Poems for your Spirit

Someone asked me recently when I started writing and I said “I've written for as long as I can remember.”

And then I added, "I feel a bit like my parents misled me. They told me that poetry was the most important thing and by the time I realized this was not what everyone thought, it was too late.”

It was a joke but it was true. Before I loved anything, I loved words. The first goal I ever felt moved by was to dissolve myself into the most pure form of language. Sometimes I don't really know what to do with this desire, but, in honour of that inclination, here are three poems I've written about my spiritual life.

A Prayer for Readings

Let me see clearly.
Let me speak kindly.
Let me give and receive
in the spirit of open abundance.
Let this work be in service of the great work.
And let loving truth guide each moment,
each breath and each step.

Oh God, Do You Know Me?

To feel known
to feel seen
to know you are known
To understand you are understood
These too are spiritual longings.
We don't just want to know God.
We want God to know us.
In love
in intimacy
in art
in prayer
I seek
I long
I desire
I ache
To be felt as I feel.
To be held as I hold.
To join and be.
Ask and be answered.
Oh God, do you know me?

You Just Want Attention

You just want attention.
Sure.
But not the broken, careless attention they mean.
You want pure attention.
You want to attend and be attended too.

Attention can be fleeting and it can careless.
But given with care, it is the basis of every spiritual practice.