Art SHOW for June

Call it life, a generic word. Call it drab, common, or ordinary, slightly judgmental terms. Theologians call it incarnation, a rarified word. I prefer to call it flesh. We come in it. We live in it. We use it, sometimes abuse it, and eventually lose it. If we are to experience spirit it will be through it. FLESH...

-like in our families where patriarchs and matriarchs nurture us, where secrets are held but not completely, and where the simple acts of sharing a bed, enduring anxiety, and being continually surprised by love reveal a hidden dimension amid the common.

-like in our surroundings where the glories of autumn and spring reach us as metaphors for stages of our lives, expose us to hidden rhythms so close we take them for granted, and where the close proximity of pets opens us to another kind of affection, perhaps love, one of the few benign and ordinary connections to nature remaining, needing no sign up for a safari excursion.

. -like in human struggle, personal and historical, with the shadows of life, its darkness- war, terror, inhumanity, fear, hatred and slaughter.

-like in light and playful moments- at the crack of the bat on opening day, when the tube floats freely and we surrender to the current, or when a sax cries out our joy and pain, or even when we indulge ourselves in mid-life fantasies.

-like when the stories of the faith make a momentary connect to life - the homeless man in the church becomes Lazarus, New Windsor volunteers become fulfillers of the parables, and when the times of the liturgical season connect with our time. Spirit and flesh coalesce and agnosticism at least gets challenged or, miracle of miracles, disappears.

Enjoy!

Gordon Forbes

Riff On Coltrane=s Mirror

There are always new sounds to imagine. But..., we have to keep on cleaning the mirror

- John Coltrane

Launched past middle c,
wails, screeches, reaching
for the octave above a,
Or, maybe stars, the sun.

Like geese honking, beyond,
above soprano, past clouds,
in rarified air, flying,
hitting a above high c.... crashing

down through g, middle c, e flat,
blowing smoke across hazy lights,
playing off alto croons,
bass strums and drums

Sounds surface, cry out
then go deep down to dark,
to where indigo is born,

where love is supreme

The Clock Maker of Madison, New Hampshire

An elfin man of pure white hair
sits submerged in a sea of clocks.
Clocks encased in crystal, preserved
in marble, Waterbury and Westminster clocks
with grandfathers standing sentinel,
minute hands just before twelve,
hour hands point to ten.

I hand him our wounded clock.
He lowers his jeweler's glass,
examines the innards of time
amid relentless ticks,
incessant tocks.

A minute' click springs the chimes into a chorus.
The Star Spangled Banner,
Westminister's carillon,
The Old Rugged Cross, bong
bang their way to ten.

He never looks up!
A lopsided smile tilts his lips,
eyes dance with delight,
"Aftah a while he chuckles,
A yah nevah hear 'em."

He has mastered the tyrant time.
He knows times other measure,
the moon rising and waning

PENNY-WISE

One sudden moment of extravagance.
The spring comes in elegant splendor,
instant bursts of scarlet, explosions of white,
to the sighs of an adoring public.
Azaleas get their fifteen minutes of prominence.

Then, like Janis Joplin, they fade from the stage,
overdosed on intensity. The overflow of giving
recedes to olive following
a moment of extravagance.

When spring awakens me I hoard my vitality.
It will not fade, I say, squandered
only once with no remainder.
I store my passion and forfeit
that moment of extravagance

Lament

From New York City and Washington D.C.
September 11 2001

Those melting girders more than contorted steel. Justice twisted by vengeance,
love welded to anger,
joy melted by loss.

Black clouds of debris do more than choke our lungs,
Stifle our cries
clog our blood
turn our eyes blank.

Those shredded bits of paper more than words.
Lists of things to do,
letters to a lover,
reminders to call home.

The bones of the terrified and the terrorist together
mingled in dust of what remains
"Can these dry bones rise?"God asks.
We reply " O Lord God, only You know."

A Desert Spring

Spring came early this year-
last week of March-
bursts of orange, explosions of crimson,
sky alive with fire, air choked
with sand
Thunder shaking mosques, smell
of gun powder

Spring came early this year
full of shock and awe
terror and death

kyrie eleison

christe eleison

Kyrie eleison