REPENTANCE PSALM

REPENTANCE PSALM (Virtue Value 4)

To be more pure and worthy:
I’ll turn my thoughts from pride –
I’ll magnify my talents –
I’ll beautify inside –
I’ll walk above my weakness –
I’ll look upon the heart –
I’ll worship in the Temple –
I’ll strive to do my part.

(31 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

COMPANIONSHIP PSALM

COMPANIONSHIP PSALM (Virtue Value 2)

I learned the Spirit yearns to dwell
In Tabernacles clean
So that the Holy Ghost may shine –
So He can intervene
To help us call a friend in need –
To teach us how to pray –
So we can serve our neighbors well
And know what words to say.

(31 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

STANDARDS PSALM

STANDARDS PSALM (Virtue Value #1)

I promise to sanctify mind and thought –
I promise to live the good words I’m taught –
I promise to lift a banner of gold –
I’ll represent Virtue – gentle but bold.

I’ll seek to be trustworthy – moral – true –
I’ll try to remember what Christ would do –
I’ll honor commitments so I can be
An angel whose dowry is charity.

The blessings of chastity – clean and pure –
Are manifest – manifold – clear and sure –
Protection from danger – freedom from fear –
Wisdom – not blindness – discernment – to hear

The forthcoming promises dear and real:
The gift to be healed and the gift to heal.

(31 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

MUSEUM PSALM

MUSEUM PSALM
(on “Le Christ à la colonne” by Antonello da Messina)

I almost found my soul in Art
Submitting it to hope –
A portrait set apart for Christ
Because He bore the rope –

He suffered for our victories
In gallery – in frame –
In masterpiece – a face I knew
Before I sought His name –

Near cabinets of tapered scripts
Confirming history –
Madonnas robed in clear pastels
Beside His majesty –

I almost lost myself in Pain
That sought a meek reply –
To paint a view of Paradise
Because He chose to die.

(29 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

AUGUST PSALM

AUGUST PSALM

The desert is as green as spring –
A prism in the east –
A partly cloudy atmosphere
Protects me from the heat.

Vermillion cliffs escorting me –
The landscape as a shield –
The western wilderness a fort
For revelation’s yield.

(19 August 2010, Lee’s Ferry, Arizona)

LAPIDARY PSALM

LAPIDARY PSALM

You’re sitting on a gold mine –
You’re standing on a hoard –
Your talent’s glowing in the dark –
Your music can be heard.

Start excavating knowledge –
Start drilling for the vein –
Start faceting the wisdom of
Your immanent domain.

The world is full of beauty –
The Earth has wealth for all –
Start magnifying who you are –
Start answering the call.

An echo in the valleys –
A shimmer in the fells –
A shiver on the hillsides –
A ripple in the dells.

(14 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

CARBON FOOTPRINT PSALM

CARBON FOOTPRINT PSALM

The gift of Trees is oxygen –
Carbon dioxide ours –
Emissions are reciprocal –
Relationship empowers –

Dominion is a stewardship –
Replenishment a vow –
One pristine Life has saved the Earth –
The rest of us learn how.

The Body is ecology –
Pollution starts with self –
The Preservation of the wild
Begins with moral Health.

The World has always heated up
And hardened back to frost –
The Garden thrives when we elect
To honor Who we lost.

(3 August 2010, Durham Cathedral, England)

SPACE PSALM

SPACE PSALM (for Neal deGrasse Tyson)

The distant Universe arrives –
Our telescope expands –
The Timing is irrelevant
When Vision greets the Band.

The Light we see – though millions old –
Is good enough for dreams –
The journey through the patient Dark
Is not far as it seems.

(27 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

MONSOON PSALM

MONSOON PSALM

The shafts of dusk pour honey down
Into the aging West –
A golden disk below the cloud
Shows places I love best:

The neighborhood – the Temple spire –
The valley of the blest –
I welcome Evening to my home –
A quiet gracious guest.

(27 August 2010, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

ABINGDON PSALM

ABINGDON PSALM

Mark Thou my feet – Keep Thou my mete –
Thy Chapel can’t be far –
Please may I take Thy Sacrament
And gather where Saints are?

I’ll hush my Heart – I’ll take the Meal –
Thy Covenants I’ll mind –
I’ll sing the Psalms of Righteousness:
I ask – I seek – I find!

(8 August 2010, Oxford, England)

COLLEAGUE PSALM

COLLEAGUE PSALM

My time to speak seems over now –
The understanding halts –
The ears to hear and eyes to see
Confounded by my faults –

Until a kindred orator
Makes comments that connect –
Restoring equanimity
My fears could not reject.

