SUNDAY CHIASMUS #1

SEERS THROUGH THE SANDS

From the journeys through the deserts dry, we thirst and thus are parched to desire the depths of wells that have been deserted long ago.

We seek for questions from the heavens, toward the stars and clouds we turn our gaze and wonder.

Yet, seeds of doubt from unanswered dreams are planted in our minds, thoughts that linger still with questions taking root of growing despair.

But from the heavens answers will come to those that seek, and those that wait patiently to find; yes, true response shall soon appear as drops of refreshing rain from the sky.

If you seek for peace, you shall be filled with cool refreshing rain, drops that calm and replenish to all who search for this solace.

Happiness groweth still in places parched and dry, wells still wet and full of rain, for God sendeth the seer, to be a guide among his people and leadeth us past the empty holes into which we could fall, but to find instead the oases of Joy amid the desert's dunes.

A Chiasmus is a type of Jewish poetry. It is used in other writings as well. Essentially, it is a style of rhetoric that takes multiple concepts in either a paragraph or full poem and repeats them in a reverse order, and in a different way. The above poem is written in a double chiasmus. Each line (prose) is written with internal chiasmus, while the full body also reflects a chiasmus, where prose 1 is repeated in prose 6, and prose 2 in prose 5, etc.

CAMPFIRE

CAMPFIRE

The embers dim with each the passing hour

And ebbs the darkness of the night far dour

Come place another log upon our fire

Abiding near its warm and rising spire

Surrounded now with friendly faces greet

To tell good tales, find comfort in her heat

Come friend, come stranger step from out the night.

Draw closer friend that all may know the light.

E'er stay amid the glowing coals and flames

And in her pyre cast away your shames

For like the branch the burning fires devour

Each shame and weakness be exchanged for pow'r

For here we're free to share and grow midst friends

Forever changed like cind'ring ash ascends.

Come friend, come stranger cast away your plight.

Draw closer friend and stay with us this night.

So place another log upon the fire

And loose the ligatures of hate and ire

Know well the comfort found in lofty praise

And see the goodness scrying through her blaze.

Let not the darkness flood upon this light

Her golden glow will push away the night.

Come friend, come stranger round the ring of flame.

Draw closer friend that all might know your name.

ACCRETION OF A PEARL

 

A pearl needs no company, no guidance, or a hand

To grow into a treasured gem, a jewel that’s fine and grand

A pearl must not be released from in the dark it dwells

Until it has achieved its worth inside the oyster’s shells

In darkness by itself it learns just how to bloom and grow

And does not need a polished speech to be the shining show

It started first as but a speck and grew a nacre sheen

From irritant to jewelry piece a prize fit for a queen

The rarity its birth invokes is unlike any stone

For gemstones grow in clusters, but the pearl grows alone.

May you always be our pearl. Believe in yourself. Even though you are different from the rest, I want to know that you are not less important. You have a luster about you that is great and glorious. People want to be around you, and want you to be around them. Always remember your worth!!!

 

Keep doing your best this year. You will soon be the leader of your pack. When you do, ensure that they run true. Aim for the mountain top!

 

With Love,

 

 

Dad

EASTER CLUES

For Easter this year, I hid the kids baskets as usual, and left them these poems for clues on where to find them. I really like the third one. That was the last one I wrote. It carries with it a true Easter theme. I also like the whimsicalness of the fourth one.  I tried to keep them all in the same meter. Can you guess where each basket was hidden?

So, can you make a guess to find the basket’s hiding place?

Be quick not slow or else you’ll be the last one in this race

Keep on the track to gain the prize you’ll win it in the end

If you can be an oil’d machine and not be on the mend

Just keep your tank filled up for speed and not with sugar please

For sugar candy wears you down. Remember these two keys:

First, set a limit, ne’er exceed or else you’ll soon be fined

And always check the mirror to see reflections of behind

So find the basket with these clues and grip the handle tight

And hug the corners in the turns to make your knuckles white.

