Strange Waters

I've seen a high cairn kissed by holy wind
Seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins
Seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities
The mad whose blessing you must accept without pity

I've stood in airports guarded glass and chrome
Walked rifled roads and landmined loam
Seen a forest in flames right down to the road
Burned in love till I've seen my heart explode

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters

Across the concrete fields of man
Sun ray like a camera pans
Some will run and some will stand
Everything is bullshit but the open hand

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

Bruce Cockburn

Pride is Attractive

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone; regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendfull fortune may exhort the wise	90
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practise more than heavenly power permits. Doctor Faustus, Marlowe

It's been Snowing while I've been Staring

Fall on me

Spirit of cold

Snow of love

above the rut

I've pulled

myself

from.

Defeated no more

I breathe

into the

future.

Feb. 21

Baroque Art

Denial

When my devotions could not pierce Thy silent ears; Then was my heart broken, as was my verse: My breast was full of fears And disorder: My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow, Did fly asunder: Each took his way; some would to pleasures go, Some to the wars and thunder Of alarms. As good go any where, they say, As to benumb Both knees and heart, in crying night and day, Come, come, my God, O come, But no hearing. O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue To cry to thee, And then not hear it crying! all day long My heart was in my knee, But no hearing. Therefore my soul lay out of sight, Untuned, unstrung: My feeble spirit, unable to look right, Like a nipped blossom, hung Discontented. O cheer and tune my heartless breast, Defer no time; That so thy favors granting my request, They and my mind may chime, And mend my rime. - George Herbert

Prayer

Go to sleep my dying dreams, my dying desires
Go to sleep hidden devil, hidden hate
Well covered, waiting til dark to show your insolent head
Go to sleep, weary mind, restless rom the day's toil
Grant me dreams to reflect my soul
and spill my patient secrets
Grant me love to reflect your love, peace, patience,
all the way to self control.

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

- Thomas Merton

Number Seventy Eight

To the one who inspires my muse most often,

78

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.