Question

  (Jeremiah 23:23-24)

Am I a God nearby,
And not far off?
Why do you hide,
Remove yourself from me,
Run like a child
Into the forest
To keep from being found?
And if  I should confront you
Face to face,
Or if I catch you
In your tears or shame,
What then
Makes you turn away from me,
Cover your heart
As if I could not see it—
I , who made your heart,
I, who hear its dreams,
And I, who plant all love within it?
I am the One
Who, seeking, will always find you,
Who, absent, is always with you,
Who, silent, is always calling you,
Who, greater than the starlit universe,
Bends to offer you life.
Come to me.

--Timothy Haut, August, 2013

Summer Afternoon

Summer afternoon,

Stillness,

And then the ruffle of leaves,

A stirring in the grass,

Soft as breath.

Who comes here

On warm wings

To waken me?

So this, too, is holy:

The leaning sunflower

Breaking into bloom,

The tomato wanting to be red,

The sweet, wet earth

Seeded with life,

The bright-winged butterfly,

A fish rising to

The rippled rim of water,

The sigh of cicadas

Passing through this fleeting

Moment of time,

My heart half asleep

And dreaming

That in this troubled, tender world

All creation waits, longs

For me to see the goodness

In this one, precious

Summer afternoon.

 

--August 11, 2013

Summer Colors

Summer flings colors
Like a child
Afflicted with glee.
We are splattered
With the gift.
Who can do anything
But laugh?

Weeds 

 

Weeds

Are the life we do not seek

Or want,

The frenetic abundance of earth

That seeks single-mindedly

To be born,

Sprouts and grows

And grasps for sun,

Then suddenly is there--

A sign among the beans

Of life’s determination

And even, perhaps, its joy.

Always among us are weeds,

The things we see as wanton waste,

Doomed to be ripped out,

Destroyed, or ignored.

But sometimes,

Sometimes,

Sometimes,

These weeds may give us

Summer's sweet, surprising flowers.

 

--Timothy Haut, July 7, 2013

Being Prayer

 

Lord, it is summer,
a time to pause from the busyness
to remember who we are.
Make us lie down in green pastures,
feel the grass pushing up against us,
so that we might know its blessing.
Remind us, as we lie there on our backs,
that we are made of earth--
formed of the same holy stuff
of sunflowers and squirrels,
golfinches and fireflies,
creatures of your delight!
And yet we gaze into the heavens,
marvel with wonder at clouds
in a thousand shifting shapes
as they sail like ships across the sky,
before giving way to singing night
and the ancient mystery of stars.
And then we dream of wings.
Spirit and flesh,
wind and earth,
longing and love,
we are yours.
Make us lie down
in the breathing place
between earth and heaven,
and be.

 

--Timothy Haut, June 23, 2013

June

Now June settles in,

Warm as sun,

Strawberry-sweet.

It is the world turned green,

No patch of earth able to stay bare,

Burgeoning with sprouting weeds,

Pushing up lush grass,

Clover-speckled,

Alive with the hum of bees

And the dance of butterflies.

In this time of long light

A quiet breeze stirs

The great leaves of rhubarb,

Waves the purple heads of iris,

Ripples the emerald waters

Of pond and stream,

Carries the evening song

Of grateful wrens and awakening cicadas.

Perhaps it is not just a movement of air,

But the delighted sigh

Of the One who is Life

Admiring this June creation,

Winking at us in the first firefly,

Spilling this goodness as a gift,

Hoping that we might receive with wonder

This June blessing.

--Timothy Haut, June 2, 2013

The Hymn of Life

Out of the silence whispers
the first rustle of morning,
wind in leaves,
the stirring of a sparrow,
then the full-throated song.
Soon the full-throated world
joins in the symphony of daylight:
the hum of tires and horns,
the trucks waking the world
on the busiest byways,
through tree-covered hills and shouting cities,
the chattering televisions and squawking phones,
the ringing of hammers and school bells,
awake, awake, awake,
all sounds rising and echoing into a hymn of life,
of wondrous laughter and terrible pain,
of boisterous cheers and tenderest love,
of praise and joy for the mystery of it all.
This is the world, come to sing,
to make its glad and grand music,
calling trumpet and clarinet to weave a tale,
piano and drums to echo the heartbeat
of infancy and age, trouble and triumph,
filling our days with dancing,
making its magic into the darkest night
until the last note says 'Amen'
and slips into silence again,
when the heart rests, remembers,
dreams itself to sleep,
and waits
for the music to begin again.

--Timothy Haut, 2013