Every Easter, I try to reflect a little bit and write a poem.  A little over a month ago, a post on a friend’s blog got me to thinking about 2 Cor 4:17, and as Easter drew closer, it provided a certain amount of context… but really, how do you capture such an event like this one?

The eternal weight of glory
Balances on the cross
Silence envelopes time
Right before the cry
Of “It is finished!”
Rips the sky

Eternal weight of glory
Falls dangerously on the soul
Forgiveness at this cross
“For we know not what we do”
Grace on wretched man
Creation.
Fallen.
Made new.

The eternal weight of glory
Heavy as the stone
Once sealed over life
Now freed of death, of fear
Measured words at the tomb
“You. – will. – not. – find. – Him. – here.”

Eternal glory far outweighs
Present troubles, momentary
We wait for it, unseen
Sin’s weight absorbed on Messiah Christ

“I am the resurrection
And the Life”

Perhaps this is less creativity, more tirade? As Wordsworth wrote, poetry is the spontaneous overflow of feeling – so here is the overflow of feelings when I step into a bookstore. I’m still tweaking the ending though.  And my semi-sincere apologies for those who do like Nicholas Sparks.

I have a love-hate relationship with that bookstore

First
I have to watch out for the anger stewing inside me –

Of course I keep my composure
Like every good book browser
Like every cool book cover tourist
Holding their cocoa cappuccino – so cute – in their hands
Checking the time on their cell phone because there is somewhere better to be.
But where?

So yes, I am angry.
Angry at the mediocrity
Simplicity
The ease of which it was  –

For Hilary Duff to publish a novel
For Britney Spears to write her memoirs
For Jewel to show off her poetry

Sometimes I want to take Joel Osteen’s book, where the cover is his full-page smile, and I want to rip his paper-face in half –
– some kind of punishment for the fluff he is fibbing

Or sue Nicholas Sparks for his emoticon-writing,
drool that drivels and imagined as moving.

And I hate that Sophie Kinsella, John Grisham,
Nora Roberts, Mary Higgins Clark can
churn out,
spit out,
write out,
cop out
one thousand books a year.

Ah.
Exaggeration, I know.

If the “book rage” subsides, which I admit, part of it has to do with the melancholic sense (that I try to ignore) of overwhelming…

jealousy:

What new authors will there be
that have published a book before me?
Eee.

How did he think this up?
How did she put this down?

Juxtaposed with:

And so many more, many more, many more
books I want to – have to – read

Piles and pages of paper
And words and wisdom, wise-cracks and wit, woes and whims…
…that I still need to read, absorb, interpret, criticize, love, pass on
The lives I could live, become part of, hate, consider

Oh.

Yet sometimes
I can ignore all this
and pick up a book off the shelf
And I read it. And love it.
And am surprised yet not surprised.
And it is good.

When I lived in Taiwan, I used to go to this tiny park to observe and write.  Every afternoon, an elderly couple would come out and walk laps…  Following is one of the many, many poems that came out of that park.

In a world where
man is right
in all he does and says

And women
are merely spaces in their sentences

It must be strange
for that wife leading her blind husband,
and strange for him to trust his eyes and life to her.