Best Liturgies Poems
Hello God, are you there?
I’ve been searching for you everywhere.
Starting out in my mother’s womb
Not very long ago,
When my life was barely beginning
Before I began to know…
Anything about you
And this world I was headed toward.
I was looking for you even then,
Perhaps so even more.
More than when I finally arrived,
The apple of my parents’ eyes
Crawling ‘round the grass and grounds
You placed down here for me,
When all I knew was sky is blue
And love was wild and free.
And as I grew tall and learned to run
I looked for you in shade and sun.
In churches, bibles, liturgies
And things I could and could not see
Like ocean waves and winds that scatter,
Poetry, symmetry and thoughts that matter.
And this idea of independence
And freedom from tyranny,
The pursuit of happiness, truth and justice
And the bounties that they bring.
And other things we take for granted
Like cats, dogs, frogs and birds,
Rivers flowing, flowers growing
And every song and kind of music played and heard.
While I never gave up and never let down
My search for You through cities and towns.
From tiny islands in the old gulf stream
To highlands and by lands
From Mount Olympus to New Orleans.
And continued my search with purpose and worth
In libraries filled with books
Of countless pages throughout the ages
How others thought you might look.
And if you are real, you know how I feel
About the majesty of Your creation.
Planets, stars and the universe writ large,
Consciousness, curiosity and causation.
From the first thinking man who was able to plan
His future among all things,
While looking for You just as I do
In places where he once lived and dreamed…
Down in the bogs and bayous
Where cypress trees grow tall,
And on the moon and Mars and in honky-tonk bars
And leaves turning colors in the fall.
And in the hearts and minds of others
And the catchlight in their eyes,
Hoping I might find you there,
In their laughter and their hope-filled cries.
Even now I’m still seeking and wondering
If you can hear my plea within,
I pray dear God if we’re not at odds:
Will I find You in the end?
© Terrell Martin, 01/29/2025
They loiter
in memory's mausoleums,
old chants,
those gilded liturgies,
ready to resurrect
and eat through the ear
with promises
under the finery
of polished myth.
Grafted onto our very bone,
these structures scaffold history
and who we are.
Now, stripped of flesh,
they moan
and rattle the dark
when given voice
by savage winds.
I have heard
the haunting echo left
in the wake
of their going.
Emptied of substance,
these vacated vaults
house only noise
from human ghosts.
I have listened
for the faint whisperings
beyond the worn out
replays of the dead,
for something transcending
numbers and name -
hear only the wind.
I keep telling myself
this is enough.
Prayer gift of the Spirit
Makes us men and women of hope
Prayer keeps the world
Open to Eternal God
To pray alone is good
Even more beautiful
Fruitful
To pray together
Many ways to become acquainted to Him
There are experiences, groups
Encounters, Courses
To pray
Take part of parish liturgies
Be abundantly nourished by the word of Eternal God
With active participation
In the Sacraments
The baptized
Confirmed by the Eternal Holy Spirit
The Holy Eucharist, communion
So as to live as authentic friends and witnesses of Father Christ
4202013
Two in the morning,
and the long drive home
from an afternoon and night
of Christmas Eve liturgies,
the air is bitterly cold
as my car and I climb
the long, steep hill out of
the Minnesota River Valley of Tears
to our home fifteen minutes away.
Dreams of our warm bed,
and three hours of sleep,
before awakening and
doing it all over again,
dominate my thoughts
during the long drive home.
I think of you at work
in the nursing home,
watching over the residents
in your care, as the shepherds
once watched over their flocks
in the deepness darkness of night
in Palestine over two thousand years ago.
As I reach the crest of the hill,
and climb out on the barren plateau,
the light from the full moon
glistens off the frozen surface
of snow covered corn fields.
The moonlight reflecting off the snow
is as bright as the light of a noon day sun.
Enraptured by this brilliant light
high on the frozen plateau,
I turn off my headlights
and drive only by the moonlight,
experiencing the epiphany
of the Magi, as they traveled
by a similar light from
the Star of Bethlehem.
Our forest habitat
gusts breezes
across our skins,
as darkness slowly turns
toward bright sky light.
My son
who cannot walk
nor speak his name
talks vociferously forth and with
and adding as this morning breeze
together part of Her embrace,
playful tickles
across his advocating happy Yanging face
teaching out and taking in, as possible
what and whom is impossible
for any of us to see,
whether blind as he
or sighted as we
might actually hope to be.
