Smiles of Joan

Out of the cage of breath,

In some concrete expressions

Perceptible by the senses,

The white nights are filled

With the light of her childlike faith.

At the door – the welcome,

Joan gives a gracious look,

Then she smiles

In her own special way

To keep life aflame for me.

And I feel the warmth of the moment,

Of the heart of the child

Through the nights significance,

By the resourceful wall of her searching –

For acceptance, affirmation, and simplicity.

 

Joan, the warmth of her every sigh,

Helps me find my dreams in her smile

A stronger sense of serenity,

As I truly feel her innocent faith

Pointing me in the way I should go,

In valiance she motivates me,

A craving for her cheerful laughter

In fabulous notes of reality,

Of her dreams and hopes and desires

Now expressing her being.

And in the silent prayers of her gaze

I see my brighter tomorrow

That’s just ahead in the horizon

In frames of living – shape and color

Of the so many options of life, and ways to grow.

 

There’s beauty in Joan’s directional smile!

She takes me beyond my next thoughts and wishes,

A step forward, the process of new interests,

To joyful memories of childhood,

A candle at the rise of dawn in every window,

Hope in the face of tomorrow

Taking aim at every good – right now,

From the flames of supportive believe

Of a child’s rain of excitement

Challenging an adult’s status quo,

As the voices and scent of children playing rise

Where the welcome is shared without prejudice,

And everyone listens with heart interest

To stories and feelings of openness

That a childlike heart can reach to dry tears.

 

Now from the depth of my soul

A thousand glowing embers of Joan’s smiles

Spiraling upwards through my blood

Like every molecule of water in a fountain,

And my bones and flesh resounding

As Joan answers my human functioning

And mirror’s the needs of my inner self

With warmth and amusement in every child’s face,

In an eternal play of “let the children come to me”

Reachable and certain in Jesus’ words,

Running into my stream of importance

That her playful child’s heart,

Supportive of all her watching Angels

Pulls me through each day

To appreciate life through the eyes of her smiles.

Cries of The Earth

The earth has no tears than those humanity sheds.
When life seeks, in her world, the weight of pain inflicted
On her scented roots – children who should live
In the lilt of innocent laughter and
Sweet memories, which swiftly rise from human life.
Yet for fears of pains of being dehumanized, chased, and killed,
Earth’s pride is robbed of intimacy with earth’s womb:
No trophies, but stretched to the limits of the earth.
No social graces but explosions of greediness.

Therefore, I cry as an orphan drumming for my father’s hand
To see love come into sight as my light;
And for my mother, my brightest life, brightest song,
A scent of assurance in the searing rays
Of my life’s homeward journey.
But like a vanishing bird they are once more to be still
Unless the chosen will be smiling that smile,
And walk with me from this standpoint.
Walk out of the secreted shade of the darkness of the fatherless,
Burning with a flame of needs,
Hoping you might heal the child with a home of kindness.

And out of this finite age I cry as a widow,
For my lost breath of life alienated from my comfort,
As the semblance of shadow
Hinders my rising sun, from descending from my husband’s charisma
But causing the night to ascend with its glitter of pain.
From life’s losses and failures, steals the smile under my lashes
And my children’s shimmering laughter goes dim.
Now I am waiting for an open goodness - beams of fresh rains,
From a saints deathless comfort of a heart’s easy grace.
I await the rise of spring’s refined season
To answer the longings of a mother’s soul.

Marginalized by a social order, I cry as a destitute
Within the layout of my naked bed
Underneath the paper roof and straw framework
In every twist and turn of the mocking contempt
That is a resident of unfair social sorting,
A system and norm, on which greed is based,
And the world I desire goes to ruin.
Now I am waiting to test the honey
As a child in the wilderness cries for a spring
Beside the candle light in my view
Set on the altar of the human spirit.
I need someone to wipe away the tears that slide down my cheeks,
And reach millions of souls praying for release.

Seeking for a refuge, I cry as one trampled beneath denial;
Of justice denied and dignity deformed
In the oceans depths of the giant sea of oppression.
Taking aim at every successive human right
In every location of my earthly life,
And I fear the passage of daylight.
So I appeal for a sense of true justice,
Inviting human freedom and un-aging truth
To correct the unfairness of man to man
Of their wasteful crimes of oppression.
Let the human spirit meet the divine
Moving inside of her conscience.
Let all people stand with me, and never fail,
For justice, the wholeness of genuine freedom.