A Prayer for All Creatives

I have paced myself with the paces of exuberance

and littered the floor with scrumpled-up papers.

I’ve peeled myself like a ripe fruit

and shared the segments, squeezed out juices.

Of grace, I have wondered upon

and peered between the slats of your kingdom,

but  you have been to me closer than

what is cherished as close

and have shown me the kingdom within.

You have handed me brushes, and a palette of colours,

You have reached out to take my hand

and kept my hand in your hand.

You are not in a hurry

and wait to hear my voice as it stumbles

in wave upon wave on the tide of your shores.

You have handed me a pen, and some paper on a table

and you have shown me the garden, on the edge of attention.

We have breathed the same breath, under the pre-dawn light

and thought the same thoughts, trembling on what begins.

There are times when your face alone is enough for my heart,

because the words have lain down, and gone into hibernation.

And when this comes, I mustn’t fight it, but take it instead

as the most intimate of invitations.

I feel the turning of what must be borne,

as it grows and lurches deep down

And finds its first breath when we least expect it,

howling to come out and make itself known.

So untidy, we are not made for perfection,

but find our truest expression when we run into ourselves,

to find the Son there is rising.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Johannes Plenio Pexels

The Unknown Seas of a New Year

There is a wind blowing off the sea
urging clouds across thirsty mountains.
A sail has responded internally
setting course for the unknown seas of a new year.

The goaded feet of many travellers
have found the chains, broken,
the fetters smashed.

It was enough to be reminded
of waters from within the most Beautiful Man
that may be drawn to quench all thirst.

Amidst one Son, a countless variety
of pilgrims are voyaging, many sails aloft.

Inside, the breath of the Spirit sets the course
as we stand with wind in our faces
setting our sights on what fills the horizon.

The waves may veer us to the left or the right,
but we hear a voice directing
with true compass navigation.

As the elements swirl around us on this blustery fine day,
we know with a sure anchor
that when we come into harbour tonight
the driven strife will have blown away
and we will feel filled with open spaces
waiting to be travelled.

The map is in the hands of our Captain
and his weather-worn face assures us
that this harbour under the stars
is a place for now, to call home

until tomorrow we set sail again,
and we will be carried
by the four winds of the Spirit
into whatever's ahead.

All we need do is raise anchor,
and hoist the sails.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - A. D. Blake

I wish all of you a Very Blessed and Merry Christmas and Joyous New Year!  Thank you for being part of the journey at Prayers on the Wing this year.  It has been for me in many ways a poetry journal and process of some very transitional times in our lives.  I appreciate each one of you and pray every blessing over you and your families into the New Year.

~ Available from Secret Place Devotions: A Listening Reflection for New Year 2017

~ Did you know that Catching the Light is available for audiobook download? ~ Episode 1-10 and 11-20: scripture reading, gentle piano background music, a devotional reflection and poetry for contemplation: Audiobook Catching the Light Episode 11-20

I Will Find You Again

I come to you between the lines,
in the places no one else can see
where seeds lie dormant under snow
waiting through cracks in the pavement.

Here is where you are to be found -
where no one is looking,
I will find you.

When relationships lag behind
expectations that cannot be met,
when the longing for a rekindling
of connection leaves us feeling bereft -
It is here I meet you.

You make for me a home
where Advent light realigns
the needs of family and friends
both near and far -
I will see you.

When I miss the people
who are no longer a part of my life,
when the children wake up
on the excitement of long ago mornings,

and when I look forward to so much
it cannot be contained -
it is here
I will find you again.

Jenneth Graser

Gift of Wonder

In the fledgling of this day
a gift of wonder is waiting.

Where a branch meets the welcoming sky,
leaves break the brightening palette with green.

A bird not yet grown
shows newly adult feathers peeking through
the down in shimmers of emerald and red.

A curtaining of vine shadows lace the walls
and family faces look like strangers wanting to be known.

Every smile is not taken for granted
where laughter is medicine
and we open this precious gift
that costs us nothing.

We come upon it as grace,
while imagination flickers with picture upon picture
of how the world could be.

We find ourselves praying into dark places
with hopes that are longing for more.

Wonder promises us that miracles
are here to stay.

Through every impossible dark,
there is one ray of light to point the way.

