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