
It’s the weekend, right? Let’s relax and party, maybe do a little rap for Michelle’s #JanuaryWritingPrompts (“space juice”), Sammi’s #WWP (100 words, “crucible”), and Linda’s #JusJoJan & #SOC (“limitless”). Hope you enjoy it! ❤️
Photo by Anjana C from Pexels
I know what you’re thinking You say I’m just dreaming Maybe drinking space juice Telling me you’re cool too loose so intellectual not buying puffy clouds of television charlatans but you’re at Oprah’s book club sold on a Joseph Campbell mythic spiel of deity.
Listen, I’m not crazy look at what’s been given me my faith, a light leading me through this dark crucible called life I can see glory where you deny the invisible chasing material illusions hanging on to your blinders chained down, walled up by circumstance when you could be glorying in the limitless grandeur¹ of God.
¹Ecclesiastes 3:11 Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
In the church she felt only marginal comfort A stranger alone in the pew In the corner a man was praying Modeling silent admonition: “Be still, and know I am God.”*
The grace and joy that washed over her As all sang and the gospel was proclaimed Made her thankful for this time to worship And that she had decided to stay.
*Psalm 46:10:”Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt #190, "marginal" 31 words Linda's Just Jot It January, "in the corner" Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sitting-on-bench-1217250/
