Two Poems from an Old Soul

How I am prompted to write a poem now and not a sermon...

It is my morning ritual to walk up a flight of stairs and make my way into my glass study—a small room that I call my glass treehouse. What motivates me to come here is that earlier in the morning, with coffee in hand and a fire going in the fireplace, I feel somehow stirred inside.

I sit as a contemplative monk might sit in quiet, just waiting for the nudge to say, “This is what I have for you today. Feast on this. This is your life today. Here is your daily bread. Chew on it slowly. Get all you can from this morsel. This will be enough for you today.”

I know that sounds odd and is not the language of an engineer or accountant. But it is my language—the language of an old soul who is seeking to say a few words and mean something that might be helpful for someone. I just follow the prompts of my heart and begin to write. I do it really, because writing poems is helpful for myself. It is a way of caring for my soul these days. Poetry is a way of getting out of me what simply “has to get out”. It’s the way I use to feel when I prepared sermons and preached them, three times on a Sunday, for crying outloud. It was fire in my bones. Now that fire has morphed into poems.

Here are two poems that are the results of two different prompts I was given just this week. It’s been a very, very cold week here in the Blue Ridge. This morning, as I woke up, it was 12 degrees. This kind of cold causes a primal longing to go back to bed and stay asleep until it is warmer. But, I did not go back to sleep. I used the chill and became curious about it—wondering what was the black bear doing who often frequents my mountain home?

These words came out.

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