Teach

Snow-dusted,
he stepped into the yawning silence
at the front of the classroom
where students, slumped at desks,
dutifully waited,
dreaming of Saturday.
He paused,
aware of the phalanx of uninterest,
then climbed up on the desk
and sang.
The snow melted,
wetting his hair,
dripping down his face
like tears,
as this marvel unfurled.
After all these years
I don't remember what song it was,
perhaps something from Shakespeare,
or Gilbert and Sullivan.
But this remains,
this passion, this ardor
filling a man's whole being,
who would
teach
not knowledge, not history,
not formulas nor facts,
but joy.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 29, 2016

Wall

Long after some cataclysm
has wiped the world clean of old men,
and children no more laugh with glee
when spring peepers sing,
these overgrown New England hills
still will bear the signature
of the ones who struggled here
to make this rugged place a home.
The old stone walls
that crisscross the wild hills
are sign of a vision of cleared land,
of fertile fields and herds of cattle,
of barns and houses and steeples raised.
Sinewed arms and sweaty backs
piled granite slabs in imagined lines,
claiming a piece of unclaimed earth
to live where love was always hard,
to watch a son or daughter grow,
to wait as nights and winters
came and went,
and then, at last, to be buried in this earth
and consecrate it once again with hope.
Walls are the footprints
of those who dreamed--
a great and foolish dream--
that some piece of earth
could be theirs.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 28, 2016

Doubt

Doubt
the easy answers,
question half-truths,
be wary of the platitudes
of politicians and preachers.
Dig deeply for what is real,
trusting most those things
which are full of compassion,
generosity of spirit,
humility and kindness.
Be ready to change your mind,
especially when your conscience
whispers for attention.
Doubt
is the partner of wisdom.
It is the unmarked path
which leads to faith
and freedom.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 27, 2016

Fruit

These are what remain,
shriveled, small,
the last of the crabapples
left from a fruitful season.
They are winter's remnant,
the dregs that have stayed
through snow and dark,
a final feast in fasting days.
Inside, there is some sweetness,
and the hungry robins know
this goodness may suffice
until another summer comes.
These wrinkled things
will help a heart to beat,
a life grow feathers and fly--
as we may, too,
with our final fruits.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 26, 2016

Clean

She came to be baptized.
Once such a beautiful child,
she had fallen hard
into the open sewer
through which her sullied heart
had traveled.
Her once tender spirit
bore ugly wounds.
Neglect, addiction, deceit
had left her fearful, jaded,
lonely and alone.
She arrived in tears,
daring to believe that
there might be one more chance,
that she might once more be
clean.
As she came up out of the
green river,
she shook the sacred water
in a glittering halo of hope,
laughing past her pain,
not exactly untarnished, bright, or pure,
but feeling washed,
or possibly forgiven,
in a shaft of morning light.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 25, 2016

Tree

So many have died,
felled by the great plague
that took them,
one by one,
from our streets, our cities.
Those great arching elms
stood once like cathedrals,
shading the world--
friends, protectors,
witnesses of time.
And then, in a season,
they were gone.
But this one still stands
as guardian and sentinel,
a faithful old friend
in the center of our town,
carrying some secret in its core
that has kept it safe,
green and whole.
Its great limbs reach up,
a fountain of hope,
stirring in us
something at our center,
calling us to be sturdy, strong,
brothers, sisters who endure.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 24, 2016

Heart

Life is at the heart
of the wood,
the spark waiting 
in the tiniest seed
for sun, or water,
to set it free.
Each tree, each fish,
each flower,
each handsome bacterium,
each wailing baby,
each panting dog circling its bed,
each pinyon jay soaring in
the scented mountain air,
is rife with this beating force,
thrums with the rhythm
of the living heart
which is at the center of
everything,
which is at the center of
me.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 23, 2016

Glory

He walked out
into the long, sloping meadow
stretching out to the edge of winter.
The once-frozen earth
sucked at his shoes,
and the slightest haze of red
colored the distant hills.
The wind ruffled his hair,
carrying a warm promise
as a redwing perched on a fencepost
and sang.
He looked up at the bluest sky,
and smiled.
"Glory!"
he exclaimed,
almost like a prayer.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 22, 2016

Hope

Winter still,
there is a softness in the air,
and even the sparrows notice.
Green tips of snowdrops
probe for sun,
and dreams come
of flowers to be.
These are the wishes
of February,
the heart yearning for
the sweetness of
someday's garden.
Hope, a sturdier thing,
is when we buy the seeds.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 21, 2016

Hands

Hands
do the work of the world.
Calloused, bruised, scarred,
they wrest a living from the earth,
mill lumber and nail together houses,
grind corn, knead dough for bread
cook and clean,
paint a Mona Lisa or write a Moby Dick,
tap a keyboard that guides a rocket
or softens the night with
a Moonlight Sonata.
They clutch each other in a prayer,
swab wounds and make love,
applaud a triumph and wipe away tears.
Young and old,
hands hold other hands,
so that we may face the night,
or the sorrow,
or the great unknown,
together, not alone.
Hands remind us that
we are for each other.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 20, 2016

