All the world is yours

That all the World is yours, your very senses and the inclinations of your mind declare. The Works of God manifest, His laws testify, and His word Both prove it. His attributes most sweetly make it evident. The powers of your soul confirm it. So that in the midst of such rich demonstrations, you may infinitely delight in God as your Father, Friend and Benefactor, in yourself as His Heir, Child and Bride, in the whole World, as the Gift and Token of His love; neither can anything but Ignorance destroy your joys. For if you know yourself, or God, or the World, you must of necessity enjoy it.

-Thomas Traherne

April poem #4

Subtraction

Coffee at the table where we used to sit.
The same playlist with only a few added songs,
but I am completely different. (Deborah Gilbert Ryan, Coffee Cup)

#3 for national poetry month: Paschal Paradox

Paschal Paradox

Only the one who willingly let his flesh
be flayed and forced to hang
can fall to Hades, fall with death
and lift the dead again with him.

Only the hands stretched out wide
and tortured between wood and nail
can stretch in love to those
who tore them, and restore them.

God's Providence

The providence of God is like Hebrew words—it can be read only backwards.

-John Flavel

#2 for national poetry month

Holy Week

tempestuous skies
and dark, muddy earth,
the sun breaking out once in a while
to help spring the early crocuses from the prison of cold soil.

Spring Hypnosis - poem #1

It's National Poetry Month or something like that. Here is the beginning of my attempt to post even more poetry than I usually do in a month. And most of it is hopefully going to be from my own notebooks.

Warmth is curling at the air and wind is winding up
and pulling each of us inch by inch outdoors,
and sun is drawing like a magnet all the green
from underneath the soil up and outward.
And not a one of us resists the spell,
the chains compelling heart and flesh,
but we embrace the burn of this intoxication.