MESSY DESK
The sound of bells and clicking clocks mark
the receding movement of the mass
and pebbles on my desk. I pass
along moraines of memos, minutes, fill
fossil folders, check dinosauric data, page
through the paper strata, sift the verbal till,
sedimented miscellany of a new ice age,
in hopes of finding bedrock. Once, I recall,
I saw a jagged thrust of outcrop in a field –
it was
plowing ended at its edge. Likewise, concealed
beneath these coffee stains and half-bent
Paper clips, the formica surface awaits
a fiery eruption of volcanic thought, sent
up to consume the clutter. The trash abates.
-- Fr. Lennart Pearson
MR. CHIP
“Something grand is coming!” So says the sign
announcing the new convenience store. Beside
the sign, four grey walls of concrete block confine
a cubic space for “Mr. Chip,” described
as if the structure were an old baroque hotel,
a Verdi opera with a singing cast the size
of
bred Englishmen on holiday, the ultimate prize
for decathlonic agony, a funeral speech
for Pericles, a Churchillian political design
for winning war or peace, ideas that reach
for stars, a Steinway ready for a Rubenstein,
a finale worthy of a William Tell.
No, convenience grandeur only wakens pity,
as though Bunyan’s pilgrim, on fleeing hell,
had said his destination were “
-- Fr. Lennart Pearson
BEING
It’s ironic how, being free, we choose,
become imprisoned in our choices,
and then want back the freedom that we lose.
Poor bride! Poor Groom! the noisy voices
of their guests (surprise!) are obligations
in disguise. That simple wish upon a star
ends up a managing of constellations
with bangs and holes and dwarfs as far
removed from honeymoon as laundry day
from Mardi Gras. The stupid parrot squawks
of eagledom as if there were a way
to flee the quotidian conspiracy while hawks
are soaring elsewhere. Now both caged
and counted on, I simply long to simply be
– no actor in another’s play, no staged
model of warning or example, no epitome
of anything. I’d rather have my flaws
rubbed down by one who really understands
how tiring it is to always represent a cause
and who, in turn, would welcome loving hands.
-- Fr. Lennart Pearson
THE KISS
They kept it simple, since they were but two.
The sacred words and actions were not new,
But subtly, there was now in her inflection
A tenderness that startled him – compassion
suited to a deeper seeing
into sacramental mysteries. Being
both aware, they waited. Suddenly, the wonder –
this time in, with, under
palace shadows, among tourists, in the roar
of traffic. But now it was not simple anymore.
-- Fr. Lennart Pearson