D is an avid scooting son
toward virgin forest greetings,
able to smell and feel morning seasons and rhythms
of days and night,
dark and persuasively gusty bright
flow of solar and lunar breezes
across our democratic EarthBound skins,
nurturing solidarity
older than concrete avenues toward cities
of overwhelming unforesting,
unraveling
tribes producing what once was nutrition,
good food more than fake food,
healthy love of gusty bright mornings
over toxic repressed-yin darks,
nightmares of climate acclimation
to separating multi-sensory linguistic pathologies.
D's life is liturgy of love
blemished only by occasional aversions to entrapment
and suffering alone
when we might become possible
to produce healthier webs of cooperative nurture
together,
Dad and D
as We.
Daranyani D,
celebrating sacred forest winds
as feminine matriarchal principles
gracing his brown naked skin.
Diversity of days and holonic nightdreams,
democratic nutritional pluralism,
principles of forest reweaving civilizations
older than cities
surrounded by fading cultures of wealth
through deforesting this EarthTribe Morning
which,
on its very best warm gusty day,
has become worthy
of concelebrating Daranyani D's
forest optimizing breezes,
liturgies of EarthTribe's
Secular Out and Sacred In
brightest elder
matriarchally principled
(0)Soul bilateral sacred brain-dance,
Elder RightBrain
Still-PolyCulturating Light-RainDance
Choreographies Sacred (0)Sum EcoPolitical
BiCameral Green-Dominant.
Just like his preachy, but basically happy, ElderDad
co-eco incarnating
our forest habitat
gusts breezes
across our naked wrongs and rights,
as darkness slowly turns
toward bright returning sky light.
Heaven's surround beyond bound's
devour precious feelings found
in each and every one of us count
liturgies archaic literary sound
Saint Catherine's monastery crown
mysterious trees on sacred ground
heavy mountains impressively bind
th' presence of th' lord around
What have we learned?
What is our big 20/20 revision takeaway
from this win/lose
zero-sum failure?
To transparently cooperate
for our most inclusive win/win health
and long-term safety,
economic
and political
and social
and physical
and mental health
resilience
From my own observation,
probably colored
multihued and complexly patterned
by Integral Permaculture Design,
And Community Mediation
for restorative peace resolutions
in perennial win/lose retributive conflict situations,
clashes between conservative LeftBrain dominant
and liberal RightBrain interdependent cultures.
1. To optimize resilience
for at least the next seven generations,
the next 140 years,
bringing us to the year 2160
Here, on our cooperatively co-invested home planet,
we could choose to return to indigenous wisdom,
to include health and safety of our trees,
our neighbors,
rivers,
our soil
our water supply,
our green renewable energy resources,
our fresh and clean river valleyed breezes,
our plants,
our domestic animals,
our wild animal cousins
our sacred EarthMothers.
We do better when our healthy safe priorities
remain broadly contextualized,
less LeftBrain defensive boundaried,
broadening our ecosystemic spatial identities
and deepening our speciated individuation
back through monotheistic/panentheistic history
of this now troubling
post-millennial
StraightWhiteMale privileged
LeftBrain corporately dominant
relentlessly self-promoting
Anthropocene
Predicting unprecedented ecocide,
genocide,
rabid polarization,
economic divestment,
Earth Matricide
and overwhelming
streight white patriarchal political mistrust
During which no healthy democracy
could resiliently endure
as long as our infrastructure,
concrete
steel beamed
bricks and mortar,
budgets and financial planning,
Omit choosing cooperative win/win games
and ecofeminist green co-investment strategies
for health and safety
of our now excluded trees,
plants,
waters,
soil,
planet
EarthTribe
everyday multiculturing
sacredly resonant
creolization liturgies
of LeftBrain verbal co-intelligence
loving RightBrain co-empathic feeling
longing for
co-governing
co-invested
co-empowerment.
Why does she know
laying our music down
raises musicality
reality up?
Does she also know
why my lips prefer to sing
in resonant Oh,
Oooooooh...
oozing round O's
and singular Ah's
free of mapping static lyrics
Lines sung
hung
rung right or wrong,
good marching when uniform,
bad when too shy
of improvising bold
multiculturing unity
Harmony musing
amusing spontaneous drifts
and rifts
of EarthTribe's light
bright woke-up
out loud power focus
Searching out deep whole-sum liturgies
of octaved musicality
we share
when fine-tuned to listen
for our not-so-silent breaths,
anticipating life's next cooperatively felt
and politically co-empowering
story.