So we pick up the fractured pieces
as Spirit somehow makes sense of it all
in the way only Spirit can,

beyond reasoning or understanding
peace combines with wonder
as healing melts through the sun.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Silvia Stödter

It is Time

There were blank canvasses in cupboards

Unwritten pages in many journals,

Oil paints in wrapping, as yet untouched.

There were books like notes

On staves, unread on shelves

And dancing shoes under the dust.

There were days of perfect sun

Light, making history on the water,

With an empty bench for the view.

There were jackets needing mending

And clutter building up

In the kitchen, pots, utensils.

There were many buttons in

Grandmother’s box, from the good old days.

Envelopes and stamps as yet unlicked, unsent.

There were photographs set on origami

Paper cranes, from which eyes

Observed the passage of time.

There were guitars in their cases

And a piano, needing tuning.

~

Take out the canvasses, dear

Today is a perfect day for painting.

Write your poetry and your gratitude

In a journal of your choosing.

Squish your oils on a palette –

Mess with colour, mix, ooze.

Take out a book that speaks

Of places yet unseen, turn pages.

Put on shoes for dancing

To the beat popping the air.

Slow into your time dear,

On the bench made for you,

To satiate your mind with all you care to see.

Take those old jackets down to charity,

The pots, utensils too.

Make mosaic button rainbows,

Write a letter in your leisure;

Then call up the tuner

And peel off the cases –

It is time to make music.

Jenneth Graser

Photography credit unknown

Resting Seat

There are many things that could be said,
many that could be done.

Mountains to climb, up to the very top,
lists of the bucket kind.

A feeling of to-do lingers at the fringes of the day
as we drop exhausted into bed.

And Lord you are calling us,
you are calling us still...

Come my Beloved,
into a time outside of time.

Come to the resting seat in the garden
of my habitation.

There are no nagging voices or things to be done.

Here, there is presence that guides
everything you do on earth.

Listen to my voice, put on the music, lay aside your rushing.

Move into the pace of ease where my Spirit speaks
strength into your frame.

And whatever you need to face,
we will do it together.

Jenneth Graser

"My lover is mine, and I am his.
Nightly he strolls in our garden,
Delighting in the flowers
until dawn breathes its light and night slips away."

Song of Songs 2:16 MSG

Photography - Jenneth Graser

Listen to Ruth Fazal - instrumental violin album - Songs from the River 2

Make Room for You

It is time to make room for you
to come in ways I have not known.

My heart has become eager for the stretch
of tent pegs and widening of stakes.

The pain of a good stretch will be worth it,
to receive the mystery of your voice in the shade.

I will meet with you in places unfamiliar
and break bread with you, and drink wine.

I will linger over your features
and we will be silent for awhile.

I may not feel like talking,
you may not feel like talking too.

But we will be with the love that grows
through all things hard in a breaking of ground.

We will stay and observe what may come
from such a union, where old love feels new.

As our hearts synchronise,
we hear the rhythm combined.

Jenneth Graser

Image credit unknown

Brother Lawrence's Kitchen

I fold back the sleeves of the day
into Brother Lawrence's kitchen.

The dusky light shines through motes
making a silhouette of this homely monk.

The hard work of food, cooking and dishes
happens without the use of the word busy.

I feel love through the pores of him breathing
and his eyes connected to fellow, self and God.

No ordering about and yet, everything has a place.
No rushing, and yet look, it is all done.

There is peace in each duty performed.
There is a divine connection in the work.

Lord, your presence is all around me as I do,
everything that has a need can be settled into
without the driven edge of stress.

Let us practice the presence of grace
and rest in the bosom of your love
where work is worship.

Jenneth Graser

Credit unknown - From a book published by Fleming Revell Co. in 1900

An audio reading of the book The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence:

Born out of time

On her death bed,
a woman transported on one of her final
breaths
to a time in her past.

Young as ever she did appear
and aware of what awaited her,
this window
into life as it had been lived
was given as a gift before she travelled through.

The moment chosen for her to relive
was on the blink of a mid-life
realisation
whilst snuggling her daughter during nightnight prayers.

She was with the little ones when they were so
small
and words rippled out of their mouths,
confounding them with sage-like wisdom.

