A pair of white doves came to nest on our barn roof
First there was one, then another
They were cold and frightened from the sleeting snow
They had little ribbon bows tied on their feet with bells
You were delighted but I was the most delighted 
I fed them corn from my hand
They pecked about on the snowy barn mantel
That was dry and warm with hay
Their feet were cold because they had nowhere to land
They looked at me peacefully
It was Christmas Day.  In communion we sat
Resting our bodies from the winter cold
Companions in a barn are a blessing from God
For God knew what He was doing
Around us the seeping of ice thaws and cars in the distance
The feel of my hand in yours
They put their wings together and closed their eyes and rested
God makes miracles
For the littlest creature was loved enough
For God was watching over all things
He led the boy home and put him in bed
Then wrapped him in an electric blanket
He served him mashed potatoes, roast chicken and stuffing
With a little cranberry sauce and some juice
He gave him a wife with a warm heart
And two friends to keep him company
Long slow days resting under the christmas tree
And warming oneself by the heater
Hot mug of coffee for those that had come
And cheerful burbling of conversation
Ladies and Lords coming and going
People greeting one another and giving gifts
He closed his eyes and curled up in a little ball
And I made myself some coffee with sugar
We lay still and listened to the earth turning
As it shifted about its axis
Creaking like a sailboat in the harbor
He gave us a market to sell our embroidery
We made these little gifts made of wire and tinsel
We made them together ourselves
People came from far and wide
And read our news and notes
It was a good life and God was here
And we rested with the Lord in His Sanctuary
Many long winters and many long snows
Much peace fell about our door
The throwers of stones put down their stones
And walked away sorry
For you and I have been on a great adventure
So let us both retire
For we have seen the walls of the kingdom
May we lift his name on high
Oh God that remembered us in his Cathedral
Oh Holy Cathedral Divine
Praise be to the God that works with us
As we plan the events of our futures
Praise be to God for all these presents
That we open with eager hands
Presents full of gold and red paper
And ribbons and jewels and lace
These are the most loveliest presents
This feast is divine
I lay with a full belly of mashed potatoes
And think about how much God loves me
May our deeds grace God to thank him
For He is Good
I close my eyes and send my passions
Down seeping into the earth
Earth of all lost things
The earth under the crystalline crust of snow
The dizzying height of one who can fly
Your gift and my gift are handprints in the snow
But I am lain sore and low by now
I've learned that God does not want to change his ways
God is terrible and dark in His Will
God's Will is often to torture his children
But Yet, it is God's Will
I have learned that the hard way
I lay in the still deep shadows
Nursing the wounds that I have earned
My body broken with punishments
I cannot go any further in my pursuits
But when I see children laugh and smile, then I smile too
Then I know that I did the right thing
I feel, when I see people having fun around me
That my footpaths on the earth were not in vain
My spirit goes to dwell with them
Where there is much joy
My body has become a lump of clay
It is by now deformed and weak
A veteran of a cause I fight alone
When my body shames me I look at those around me
And then my heart soars along with them
No sorrows too great, little one, to bear
No sorrows, no sorrows
But you are a child of the most high and triumphant
He whose wheels scrape across the sky
He who whisps the cloths into shapes
He who plans your destiny
Maybe not all Good, but He is God
He does want His beings to suffer
It is His Will and His Will is natural
And anything that counters God is unnatural
The planet all singing together
No sea nymphs for the hero of the night
No pretty papers for the mother's duckling
No warm towels to wash yourself with
No age spots to soothe your pain
No sylph to awaken your inner dream
No balm that is cold and soothing
Your life, like my life,  will be flickered out
And someday we will all rest under the stars together
My body is deformed and ugly now
But I feel deeply proud of my choices
Peace to the grey bird outside your window
Peace to the bird that sings all night long
Long tranquil days of sadness and prayer
We keep vigil until we, too are taken under
One day we will all lay under the stars of heaven
When children play my heart will soar
I will learn to forget you
The wind blows through my heart like breath
For I am becoming the wind
Whatever comes to take me down
I will be ready for whatever comes
The trumpets blow hard for me in heaven
They clarion calls out my name
I will hold my head high when I arrive
I will be proud and triumphant
On all things there is waiting
There is waiting in the leaves and in the sun
All around me, waiting for something to come
Little chipmunks are getting excited
The fish are hovering listlessly
The little duckies are laughing cheerfully
They have high hopes for the future
Everyone has high hopes for the future
Everyone wants to start again
Whispers of new love on the horizon
People are full of hope
Breaking to bits the thing that came
With hopes growing up through the  earth
Nature is surviving the blows of death
Nature will yet outlive the curse
Music floats in from a balcony
A worried hound barks in alarm
Women hang up their wet laundry to dry
Babies are lulled to sleep
