Sunday Evening Comin’ Down

Posted on November 18, 2023 by randamir

The prompt for Day 18’s Poem a Day Challenge hosted by The Poetry Pub, is “harmattan” which the dusty NE wind that blows through West Africa in the winter. The dryness and dustiness can provide a metaphor to a heart condition that I experience when I am especially tired after a day of ministry.

Also, ever since I saw Larry Gatlin talk about Kris Kristofferson’s song “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” I’ve been fascinated with the lyrics and the story. The last two stanzas are heavily burrowed (copied?) from his song. For a pastor, it isn’t Sunday mornings coming down after a Saturday night that is difficult, it is the coming down on Sunday evening after a full Sunday.

Things are sometimes difficult. I am grateful for the Good Shepherd who says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

When the busy work of blowin’
Through the duties of the day
And tired like weight growin’
From the words I’ve had to say,

Leaves me draggin’ in the hallways
Closing up the sabbath rest
The weary fear like always
Rushes wild in the chest.

I walk the empty church’s hall
The hollow sound of steps
Is all the fresh wind of that call;
Doubt’s all that I’ve got left

I check the doors, I press and lean
Into the, What’s my part?	
A crash bar check of brittle dreams
And the dryness of the heart.

Sometimes the only wonder is
The wonder of the Why?
That leaves you empty handed as
You look up at the sky.

It’s the doubting that’s the burden
The wear that leaves you down
The weight of all the hurting
Of Sunday evening comin down

The drive home is now in darkness
Through my town’s busy roads
Where the contrast's in the starkness
Of the lightness and the loads.

In a Sunday evening driveway
Wishing Lord that I was done
Cause there’s something in a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone.

Ain’t nothing short of cryin’
Half so lonesome as the sound
Of a pastor’s mind a ‘Why?-in’
Sunday evenin’ coming’ down.

© Randall Edwards 2023
#PoPubPAD #NovPad #NovPad2023 @the.poetry.pub
After Kris Kristofferson, “Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down” lyrics © Combine Music Corp.

Nostalgia or Whatever

Posted on November 12, 2023 by randamir

The Poetry Pub’s day 12 prompt for the November Poem a Day Challenge is “nostalgia.” I can’t even see that word anymore without thinking of C.S. Lewis’ sermon, “The Weight of Glory, in which he writes,

In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

My poem just riffs (rips?) off his words. You can listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Once long ago, I can’t exactly say when
I remember living in a far away land
Where blue flowers bloomed in spring,
Where birds sang songs
That I can just remember
But can’t seem to sing.

You probably think me a fool.
The more I speak, the more I feel
That I’m confessing,
Feel that I am somehow undressing,
Or living that dream where one’s surprised
That they’re at school and somehow arrived
Undressed.

I blush to admit it, but
There’s something secret
In the heart of me
That wants to be known,
Wants Someone to know
And see.

(Shake it off, I say).
But this ache will not go away,
These arrows pierce and pain
My heart with a Glory Unknowable
Someone I want to meet, yet
Someone I fear...so, No.
The want is Inconsolable.
If I open to drink, I could die
While to be in reach and denied
Would be death just the same.

"It’s nothing but 'a mood," I say.
Still, I would rather have the ache
Than not.
I would rather hold the sweetness
Of those moments when the vision of
The ember-leafed tree
Holds me,
Or watching children I love
Play with one another,
Full of wonder,
Ignorant of the world
And me
And those things I see.

© Randall Edwards 2023

No Time to Put Them Away

Posted on November 7, 2023 by randamir

Since the pandemic, my wife and I have enjoyed Malcolm Guite‘s, Spells in the Library which he posted during the pandemic each week, but since things have normalized and schedules have returned to normal, his spells have been posted less frequently. We still love them, and are reminded of how his sharing of hospitality helped to sustain us during a difficult season.

The video posted below, is one of those spells in which he shares his library (and its sometimes chaotic state) with his viewers. During the video he muses, “The sheer untidiness tells a story. All of these things have been gotten out and used… then another necessity has hastened upon it. There’s time to take things out and to read them and reflect on them. But tragically there is no time to put them away.” I think that’s poetry.

Below, I made use of his words as the fuel to write a villanellesque poem about the tensions of time and reading and alas, tidying up. If any of these words are worthy, the credit is to Dr Guite who has been so generous, if there is an fault, it is all mine.

You may listen to me read my poem via the player below.

There’s time to take things out, read them all day
Time for your fingers to walk through the leaves,
But sadly, no time to put them away.

The sheer untidiness tells of the way
Books beg to be browsed as flowers are bees
Who wouldn’t want time to read them all day?

They all have their place, you know where they stay
Necessity hastens, “Follow my lead.”
And now there’s no time to put them away.

Words transport, longing bears one away
To spice-laden lands blown by their breeze.
How can one help but not read them all day?

Time! It’s time to go! Out! Into the fray!
You’re late! You can’t just do as you please!
“Sorry, must go, Dear. Can’t put them away.”

Busy at your desk, you hear children play,
Sing over and over, “Take up and read.”
Give them time. Take them out. Read them all day.
Better than take time to put them away.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Bright/Dark

Posted on November 4, 2023 by randamir

Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge’s prompt for Day four is: Bright/Dark.

Here’s an attempt.

Noon is noon.
It resists our manipulation
In spite of attempts at hour inflation
It comes neither late or too soon.

New is new.
The moon wanes each month does not listen
To songs, waxes full with drips glistens
Just once is a moon very blue

Let it go
Time is relative, is bright and dark
Contrast in value is what makes life’s art
Bright/dark paints chiaroscuro.

©️Randall Edwards

“We come to an open expanse”

Posted on November 3, 2023 by randamir

Poetry Pub’s November 3, Poem a Day Challenge prompt is a “Form Friday” prompt. The form is a Golden Shovel which you may read about HERE.

I’ve borrowed a line from Leslie Bustard’s poem, “Silver Spring Lake” which may be found online at The Poetry Pub in their second chapbook volume, titled, Perspectives. It is a beautiful poem about facing an uncertain future following her cancer diagnosis. Leslie passed away in April of this year. You may visit her website, Poetic Underpinnings for more of her work.

The line from her poem is: “…we come into an open expanse–.” You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

"We Come to an Open Expanse"

The me and you that becomes we 
Begins in a sanctuary where you and I come 
Together, processing into the church to 
Speak words in covenant, joined in "an 
Honorable estate," "forsaking all others," not open
Nor open-ended, but till death open the expanse.

The me and you which death untied as we
Tangles in moments of memory, when I come
And grief breaks through and into the present to
Retranslate the hoped-for future into an
Age where you come to that lakeside, open-
Handed and release again what is, into the expanse.

One day, the me and you shall in Life become we
When the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,
Come to the Table prepared for you! Come to
The “AT LAST” when filling fills not merely for an
Hour, but brings us into a spacious, open
Place where He fills us forever with Love’s expanse.

(c) Randall Edwards 2023