Songs of sacred circling lines
and whole systemic spaces
clever linearly written,
yet never speaking totally predicted sounds
resonant transcendent
anticipating in-between joy
and silent
nonviolent
resilience.
I wonder if she feels
as I sometimes can do
that muses nurture music
as abusers remain
narcissistically
patriarchally
capitalistically competitive,
unsympathetic
Lacking indigenous co-empathic wisdom,
Yang universal
Yintegral unitarian
musical integrity
Of Earth's sound tribes flowing
songs and rhythms patterning
natural narratives,
curiously intimate Earth Day
anthems
Dancing spirited
taoistic breaths
bicamerally cooperative
contemplating solidarity
sung clarity
Under a zillion twinkling
zen core inkling
starlit choral nights.
Permaculture design
is also Self-Other-Earth regenerative development,
with both political and economic win/win cooperative intent.
We have every reason to co-mediate
AnthroMind/EarthBody 0/1 co-binary structure
for active compassion/pleasure
in each of our landscapes,
each of our healthy relationships,
each of our win/win resilient transactions
investing our mind/body values
for dynamic ego/eco-synergetic
ecstatic-trending resonant polyvagal outcomes
for each of our private moments,
each of our public days,
each of our interdependent vocations,
each of our spiritual/natural panentheistic lives,
each of Earth's nested neuro/bio/ecosystems.
If CompassionAsUsual polycultural health
v monocultural uncurious narcissistic pathology
is how we invest most days,
then perhaps PermaCulture Design and Development,
could become more of an interdependently weaving Sabbath,
with mutual health and gratitude intentions and practices,
liturgies and dances and mystical songs of fire and water,
nutrient streams and healthy flames
of trust and beauty.
Sabbath Culture usually evolves through silent graceful waters,
noticing and listening and absorbing colors of nurturing light
as deep ecologically empowering wealth,
but,
in vast transitional global moments,
Queen Sabbath of PolyCulturing Designs
may also emerge a revolution
of silent karma-regenerating fire,
heating trauma triggers
inspiring Bodhisattva co-invested therapeutic intentions,
spreading globally co-incidental flames
of polypathic AnthroSpirit/EarthNature transmutation
Health-reasoned seasons
of resonant life
with resiliently warm and inviting
mutually therapeutic win/win treasons
stepping together away
from Business As Usual
win/lose patriarchal
anthro-privileged
rabidly monopolistic monocultural monotheistic monotonous monochromatic
capital hoarding
win/lose dissociative games.
Eternal God knows we men are not only spiritual
Also bodily creatures
Need signs
Symbols to perceive
Describe spiritual
Interior realities
YOUCAT 181
If humane shelters
for homeless souls
with diverse bodies
were also sacred liturgies of passage,
Then sanctuaries for healthier transitions
could be good faith care-giving and -receiving communities
moving together
toward cooperatively-owned
and mutually-imaged nonsectarian theology
and regenerative healthy ecology authorities
and global positive energy wealth responsibility
givers and takers
speakers and listeners
inhabiting cooperative integrity
within WinEgo/WinEco diversity constraints
without toxic Yang/Yin competitions
to feel sufficiently safe
living evolved for greener sanctuary experience
feelings
Thoughts planted in childhood bonding experiences
of eco-school binding language with Win/Lose enculturation
further supplemented by more permanent
critical adulthood housing and extended family iconic events
Together building Earth's great and everyday WinWin transitions
toward cooperative communal homes
restoring green buildings and grounds
Composing neighborhood blocks within eco-village sanctuary
rituals of dawning birth
through WiseElder emerging non-violence
Debating BusinessAsUsual competitive over-capital investment
under-communal wonder
to discern essential organic sanctuary bonding experiences
resilient across family regenerations past
toward future,
non-sectarian Earth passages
toward sacred homeless green sanctuary.
Natural compassion,
like unnatural hate,
is left hemisphere teachable
and right hemisphere contagious.
