Poems

Brothers, lift your thought of cities Above the glitter and the stress, Above the crowded institutions And the urban wilderness— For through endless streets and buildings Breathe God's thoughts in millionfold, Breathes His Christ, the very presence Out of which our lives unfold. Throughout the plazas pressed with people Under pale, polluted skies, Between the flair and flux of fashion And the politician's cries— Moves our prayer, God's law in action, Moves the power of His Son— Brightness shafting through all error, Christ enlightening every man.

No desert dryness is too stark; For Life's eternal spring Will cause to bloom in vivid color, Complete, intact, each petaled flower— From Love's own watering. There is no heart so hurt, so hard, No life so sterile, bare, It will refuse God's gift of grace Or can resist Love's strong embrace— Full yield is present there.

Dear Lord, what future for one talent? Shall I bury it in words? Alphabets of admonition are cold solace for the soul. So, No! I'll not be a letter man.

The good I'd like to do— the neighborly act, the in-depth study of Truth, the healing prayer— seems bound in snare of time or incapacity. Until I see the good I'd like to do (more than inclination) is the stirring of the Christ in consciousness— never entombed by time or incapacity, but like the Christ, free— to burst forth, and be.

No wonder God loves man, reflection of His perfect being. When I turn aside from seeming mortal selfhood and humbly seek the image of God's glory— sinless, holy, upright, free— I love him too! MARYBETH LAKE.

Where is our native land? O wanderer, O refugee, O mourner, shall we never understand? What we all long for so despairingly Has always been, and ever is, at hand. Our rightful place is here today To claim, which none can take away.

Waves crash against the rocky shore, Spray soars, shines, quivers in the sun, The gulls swoop, glide, veer. I contemplate expanse of sea on every side.

More than begging beseeching imploring, prayer is acknowledging praising adoring. More than stillness listening confiding, prayer is trusting yielding abiding.

All out in the open now— so clear the failure to stifle rebellious gnashing wail of injured pride railing against situation's injustice— those words, "I hate .

From all around a clear-cut call. Who sends a message for my ear? "O trust, and I will give you all.