Rock

Boulders, silent witnesses
of all that has been
before our little busy time,
before our births and deaths,
before our triumphs and tragedies,
before our claim to own it all
or know it all--
bones of earth rising to light,
monoliths of endurance,
these rocks say something, quietly,
say to us:
Patience.
Wait.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 19, 2016

Evil

Light is shattered,
and from this wreckage
a million shards tear apart the world.
Innocents suffer,
and even hardened survivors
groan, weeping:
why this evil
amid such sweetness?
The hawk's talons,
the storm's raging
are in us
who yearn for love
even as we play with tools of death.
We would be different, but can not
for fear of the great shadow
over and between us all.
We do not see straight--
blinded, we wish others blind,
fling stones at the demons haunting us,
and cry
at the broken windows of our soul.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 18, 2016

Rich

Once
to be rich
was to have
a brand new box of crayons,
to smell the scent
of all those colors,
to take out a long, unbroken red,
still sharp and pointed--
unused, unspoiled, glorious--
and use it to recreate the world.

Today I am rich again:
I walk out into this winter’s dawn
to see the sun just rising
upon a new, unbroken day,
as it colors a rose
into the eastern sky.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 17, 2016

Peace

Grant us this:
that peace not be an idle wish,
a pretty dream to wear
around our neck,
a muse or memory that sings
a summer campfire's song.
Let peace
eat into our bones;
let it brand our hearts
with such a burning mark
that it will say who owns us.
Through our tears,
let peace be salt and water,
an ocean's tide that swells and grows
and falls on every shore,
where all the world
may hear its rushing call.
Let it be soaring bird
that makes feathers in us
(so that we may rise to our own
most lofty place),
then comes to nest in us
through our most fearful nights.
Let it be our blood,
our word, our will,
the thing we carry
in our weaponed world
that leaves our arms wide open,
our hands empty, like a star,
always ready to bless,
to bless,
to bless.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 16, 2016

Wise

So at last we have found
 new footprints of the universe:
 Einstein's gravitational waves
 imagined, yet undiscovered
 until now.
 These ripples in space and time,
 made by ancient collisions
 of black holes somewhere out there
 beyond our stars,
 are an inscrutable mystery to me.
 But as I walk through my corner
 of this cosmic morning,
 I tarry just a moment
 in this ripple of a New England winter--
 so cold and fearsome--
 to wonder about this universe,
 this life,
 and why it is so difficult
 to understand.
 I stop by the back door,
 look at the white woods,
 the freckled sky,
 and think
 that maybe I should be
 wise enough just
 to be quiet
 and wonder
 at the snow.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 15, 2016

Love

She is earth and sky to me,
 this woman, this wonder.
 I have seen her walk barefoot
 through summer's sweetest grass
 and find a dozen four-leaf clovers--
 as if joy could just be plucked
 by anyone.
 Or I have watched her
 on a rock-strewn beach,
 smile at the circling gulls,
 then bend down to clutch
 a heart-shaped stone
 that was waiting all along
 for only her to find.
 It will go into her cache of hearts--
 and may be given later
 to one who needs a heart to hold.
 She is earth and sky to me,
 this woman, this wonder,
 who sees that in every rock,
 in every blade of grass,
 in every furred or feathered thing,
 in us, too,
 there is the shape of love.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 14, 2016

Child

I chase him
through my dreams,
across the river silvered with clouds,
into the garden snowed with marigolds
and smiling dahlias.
I look for the secret place
bright-hued, pied as a piper,
where the world sings.
I laugh with him,
delight that I have not lost
yet
the child I am.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 13, 2016

Pain

He stood beside her bed,
faithful to this bride of his,
who once had been so beautiful
walking down the aisle
to him.
Half a century or more had passed,
but love not.
Bearing the wounds of age,
he could see what time had done,
but held himself to the vow
which had not turned grey,
which had never worn thin.
He bent down to the bed
where she lay, unknowing,
as he grimaced at the sharp protest
of his unwilling back,
bent over nonetheless
to kiss her cheek,
to offer her
this pain, this gift.


--Timothy Haut, Feb. 12, 2016

Sorrow

I would not remove sorrow
from this weighted heart,
though it howls and whimpers...
where joy should be.
It is the holy cry
which comes from love itself,
the soul standing bravely
where the world is broken,
refusing to go away and hide,
baring itself, raw and fragile,
when tempted to build a wall.
Sorrow’s eyes see every crack
in every wounded soul, and aches.
It is the bare branch
where something green
will grow.
Its tears are the price of
Love.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 11, 2016

ASH

Lent 2016

ASH

I would build a fire
with wishes and dreams,
set them to blaze 

against the night's darkness,
and stand close as the wind swirls up
in the frozen landscape
of our wintered world.
I would ask you to come
and add the kindling
of your own heart's desires,
and we would laugh, warmed through,
as the light flickered up and out
into the cosmic emptiness.
At last, of course, the flames would die,
our fire turned to ashes.
But we would still be there, together,
held in the splendid heat of love
as we thumbed the ashes on our faces,
dusted by those dreams
which death cannot erase.

--Timothy Haut, Feb. 10, 2016