Perhaps also like hate
(fortunately I know less about this
journey in misfortune)
compassion cannot mature
through merely didactic reasoning,
words,
thoughts
devoid of healthy/pathological
safe/danger
anticipation/anxious feelings
Positive communication experience
commitment
predicts healthy integrity
Nurturing
and nutritional support
Nature's cooperative respite
into nondualistic yet spirited peace,
resonantly non-anxious safety
breathing light in
and power out
A lifetime environmental healthy
guarantee
that I will notice,
respect,
attend to,
anticipate moments when alone
to fill with imaged complex solidarity
rather than emptying
into dark silent apartheid,
despairing manic loneliness,
uncomfortable forced separation,
segregation,
severance.
Compassion
grows from infant attachment
into childhood appreciation,
puberty's struggling acceptance
flaring into peaks of passion,
adolescent sympathy
for EarthTribes left behind
and out
and under
and away,
blown up by abuse
and fractured by neglect
Of HerStory within history,
rich indigenous polycultures,
ancient ecofeminist liturgies,
healthy and impassioned sexuality
Marginalizing into unstable labels
of Either Us Or Them
eco-political competitions,
divisions,
polarizations
of what MotherEarth
wove
wombed
birthed together
For mature
adult
healthy and safe
EarthTribal empathy
Which,
when felt and known,
seen and heard,
touched and smelled
as uniting co-empathy,
we deeply feel
and wide-culturally speak
of integrity's theistic mystery
Sacred,
wondrously overwhelming,
awesomely unspoken underwhelming
Present CoPresence
Steadfastly anticipating
timelessly stable
strong yet flowing
compassionate
universally uniting
Yang-Yintegral
health polarity and wealth circularity
CoBinary
CoPartisan
CoPassionate
green communion.
I'm going through my morning routine
still at least half asleep,
pondering what was I pondering?
while preparing morning meds
and showering my daughter,
helping her dress,
filling her snack pail
for her long school bus ride,
changing my son's overnight diaper,
lotioning ashy skin,
tying shoe laces,
hers, mine, ours,
feet walking onto the bus,
hooking all four corners of her safety harness
and walking back toward our house
thinking
I've been up for an hour
and now I'm ready to begin my day.
What was that first hour?
Its quality of dream
heading toward future investments
in life as more full consciousness.
Consciousness of a different dream?
A different sense of identity?
A different quality of life fullness
in contrast to dreamy half-consciousness,
on back to less than half,
and then the alarm clock
too quickly buzzing louder
to interrupt
whatever it was that had felt so ponderous
pondering what I had been pondering
before I drifted back into sleep.
Self awareness,
self and sometimes also other consciousness,
has this liquid flowing quality
of investment in life
and disinvestment through dreaming,
loss of self-embodied awareness.
I wonder if life could feel richer
if cash followed this same investment in conscious flow preference
over disinvesting in interest paid for over-dreaming
together in WinLose (0)Sum assuming societies,
Eden economies of Paradise Lost,
Bodhisattva Warriors
tying each other's shoes
as necessary co-investment
and physically possible
and ecologically optimal
to get to that part of our conscious warrior day
we can re-invest in deeper consciousness
loving together,
investing in our cooperatively-held healthy water,
and nurturing air for the grandkids
and the back yard chorus of birds
and their grandkids
to breathe,
and fire for cooking and heating, but not hating,
and retelling family and tribal recreation stories,
Earth's continuing liturgical investments
in self with other nutritional flowing consciousness.
the angel leans in the breath
of a miracle second, babies coo
and feathers fly down and smoo
-th birds of trees sing liturgies
to the psalm that anoints your head
red flesh the secret flown through
crows……..
This in-between place
and time
and space
is *****.
Neither the straightforward seer
of new beginnings
nor the recalcitrant rear
of old sweet and sour endings.
Bicameral climates of transition
listen for our most humane imaged left
and see through our most divine beauty right
symbiosis,
complexly bilateral metaphor,
secular and sacred transubstantiation
substantiating disempowering empowerment of creolization,
of co-investments, elite and non-elite,
of left investors
co-arising right effluent divestment
away from competing capital-headed
Business As Usual
In-between lose/lose alpha-point of birth
and win/win omega warm felt beauty
harmonious destiny,
Sacredly holistic resonance
co-passioning left-hemisphere resilient liturgies
Of songs verbally and non-verbally danced
rhythms entranced
co-gravitating with and toward trans-regenerative stories
of competitively deep curious and ***** cooperations,
steeped in-between courageous analogical health
as meta-phonic wealth,
Ecologically robust polypaths
toward polyphonic metaphor.