"I love you with all the colours of my heart"
"Thank you that we are the praise of God"
"Your songs come into my mouth and my songs go into yours"

Fingers, each so like petals held
on,
as she leant into a beating heart.

Her daughter stroked her hair
as though she was the comforting mother
and the mother, her child.

And the revelation came: she could see herself as an old woman
looking back over time to this moment,
(a time often raced through to get to the next thing),

and she felt herself travel back to be here, be here now
and she knew that for the rest of her life she would
make every attempt to abandon herself to the call of love
by becoming more mindful
of living
in
the
present.

And then the woman found herself back in her bed
with the faces of those she loved around her.
A holding of hands, a kiss on a
breath
and she was born out of time into God.

Jenneth Graser

Photo credit unknown

I Shall Not Want

I walk the path between trees
down into the glade
and place my soul into the water there.

A river alive with stones
awash with every story of my life
flowing downwards to the sea.

I am a flower falling on the stream
and floating in spirals of letting go
as my dreams make way for you.

I am my truest self in the song David sings,
each word unveils the longing of my heart:
I shall not want.

Jenneth Graser

Image - favim.com

The Layers of Thanksgiving

Open the day with thanks
as you shrug back the curtains into the view.
Stop for a moment, remain.

Peel back the layers of thanksgiving:

1. everything beautiful in your past to be grateful for.

Delve deeper and you find:

2. the painful things that have shaped your life for good.

Go into a new layer and you find:

3. the small, seemingly insignificant things that make a difference.

Deeper again, peel off another layer:

4. gratitude for the present moment.

Then you become thankful for:

5. the patience you learn through irritations.

6. the challenging people who teach you to love and forgive.

7. the big things you often take for granted.

Then you discover thanks for:

8. the best that is yet to come.

The emotion of gratitude takes over
and you realise the layers won't ever stop,
because at the ever-unveiling heart of thanksgiving you find,
something invaluable:

9. the spirit of contentment.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - Guido Mieth

Hidden

It is good to be hidden in the great garden.
It is good to be hidden in rain.

It is good to be under the fingerprints
of green foliage among trees.

It is good to be hidden in the hand, in prayer,
to be under the wing.

To be hidden by wave upon wave, and behind the waterfall.

To be hidden in the womb and the fluff of the nest,
to be held in the cloth of motherly care.

To be under the night sky of a new moon
in the middle of a field looking into star upon star,
in the grass, hidden.

Such times were given to us so that we may listen,
and speak and be heard.

So that we may find ourselves
alone in the presence of greatness.

So that we may know we
are small

and yet find the universe is expanding on our breath
and upon each thought as we crest the tides
of love in being
hidden.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Dorothy Lathrop

Tiny Seeds

He moistened the hem of her robe,
led her by both hands.

The green of the forest was under her feet,
now there is only water.

The fire ate up most of the mountains,
with a sound of seeds popping.

She used excuses by the dozen, offered
to herself and to others.

By late October, tendrils appeared
and her fears were dealt with in dreams.

Ecclesiastes called for seasons of planting,
with a time to weep and a time to laugh.

The grass had a chance once again, as
blackened earth and charred roots gave way.

The soles of her feet were too used to stones.
She came alone from the desert to the trees calling.

Her tiny seeds have sprouted
in the hands of her Lover.

Jenneth Graser

"Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?"

Job 38:37-38

Artist - Arun Prem

Written into the Core

What moves you behind the scenes
where stars are delved in galaxies displayed?

Kingdoms rise and fall before your eyes.
Time trickles under the veil of immortality.

One man pokes his finger into
space determined to attempt
what no man has.

One woman steps onto the ladder
of her higher intent, going places
they say.

A child rolls a dice across
the table and the people laugh
because the number is right,
but what happens when the
die is cast and no one likes
the outcome?

Birds circumnavigate the globe
guided by pure instinct alone.
What steers the heart of people
to what is true?

What makes one turn to
eternal voices eager to learn
and another plummet into
the dregs of lust for power insatiable?

Fish move in schools of syncopated
rhythm, clouds adorn the
sky in colours dressed by position
of the planet towards the sun and
animals know when to sleep
and when to move.

Will we remember what has
been written into the core of our DNA?