(Friday, 6 August 2010, Oxford, England)

EAST LOOP PSALM

EAST LOOP PSALM

How can I tell Thy beauty, Lord?
How can I show Thy work?
There is no thing more lovely than
The glory of Thy world.

In spite of desolations, wars,
Trials, tribulations, hurts –
There is no act more holy than
Creation of the Earth.

(29 July 2010, Ambleside, Lake District, England)

FELLS PSALM

FELLS PSALM

The harp not just accompaniment –
The tuning not just key –
The plucking of the strings unlocks
Vibration’s poesy.

Harmonics animate the rhyme –
The intervals conform
The fingertips to masterpiece –
The power to perform.

(29 July 2010, Ambleside, Lake District, England)

STRATFORD PSALM

STRATFORD PSALM

“Touch Shakespeare for me,” Poet pled,
So I walked into Dawn
Along the road to Avon’s bank –
I had my apron on.

A pocket for my camera –
A pocket for my pen –
I touched the Morning with my feet
Surmising where he’d been.

(Wednesday, 28 July 2010, Stratford-on-Avon, England)

DAMSEL PSALM

DAMSEL PSALM

Our abstinence is knowledge, too,
Although a different kind –
Submission to a discipline
Can magnify the mind.

For what we lack and what we need
Can teach us how to sing
Of how the distant Temple gleams
Before the entering.

(Wednesday, 28 July 2010, Stratford-on-Avon, England)

BARD PSALM

BARD PSALM

Nature is the lens of God
And revelation’s cue –
Poetry’s transcription of
His hieroglyphic view.

Baptized, married, buried here
In Trinity of Life
With warning not to move his bones –
He sleeps beside his wife.

(Wednesday 28 July 2010, Stratford-on-Avon, England)

ARDEN FARM PSALM

ARDEN FARM PSALM

“An owl can hear a mouse’s heart –
Perceive its rustling feet” –
The bells at four – the whispered mist –
The coney’s soft retreat.

The Butterfly flotilla sees
The stained class window’s cross –
The Diocese of Coventry –
The Deanery of Fosse.

(Tuesday, 27 July 2010, Mary Arden’s Farm, Stratford-on-Avon, England)

TROUSSEAU PSALM

TROUSSEAU PSALM

Our True Love is investiture –
Disrobing not the point –
It’s what we share, not what we take,
We clothe, we cleanse, anoint.

Immersed in total otherness –
Reciprocal respect –
Apparel of unselfishness
That marriage will protect.

(Tuesday, 27 July 2010, London, England)

SMILE PSALM

SMILE PSALM

She let her voice be beautiful –
She let her song emerge –
She let her tenderness evolve
Into a gentle curve –

Allowed the years to soften tone –
Permitted age to bend
Her plainness into cadences
With measures that ascend.

(14 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

SERMON PSALM

SERMON PSALM

Who am I to be offended?
Who am I to cast a stone?
Stewardship for condemnation
Rest upon the Lord alone.

Measure meted – balance even –
Eye for Aye and Tooth for Sooth –
Make inequity of justice –
Underestimating Truth.

(Sunday, 25 July 2010, London, England)

SHANNON PSALM

SHANNON PSALM

Where’s the Savior? Where’s the Savior?
“Here I AM – Here I AM.”
How art Thou today, Lord?
“Very well.”
I thank Thee.
“Follow me – Follow me.”

Where is Father? Where is Father?
“He is here – He is here.”
Hallowed be His name.
“Very well.”
I love Thee.
“Come to Him – Come to Him.”

Where’s the Spirit? Where’s the Spirit?
“I am here – I am here.”
May I please receive Thee.
“Very well.”
Don’t leave me.
“Look and see – Look and see.”

(20 June 2010, Limerick, Ireland)

FOYER PSALM

FOYER PSALM

He heals the Hates of History –
He cures the Corazón –
Unties the Cords of Misery –
Delivers Salvación –

Unwinds the knotted Threads of Fate –
He mends the Tapestry –
Rebuilds the Battle’s shattered Gate –
Reveals the Reverie.

(25 July 2010, Foyer de la Jeune Fille, Paris, France)

COMMON THYME

COMMON THYME

Time forgives what we cannot:
Rattled swords and battles fought.
Goldenrod for battered dead –
Meadow sweet for broken head –
Butcher’s Broom for genocide –
Caraway for those who died.

(15 July 2010, Battle, England, Hastings, Kent)

APPROACH PSALM

APPROACH PSALM

Someone was kind to me
Quite unexpectedly
In a Provident way
On a difficult day –
Kindness prompts Love’s mercí.

What we fear love might be
In stark mortality
The Lord will revise
With tender surprise:
Embodied Eternity.

(14 July 2010, London England)