Backward Mutters

  • Heavy Emptiness

    Heavy Emptiness

    The heavy emptiness: One’s lightness of being, The loss of substance and purpose, The clarity of vision for the day and week. And then one’s lost Which is an eternity of loss or at least An indefinite hole in the future. The empty arms that held and hugged Now holding…

  • Just So

    Just So

    This month is Pastor Appreciation Month. This was written a couple of years ago after I heard someone talk about leaders and how they liked them ‘just so’. The line caught my attention and rolled around in my head for a few days. Oftentimes there is an attempt to position…

  • Mere Mortals

    Mere Mortals

    In his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis has this to say about those people with whom we come into contact and who are themselves immortals. He writes, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal….Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is…

  • Bearings

    Bearings

    This sonnet is in honor of my father who recently celebrated a significant birthday. For as long as I knew him as a working man, he worked for The Timken Company. He rose from the assembly line, to heat treat supervisor, and then to heat treat general supervisor. It was…

  • What Do You See?

    What Do You See?

    This poem is based on Jeremiah 1:1-19, but it takes its inspiration from Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message of that passage. Peterson’s translation of the the Hebrew pun (almond/watching) with the English homonym/pun “stick” is brilliant. I loved you before I made you in love In the hidden place…