Will we listen to the groove of purpose
etched upon the surface of the
world and resonating in the
deep heart's core?

Jenneth Graser

Photograph - ilovehdwallpapers.com

An Embrace that Holds On

In the hands of some people
there are beautiful things.
There are hands reaching
out to give these things away.

There is a heart restricted
so tight it can hardly breathe.
It is time to unzip this heart
and place what is inside
into a field.

I am moulting
and finding I know not what,
but this must be OK,
to not know and to be so angry
under the peeling skin.
Anger first,
then what is to come, can come.
What is to be, can be.

There is a hammock in the
field for misunderstood
misfits who have looked a long
time for a place to belong,
always on the fringes
of other people's dreams.

Memories dislodge with the voices
of laughing children and
water on the rocks.

There is an embrace that holds on
until the heart relaxes once again.
Sun may shine on such an
awkward feeling until the
muscles thaw out and
remember the sweetness of being,
out under the warm light of
everything lovely about the sun.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - eu.fotolia.com

Meant to be

She has just discovered
the artist she knew she was always
meant to be.

It was already a fact
at birth when her fingers
trailed impressionist milk
across her mother's chest.

Her face squashed with
all the wisdom that presses in
from being formed on the
other side of time.

A vestige of the kisses of God
left on her ears,
the petals of a newly born flower.

Colours mixed on a canvass -
an ooze of paint,
a sigh of brush...
and the beat of the drum
of her pulse speaks.

Her silence makes music.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Hiep Nguyen

Search for the Anchor

A woman behind her guitar
strums the void with sound,
but has not found peace to still
the old voices that taunt her
when the curtains are closed.

A man lifts his beautiful heart -
though his voice is lost
in the microphone, his spirit offers
an uncaged bird
and so he sings what we cannot hear,
with our ears alone.

There are people carried on the swell of chairs
as they search for the anchor.
There is belief, a variety
that pulses for union,
for answers of the greater kind,
for an answer of any kind.

Follow him then on the sidewalk
and look him in the eyes.
Provide a place of movement
or a seat on the voyage of doldrums.

We will fan our faces
in salt-tasting air
and swim where water fathoms deep
looks but a breath away.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - David Doubilet

The Humble in Making

Upon the mind water flows.
Upon the thoughts, the rain.
A gust on every curvaceous turn
of the brain.

There are angels on the pathways
of memory, treading softly.
There is a jar of sweet balsam -
see how it is poured into forgiveness.

Every branching off of every
tree of thought is reaching for the
root of meaning.

Rest now, into the water,
into the breath that comes from
air above the mountains,
clearing all the smog of voices on
the horizon.

The pointing fingers are no more
lining the path of imagination.
God is in the neurons.
See how small God may be!

Set a course of possible thought -
trees voluptuous in leaf, in blossom,
in fruit, fragrance the path
of emerging ways of being.

The nagging voices shouting "less"
are swept off of the path with "more"!

More hope, more love, more
surrender in our weakest places.

We find a pulsing strength in the
wind, water, fire of God
and we are grounded on the
earth of the humble
in making.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Bianca Green

Only Forwards

You have reached into
my Holy face.

I have felt your hand
in the realm of my holiness.

Enter my Holy face.

Walk into my mind,
and wave upon wave
of my imagination will
roll over your shores.

Reach into my Holy face
with your whole being
and I will find you there
as never before.

I meet with you in
blue light dimensions.

I meet with you under
the water where words
are not uttered.

Now that you have entered
there is no going back.

Only forwards, I will take you.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - stebbisveins on Flickr

Let that be honey to you

You are my Daughter.
Let that be honey to you.
Let that be ever sweet to your taste.

The world may riot in the hurricane -
there are frenzied whispers of
utter disbelief in the bowls
of striving.

There are violent retributions
and no solutions to be had.
But you are my Daughter
and I am your Father.

You are my bringer of laughter
cherry on the top
candle to be lit.

My dwelling-place Daughter,
belonging where the
world cannot strive over your head.

Where your heart is held sacred.

I am your Father.
I set my seal on you from before birth.

I have laughed over your laughter,
I have wept over your tears.

I laugh over your laughter
throughout all of time,
I collect every tear.

(primarily written in July this year inspired by Psalm 2)

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Victoria Rhodehouse