Casey Dwyer

I Am Prayer

But I am prayer

~ Psalm 109:4 ~ 

The clasping of hands

Quiet. Undulating

Thoughts calmed,

Breathing in calmness

Cadence of resignation.

Worlds swirling, passing by

Time before and time after

Lost in the eternal Now.

Priority, intimacy

Outside grows small, inside expands

In the blackness of eyelids closed

Closet locked

The tent of meeting

The memories and musings

Inspiration, exasperation

Deep calling out to deep.

Peering into the intensity

Of life, of love, of the blood and the bread

Of a Spirit present, somehow present

Reversing thunder

Sweet-smelling savor

Body and mind drawn

To that Body and Mind

And Quiet in the face of

Agitation, as Holy Rage

Assuages my angered swelling.

Weaned of all other loves

A soul given language, words of faith

A throne, a power made mine

In the clasping of hands.

Bemerton

I

Returned to earth.

Where the sun is silent.

No voice etched in stone

To signify which withered grave is his.

Is memory that falls silent

As the soundless rain

Lost forever?

That volatile question

Assumption in the stuffed

Stacked graveyard

With buses passing by

And the yew tree hanging overhead

And the church leaning badly from years of neglect

Moss overtaking each unmarked grave

Is muted by still a greater silence.

Returned to earth.

Where the sun is silent.

II

Humility looms large in history

Lauded as virtue by the living who, living

Do not hear the voices of the dead

Assume their voices are like ours

Praise them for their courage, a courage

That, if we listened, would reveal the truth

We are cowards.

Here, though, the humble way sounds hollow

Walking up to the doorway of the chapel

Hands feeling this forgotten place.

Here, only the looming smell of mold and lost voices

For here is the place not only where he lived

Preached the Eternal Word

Looked out to the Peregrine tower over the meadows

And walked there for evensong—

It is also the place where he died, alone and silent.

The place of living is the place of dying.

The dead do not hear their own voices.

The door catches, turns only with great effort.

Perhaps I shouldn’t enter.

III

Never was a grief like mine.

The yew tree speaks the

Silent speech:

The owl’s screech at midnight

The pew’s creak in the small chapel

The stained glass, a silent sermon

The in-leaning walls, a call

Inward, forward,

And back without the rustle of motion

But the pained sigh of resignation.

Never was a grief like mine.

In this dilapidated sanctuary

Not desecrated, but evacuated of his voice

Is the comfort of a deeper

Silence

A fuller resignation

A verso at the exact moment

Inward, forward

And back—inaction and action

A leaning in

Eli! Eli! Lema sabachthani?

To be bound is to be free.

Never was a grief like mine.

IV

Up to the horns of the altar.

All the fragments of my soul scream,

Recognizing, rejecting, refusing.

Possibility burns awake all my choices

Losses, crosses, watching, wandering,

Weeping.

I weep.

A figure now, across the altar.

He is small, dirtied by mercy

Holding a chalice of roses. 

Now?

He speaks:

“O that I were an Orange-tree,

That busy plant!”

You, too?

“Then should I ever laden be,

And never want

Some fruit for him that dressèd me.”

But…

“But we are still too young or old;

The man is gone,

Before we do our wares unfold:

So we freeze on,

Until the grave increase our cold.”

So, then, shall I find

You with me, as I go into the cold

The night, the waiting without hope,

The end that finds for me nothing

But the burning of the frozen heat

The frostbitten nurse who found his art

In the cold night of Gethsemane?

He raises the cup to my lips.

V

It burns. Not the burning

Of cold silver, but the searing

Of coal, of Living Heat.

The silent speech turns to song. Sun

Transfigures through blue and silvers, speaks of another world

In yellows and ruby. Now humility

Appears not as death only,

But as a journey from resignation

To joy. A true blooming after even so many deaths.

He smiles that smile, as one

With grief-laden eyes, whose joy is not

That of the infant, but is found in

The resolution of being finally bound

The freedom of being lost in a humble way.

He bids me go and start my walk. He

Must decrease more, he says, and so must I.

As I walk out the door,

I hear him speak a benediction:

“And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempests fell all night.”

Casey Dwyer is a pastor, poet, and painter living in Monroe, Wisconsin. His poems have been published at Ekstasis and Foreshadow and revolve around the Christian faith, the dynamics of pastoral ministry, grief, and beauty. You can read more of his work at http://revivalrenewal.com.