This small person sitting here
Was once a reason for the apocalypse
But maybe her eyelids were blessed
Maybe God will spare them from harm
When children play, there one is with them
The heart dances with its fellow man
Boots for the winter will keep out the cold
There will be enough for Christmas
Children will have mamas and papas to protect them
They can play in the light of the moon
Maybe I can focus on a new project
One that will bring in much change
This house full of ghosts is holding
It is weathering many storms
A place to come and pray
After what has happened here
Bells on my ankles and white linen around me
A swath of purple for a shawl
Little tricycles with their wheels turning
Waiting for someone to come and play
The pain of losing you will fill my sails
And carry me to the furthest shore
I will cry about this one day
But not until it has passed me by
By like the sunken flower when
She realizes she is a lost toy
When I realized you didn't love me
That you were intended for another
Judge ye not, taught Jesus
When he looked into your eyes
But I smile when I think of your suffering
And so I am letting you go
It is a lonely city
People pass each other by without speaking
There is so much unsaid
That people live behind closed doors
When I see you curled up into the fetal position
Especially when your body is cold
That is the instant that I am sure I did the right thing
For I cradled you close to my body
When you needed nourishment, I fed you
When you were scared, I held you
When you cried , I comforted you
And when you needed to grow, I released you
To fly in the wind like a dandelion spore
To find your place under the moon
Wherever you land, to go as far as you can
To discover the one that you love
The salt sprays breaking where you stand on the bow
Gazing out to sea
Lost and without a comforter
Will you be okay on your own
Little chocolate cakes with frosting
That we eat together looking into one another's eyes
God's confetti explodes all over me
And I brush it off quietly
I am pulling carrots from the soil
The soft sandy soil of my vegetable garden
The roots give when I pull them up at their base
They have frost on their leaves for the winter
Potatoes and carrots for the winter
And spinach leaves and onions
Your hair falling down around you like a shawl
Like a lady living in luxury
Good food, soft clothes, clean home
And guests to shower you with friendship
When you lift your eyes gently
I know that I am doing the right thing
Little sapphire hearts that hang like stars
In my ears like tears that I never spoke of
Tears that were never noticed or never fell
The reason I smile so rarely
Yellow and black butterflies with zebra stripes
Pickles on meat sandwiches
Little gulls going up and down the beach
Being washed away by God's patient swells
Bells on the feet of birds and rabbits
Little mice that crawl up and sit in your lap
Queen anne's lace spanning the meadows
Blowing up and down in the wind
Oat grasses waving in the breeze
The laughs of children in the air
But when you look, there are no children
Frogs croaking from the muck of a green pond
Leopard frogs with golden eyes
Marble floors with green, blue and pink roses
Stones cut in the shapes of petals and leaves
Lollipops with ribbons tied around their sticks
Candles in glass lanterns at night
Feather bouquets with blue glass beads
Pink ribbons pulling hair back from the forehead
Turtles slipping under the surface of a pond
And you sitting across from me
Pandas when they reach for more bamboo leaves
The river when she cries
River blowing down her veins
Pouring out that which forgets all things
Your lamp will be on all night
Your candle will keep out the dark in my heart
Little green fish in a clear glass bead
Gingerbread house with a gumdrop path
Icing piped on for a roof
And sealed between the cracks
Little dolls thinking to themselves
Watching you from the corner of the room
Mimosa leaves pressing their leaves together
When a dark shadow enters the room
Your path leading into the woods
And my house off in the distance
Village lays low and prayerful
As Christmas draws near
Cold rain falls down in a sad way
The rain attempts to wash away pain
Although an evil thing has drained the storehouse
Yet we are still alive and singing
The rustle of the grasshopper wings
The creaking of the stair
People wander in and out of this place
The road beyond here leads on and on
Soft pink and blue teddy bears
Sweaters that are large and comfortable
Black pants and a pair of mukluk boots
The sound of jingle bells in the night
Cats when they sleep full of fish dinners
When everyone's in from the storm
The trees when they think softly
And one brushes by them without a sound
Gentle paths that lead around the front steps
And wander into the village
Pearls draped among silk flowers
Sitting in the corner embroidering
An electric fireplace at the foot of my chair
Warm slippers after a hot bath
Children come running in quietly
Then take their plates of dinner
Blown glass ornament of red and green
Hanging from the christmas tree
Grateful to be alive
They lay in a happy reverie
Chickens scratch for meal on the grass
All around, there is life
Life coming back from the past
Christmas lights and a happy glow
The wooden slats of the porch
When snow falls upon it
The sun grows long and slants
Across the stretch of winter land
The winter with all its parched cold
Rivers flow unto the sea
Like a man coming home and embracing his family
Your life, my life, his life
All things eventually flow into one
All things eventually return to the dust
So many things make the creator sad
Wind blows through my hair like a memory