A basket filled with candied eggs is just a place to keep

Safely inside the grassy bin the eggs you soon will reap

You’ll store them then inside your can that’s emptied from the night

Only to find you’re sickly green from every single bite.

You read the label just to see the harmful mix galore

Each candy sweet contains a bunch of things to make you sore

The things you eat are building blocks, the tools to help you grow.

Just eat the things that satisfy, the gas to make us go.

They’ll make you tough to push and pull the trials in the test

And soon you’ll find you’ll mow right past the strongest of the best

The advent of the Easter morn a wondrous, splendid gift

That came to us all bundled up in doctrines set adrift

By prophesy and angels sent upon the Earth to sing

The praises of our Savior come, returning of the King

Each letter written jot and pip predicted he would come

And so the heavens sounded horns, the hosts beat on the drum

They raised the flag for all to see the banner God unfurled

Delivering the Earth from sins and cleansing all the world

Two messengers proclaimed He’d wake and open up that box

And from the tomb came forth to us, now at the door he knocks.

Its fun to walk around the house and search for baskets hid

Behind the cushions we now step upon them like a kid

That pulled the pillows on the floor to bounce upon these lumps

And try so caref'lly not to touch the ground that gives us bumps

So place each cushion on your feet and careful where you walk

You do not wish to end up as an outline made in chalk.

So lace each pillow tightly now and guard your living sole

The floor is lava you can see, avoid it is your goal!

You’ll need the best protection from this flaming fiery floor

If you desire to reach the end and make it to the door. 

BOY UPON THE WAVES

BOY UPON THE WAVES

                                                       

                Tossed upon the waves of sea

                Holding fast to life's last breath

                Rowing strong that all might be

                Delivered from the hand of Death

                This boy who rowed until his last

                He was unknown until he died

                Yet left behind there was a past

                A mother on a shore that cried

                "My son, my cherished little boy

                He left my side so young and quick

                To seek a dream and chase a joy

                But left behind his mother sick.

                "Return to me, my boy so dear

                Let not the sea e'er own your soul

                For she's a pow'r that I doth fear

                She'll take my heart and leave a hole.

                "Remember this, my plea, my cry

                And come straight back into my arms

                And fight for life you must not die

                I pray your soul be free from harms."

                This prayer was dashed upon the waves 

                That battered keel and tore our sail

                And sent this crew to wat'ry graves

                And drove a mother's heart to fail.

                This boy a youth to Sea had gone

                But lane before us in this hour

                Now lies a man for all he's done

                He broke the chains of youth's trite pow'r 

                A silent word let us now pay

                Reminding us of lives He blest

                Beneath these trees in dirt and clay

                His body worn and laid to rest.

NEVER WANTED

 

NEVER WANTED

A bowlful of over ripe bananas sit upon the table browning.

They wilt as the house grows warm with icky heat.

Once each fruit was fresh and golden with bright peels to behold

Now, they are reduced to a sad and weeping, diminishing mess 

They were never wanted.

Placed once as new desirable fruit upon the countertop 

Lain thoughtfully, but now left to rot and be forgotten. 

But, they just won't leave the mind. They stubbornly remain.

The pungent aura of their dying aroma cry out

To your nose to remember them, to not forget them. 

This smell bleeds into the bowl in a visceral ooze of dirty yellow and brown ichor.

They were never wanted.

Tiny flies buzz around the corners of your vision,

Drawn to the forgotten's smell like pilgrims to a futile quest.

They are lost to your focus fleeting away as annoyingly as they came. 

They bring shear pittance of their pathetic worthlessness. 

They were never wanted!

You pass the fruit bowl by, and for a moment are reminded of their onceler's worth.

You forget in that brief second the flies, the stench, the decay,

And think upon their possibilities and purpose that they could serve.

A moist loaf of bread? A decadent aromatic banana cake?

They were never wanted?

But the depressing reminder of your diet and weight now burdens. 

The contemplation of the exhausting time to bake and create overwhelms.

The sweating heat needed from the oven is a sorrowing vision. 

