Other stuff

In answer to a question, yes, I write other things.

This morning, for example, it’s cold and raining in Chicago. Gelid…which is a word I don’t get to use a lot in polite conversation :) And it put me in mind of this little bit from Longfellow’s “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year”: And the hooded clouds, like friars/ Tell their beads in drops of rain.

And for no particular reason this came to me, so I jotted it down. So there you go.

As I went down in the river to pray

The best verse he could ever write
Alit on his shoulder as he stepped in the shower
While thinking that he had to remember
To pack shorts and sandals for his trip.

In twenty dancing diamond lines,
A full compass ‘round the life of Christ.
He smiled and shampooed his thinning hair.
“Sandals,” he thought, laughing. “Sandals!”

And then recalled he’d forgotten to order toner.
Oh, and buy Q-tips. And the potatoes had gone soft.
Then the bulb that lit the bathroom snuffed out,
And he tried to remember if he had a spare.

Later, standing, pen in hand, soapy, wet and crying,
Failing to tempt back the finest words that would ever come his way.
They had had something to do with sandals. And light.
And the eccentric way that prayers are answered.

Jesus stood in the doorway, barefoot and invisible.
“Hush now, son,” He whispered. “Don’t be like that.”
Remember, sometimes the music’s for the many,
And sometimes the music’s just for you.