Impossible to reach the sea
All creations come and go
People die and they never get to realize their dreams
Most never find their earthly paradise
People make mistakes and die for them
God gets tired of his creations and destroys them
And the creations feel afraid for a while
When they are wiped away God feels better
People lose form and become dust
Your hope goes out and I die
Then noone knows what to do
So many lost feelings
So many feelings of solitude and suffering
In the long stretch of years of suffering
Many people must face the future alone
The body is a sacred vessel
The body is a temple of the divine
Tears falling so hard
Weeping for all that is lost
Noone has very much now
Everybody sits by themselves
Maybe this is the will of God
The will of God working
God in his silence kills
He gets tired of his creatures
Under the sun is the land that flows into the sun
In pain the final curtain
A soft moss plant that covers the ground
A bluebird hopping on the lawn
Lost silver and porcelain and beaded necklaces
Lost blessings that will never be recognized
Lost affections that were never given
The winter sunlight coming through on a winter day
You when you come down to water
People praying before they find their end
The fear people feel before they find their ending
Sadness when there is no answer
The feeling when you relize God made a mistake
The way people get sick
The way people feel afraid when noone will help them
Pain of being alone
Noone will rescue the suffering
Noone will come to their aid
A quiet person who likes to sit alone
Must bear the suffering of many
Water flowing into the sun
Peace like a thousand pains
Pain like hopelessness and suffering
Nothing to make them well
Dark ivy climbing up a brick wall
People sleeping within
Beds with heaters and blankets
People living comfortably
Little bits of hay and straw
A barn mouse building a nest
Crickets cricking in the grass
Chickens scratching about in the courtyard
January sunshine falling through the panes
When you are alone in the day
Some thing like bits of yarn and feathers
Baby birds sleeping therein
Hay creatures and dry hay
Barns dry and warm
Cold koolaid drinks when you are tired
A mother when she is sewing
Watching one's mother sewing
In a quiet way from across a room
Watching the hair fall across her forehead
Watching her mend pantslegs and crochet caps
Embroidering little stars and flowers into cloth
And then stitch spirals and branches and leaves
Trickle of water running down a hillside
Day's end when all is done
Noone left to mend the things that are broken
Just people feeling hopeless
Rivers flowing into the sun
Days that are winding down
No answer on the phone line
No one to write letters to
No one that isn't up to something
No one you can trust
Nothing but sadness in the end
Life played out like a song
All alone the pain of a thousand horizons
Like hope that has been placed further on
Reefs break waves and coral shells
The necklaces of clam shells
Alone on the beach in winter
The leaves fall into pools of leaves
Waters forming over pools of leaves
Waters with little creatures
Parsley and cilantro growing under a window
Front porch slats in the sun
Abalone shell in the palm of my hand
At the time off the apocalypse
Nearly all of the human race has been destroyed
About ninety percent
I hold this abalone shell in my hand and wonder
What has happened to everyone
When we are all gone from the earth
There will be nothing left of us but this abalone
What does abalone mean when we are all dead
What will it hold within it
A relic of a former time
Like a child's teddybear to an alien
When I hold this shell I think of the future
And wonder what the fallen would have me to do
The abalone shell will be all that's left of me
When I too have fallen
I pick up my pack and carry it
And prepare to continue on
This abalone will one day be the only evidence
That any of us ever existed
The ones that were alone in their suffering
Are inscribed in the atoms of the abalone
Their memories, their will, their pain
All of it is here
Our enemies came from on high in the heavens
They came like the night wind around our camp
When the people died they felt alone
Like noone else could hear them
One mark of the apocalypse was isolation
The facts were never announced on the news
Oh mercy is inscribed in this abalone
Or lack thereof
It says that without the hope of mercy
The world will be destroyed
Like pandora's box at sundown of humanity
The earth brims on oblivion
All lost, all lost
The city by the sea
Your life and my life flickered out
Like breaths of things newly born
The earth filled with children
The children are gone now
God's voice pouring out over the waters
The shivering of puppies
Peace like a spirit on the edge of night
There is nothing left of us
Just one hope that in mercy
A few of us might survive
Oh city by the sea
When I see you come running towards me
With your arms spread wide to embrace me
I want to go with you into oblivion
Breathe and nothingness
The low creakings and flashes of distant night thunder
I watch you from a distance
With eyes that are dim to pain
Eyes that look up with slow hope
Hope slowed down by the will of God
Will of God moving among us
When will you spare the earth
All dead and all forgotten
How bleak the future looks
The groaning of the earth
When it shudders among us
The earth that would not be desecrated
The earth that wants to destroy us
The will of God moving among the waters
Day dimming like a light
The Gods like fierce birds of prey
Feasting upon us like abalone
Oh prey that was trapped
Oh little baby ponies
Why ponies, why