These thoughts cause you to turn away from these fruits forlorn.

They were never wanted.

Rime of the Portentous Albatross

 

Aloft a cliff amid the crags

High above the mist and foam

A nest of Albatross well made

A place of heart and home

Three wiley chicks beneath the breast

Shelter 'neath their mother's down

Watched out upon the sea's horizon

As the sun from sea did crown

For father Albatross had gone

A fishing through the cold dark night

And hadn't still returned to them

To make their hearts aright.

As morning burst like floom of whale

Spouting forth in gold array

A sadness there could be felt

That push their hopes away.

"Mother, dear, will Father come

And sing to us His song of praise

To give us food and sustenance 

Our hearts he'll warmly raise?

"Will he upon the winds return

And settle what was gone and lost

Or has the sea in frigid apathy

Shroud him in her fog and frost?"

"O children mine, your tears are heard 

Blossoms of my bosom, dears,

Fret neither on these worries wrought

Nor on these night borne fears.

"For lo thy father Albatross 

Is wise and strong of wing

He'll fly for days and through the nights

On ocean breeze he's king.

"No stronger bird can fly as he

And though the sea with weathered wrath

Her torrent and her mighty gales 

Can't change his course or path.

"And all the birds that float the mists

And all fish who swim the waves

Give homage to the Albatross

Who guards them from their watery graves.

"So look up through the mist when lost

Appearing there a gift so grand

The Albatross is God's true sign

That soon you'll find you're safe on land."

And so the nested mother kind

Willed her chicks with care

And spun the tales of sea and sky

In hopes she'd stave despair.

Yet all the while her heart did ache

For truth of monsters of the sea

Drew vividly inside her mind

Of demon ships and foul chanty

For known unto the Albatross

Were all the creatures far and wide 

And only one was vile enough

From which the wise did hide.

These malovent demon clans

They rode atop the sea and waves

In barges made from oak and pitch

Their oily trail the sea depraves

They call themselves the sons of God

And tall they stand with pride filled chests

With every breath contemptuously 

Expelling rot from in their breasts.

Anon one wretch from this clan

Will lure an unsuspecting bird

With treatise of some help they need

In kindly deed and word.

Against their better judgment's guide

Alas an Albatross will bend

With heart atip their outstretched wings

A kindly hand they'll lend

But monsters are they til the last

And they'll betray the kindly act

With cheating greed and hungered vice

They'll break a sacred pact.

And so this mother bird her chicks

Gathered with her wing real close

More for her to bouy her up

While fearful thoughts engross

As the orb of day arose

The Albatross king's bride

Spied o'erhead a snowy Owl 

The dire sign the king had died.

And with the dire snow white Owl

Came cold a misty breeze

From far beyond the warm stream sea

Her tears instantly did freeze

The Northern gale a fury brought

To chide the mother bird

And laugh the sorrow of her loss

Upon the gusts she heard,

"Your love is dead, the Albatross

Shot through his heart in vain

By crossbow's bolt did pierce him there

And shot by hand of men!"

The Northern gale echoed twice

And thrice the chiding came

With each her heart did brake in twain

And chose the monstrous men to blame.

Then with the pleas rare ever heard

Cursed the sky this grief struck bird

And prayed to Sea and Sky and a Third

For vengeance of her pain now stirred

Upon the men whose vice had spurred

Her Albatross in sea interred

The Northern gale took pity on

The mother Albatross's plea

And with its breath impressed the gods

Convincing Sky and Sea

The Sky his stars hid from view

The monstrous mariners made blind

Not one could navigate the way

Their precious homes shant find

The Sea too showed obeisance with

The stopping of her breath

No wind blew there to fill their sails

An omen emanating death

And lo the men in vile form

Turned one upon the other

All invoke their baser id

And tried to kill their brother.

Just as the Sea and Sky reposed

Their vengeful lack of aid

One mariner was left alive 

The Albatross he'd slayed

Brought back to land to spend his days

E'er going from here to there

To tell his fateful tale of pain

His Albatross to bear.