Tag Archives: poetry

Isaiah 40

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This past Advent and Christmas season, the Almond Tree Artist Collective has been engaged in creating works based on weekly prompts taken from Isaiah 40:1-5 which reads, 

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
  and cry to her
 that her warfare is ended,
 that her iniquity is pardoned,
  that she has received from the LORD’S hand
 double for all her sins.

A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
  make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
  and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
  and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
  and all flesh shall see it together,
  for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

As a pastor, it has been a very busy month, and I have not been able to keep up with the prompts, but now that the holidays have begun, I’ve been able to finish what I started. I believe this is 75% done, but I give you fair warning. This is by far the longest poem I’ve written, and it is my first attempt at common measure (or meter) which lends itself to lyrics that read more like a ballad. (Fun fact: you can sing common meter lyrics to the tunes of “Amazing Grace,” “House of the Rising Sun,” and alas, “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island.” If you’ve made it this far, you may listen to me read this five and half minute poem via the player below. Have mercy.

I. Comfort

When all the world has been torn down,
When all Her glory, lost,
Speak Comfort, Comfort to the town
Who to the sea was tossed.

Away in chains to Babylon
Her townsfolk, tied and led
Cast from the garden land and home
Into a living death.

We pass through sea, to foreign lands
Where accents strike our ears,
We pine by banks beached on the sand
And salt its shore with tears.

They asked of us to sing a song—
A song we sang in Zion;
We choke on words, weep for the wrongs,
The shame of Judah’s lion.

Speak, Comfort, Comfort, to my own
The Lord says, tenderly,
To Jerusalem cast down
I’ll draw her from the sea.

II. Proclaim

Proclaim to her, say it now,
Mercy comes tomorrow;
He’ll break your yoke, unhook the plough,
Wipe your tears of sorrow.

Speak Comfort, Comfort, day has come
Your ransom’s paid in full;
Your time of service is now done;
The balance paid, double.

It’s finished; Yes, there is no more—
Both debt and due are paid;
Your Hope through Achor’s valley door
Has made for you a way.

Daughter Jerusalem, my son,
Judah, come take my hand;
The blessing lost, I now have won—
Return you to the Land.

IIII. Wilderness

A desert voice, a herald cries,
Prepare, Prepare today
Come, by Him who lives yet dies
Come through the desert way.

Through death, not ‘round, your victory
Not by the coastal road—
A straight highway through desert sea, 
The highway of our God.

Elijah, come and turn the hearts
Of fathers to the children;
Desire pierce with longing’s darts
Wound with love, the nations.

Make straight the way from Galilee
The land of the Gentiles,
From nations far beyond the Sea
Return from your exile.

Comfort, Comfort prepare the way—
A highway for our God;
Come by the narrow, Eastern way
Back from the land of Nod.

IV. Justice

From Euphrates’ garden banks
Pack your years of burdens
Return, Return, join with the ranks
Who take to Him their hurtings.

When you come to the desert shore
Fear not the waves of sand,
He shall level the desert floor,
Return you to the Land.

Look not to the mountain’s heights
Where others lay idle,
And give themselves to their delights,
Revelry, unbridled.

He shall bring down the proud who boast
And lift up the lowly;
He shall make of least, the most—
Make the common, holy.

But what of death’s deep, dark defile?
How can we e’er pass through?
Though our descent goes on for miles,
In life, He’ll raise unto.

The valley’s shall exalted be;
The mountains shall be lowed;
Enslaved, her captives shall be freed,
And gentle made the road.

She’ll mount on wings, shall fly amain,
Renewed, soar as eagles
The mountain way be made a plain
Those Not, now made, My People.

V. Glory

And all of them shall surely see
My Glory when revealed;
The Way that passes through the sea—
The stripes He bore that healed.

The glory I’ve to show the world
Is glory not of man,
A banquet banner, love unfurled,
Crowned head, pierced feet and hand.

Will you perceive the love I bear
Or of it be ashamed?
Shall in it boast? Cherish? Hold dear?
Lift up? Deny? Disclaim?

True, the Word the Lord has spoken,
Shall surely come to pass;
His promise shall ne’er be broken;
He shall redeem at last.

Speak Comfort, Comfort, tenderly,
Your Lord shall bring you home;
He shall not burden but gently lead
The mothers with their young.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Sunday Evening Comin’ Down

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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.

Second Joy

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The Day 17 Prompt for The Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge  is a Form Friday prompt. The poetic form is “terza rima” — a form invented by Dante Alighieri which he employs in his Divine Comedy. This poem I’ve actually been working on for four years since attending a summer class at Regent College. The class and the eight late July days in Vancouver were some of the most refreshing days I’ve experienced. Indebted doesn’t capture my gratitude for the instructor and his example. I didn’t know any living poet-priest/pastors out there. His example gave me permission, and it has made all the difference. So, here’s to Second Joy, which happens to be the subject’s Yoruba first name.

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

Second Joy

In the spring of life I set out at dawn
On a journey seeking that thing to fill
My belly’s ache, some bread to feed on.

And I came to a man who served as a shill
For the swindlers of success who sold to me
All I could want just by taking a pill.

So I dosed my ache to the full degree
With all the world could hope to offer
But hunger still nagged and thirst pained in me.

And hunger grew, grew greater than before
Imaginings sought thrill, wandered in wild
Gorging, yet longing, thirsting wanting more.

By noon I squandered my life, defiled,
Lost and alone having left the straight way 
Where I waffled twixt two unreconciled.

When afternoon came to my life’s day
A Poet sounded me with meter and rhyme,
And was “mio maestro y autore!”

His words cleared the glass, spurred me up the climb
Beyond the heavy, damp, and cloudy air,
Beyond the film of the familiar’s grime.

Past pride’s rock, unto evening’s copse of care
The gladsome hill we climb up to hope’s height.
Where He speaks, “Peace!” to my fears.

With second joy, this poet set me right,
Colm’s servant, Ayodeji Malcolm Guite.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Nostalgia or Whatever

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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

Christmas Truce

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Day 11: Poetry Pub Poem a Day Challenge prompt for NovPad2023 is “Favorite Season”. In honor of Veterans Day, I offer this stanza.

My favorite is the season that interrupts
The present way we think things have to be:
When homesick soldiers Christmas Eve climb up
Out of trenches, cross no mans land, and sing.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Photo: British and German troops meeting in no man’s land during the unofficial truce (British troops from the Northumberland Hussars, 7th Division, Bridoux–Rouge Banc Sector); Robson Harold B, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John McCutcheon’s song, “Christmas in the Trenches,” has always been personally moving. You may listen to the song on YouTube HERE, and an interview with John McCutcheon on Georgia Public Radio, HERE.