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The Written Word
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Silenced Beauty
by Thomas Smith, New Jersey, 2001
Her freedom cry has turned to a moan
She beckons the weary now in theory alone
Our golden door now gilded so tight
Utopia no longer holds a welcome in sight
When once her announcement beckoned the weak
now she stands bound, unable to speak
Where once she shone a beacon for those in need
She broods now, shadowed by monuments to greed
Clenched fists hold a tainted gold
Deny, pass by every ancestor’s pain
Charity here is bought and sold
A tax-free game for capital gain
Oh Emma, it’s better you cannot tell
Just two miles from your new colossus
An abandoned windowless factory cell
Holds in agony your huddled masses
The bright promise you once foretold
Has become a trap, an unspeakable hole
Where a refugee is denied her own child
And mothers now have become the exiled.
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You’re a lousy social worker if you don’t take your clients’ problems seriously.
But you’re a fool if you take them home with you.
No one can correct the wrongs of the world in a single lifetime,
So leave your battle scars at the door.
Cry for them, cry with them
Get them to laugh, laugh yourself
Go where the need needs understanding.
Then go home and let God finish the good work He gave you to do.
Go home and finish your own.
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The biggest insult by Americans to the true spirit of Christmas
Is not the mindless neurotic rush to grab bargains, to complete our list before the Big Day.
It is the emptiness and dissatisfaction on the day afterwards,
When the same stores are filled still with those exchanging, returning gifts,
Instead of basking in the peace of His almighty, totally satisfying non-returnable Gift.
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The pounding pompous melodies of Men
Drowned out a softer tune.
Beyond the ego’s blind triumphant charge
Lies an ancient chant of Sun and Moon.
When the storms of politics and religion subside,
A silent white river is revealed
And in that subhuman stream
Every wound and fear is healed.
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LONELINESS
by Thomas Michaelsmith copyright 2001
I leave the light on over the kitchen table. I want to walk by later and imagine someone sitting there… in the light
by the stove and sink, lingering over a warm drink… or just thinking, gazing, silently… noticing me, passing by,
not too far. Someone near, someone dear, under the light at the kitchen table.
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REPORTING FROM BETHLEHEM 12/22/00
This year
In the village where the Prince of Peace first appeared,
A small Christmas tree sits in the bombed-out rubble of a
Christian Palestinian home,
Decorated with shiny brass guns shells
And topped with a tattered postcard of the Virgin Mother.
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“Each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” 1
Cor.7:7
A vocation to the priesthood
Is not necessarily a vocation to celibacy
The gay priest “problem” is the same as the married priest one.
Some are called to priesthood.
Some are called to celibacy.
Sometimes there’s a match,
But many times not.
In fact, some celibates are not ordained at all.
The truth of one condition does not confirm or deny the truth of the other.
Different vocations live within different vocations:
God’s army is diversifying.
The music director is a married black woman.
The catechist is a celibate gay man.
One priest ministers to convicts,
Another to corporate politicians.
But no man is branded a eunuch
by his call to God’s service
a lonely castrato in heaven’s choir
Celibacy, like any virtue,
Is only gifted to the blessed few
And never a pre-requisite
of another gift.
Thomas Michaelsmith 1/29/01
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STIMULI
If angels sing only in silence
How can we hear them cloaked in noise?
Our challenge is not to fill ourselves
But to empty the ego
And stand in the void
Lost to self and open to God
Only poetry can save us now
from this mad rush into everything-now.
I really don’t want to be “on the phone,
on line,
and watching 3 channels on TV
all at once.”
This is not my freedom.
Is something wrong with me? This seems more like slavery.
To fill me up is not to fulfill me.
But disposing of chatter, I hear the dearest melody.
The only high-speed connection I need is to the precious present.
By trying so hard not to miss anything
we’ve missed the most important thing: Peace.
No, I don’t want Call-waiting and Caller I.D.
I just want you to let me be;
be it on the phone or in the hammock.
One place in one moment
open only to that exact time
empty of waiting and wanting
full of nothing but NOW.
Thomas Michaelsmith 2/20/01
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“Define ‘divine,’”
the skeptics demand when we dare to speak of our special nature.
God’s differentness
God’s differentness is the tomato that looks like a pear
the egg with two yolks
God’s differentness is a phantom wind on a still day
God’s differentness is the tree that remains green through bitter days
The galaxies… the spider web that’s barely there
God’ differentness is the mammal who stayed in the sea.
The white tiger, the six-toed cat
God’s differentness is you and me.
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“Upon Him Was the chastisement that makes us whole.” Isaiah 52
BY HIS PAIN
WE ARE HEALED.
Young and head-strong, I thought I needed nothing
Bound to survive, no matter the set-back
But I fell as fellows will, down many a rocky hill
And, through my bruised and open heart He entered.
When my ego started to break,
and tears washed my eyes
I could finally see
His love for me
was bigger than any human hurt
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Weeding
8/21/01 John Fox’s Poetry Therapy, Haddonfield, NJ
Earth born-again
unclothes tender hopeful infants
who shyly squint and cry.
And I emerging too
spy the wicked weed among the fresh young things
The cancelled checks of lingering pain
The garbage bin of anger’s strain
but wait
debate
hesitate to uproot even
the wolf among the lambs.
Does not he too have life’s gem
this sunburst, this powderpuff on a stem?
No, no – the spirit cries
There is no room for all these roots
Let life in
Fear must die
So I thank God’s grace for all these greens
Then yank the ones who threaten the sky.
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Side-stepping Creation
You speak of lucky coincidence
And dare not call it grace
Discuss the subtle intricacies of the universe
But dare not call it creation
Dare not say we are blessed
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