MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

COMMON CHURCH POEM (V4)

Sitting here in this pew

splinters in my butt

I spend hours in silent prayer.

I beg Jesus for a quiet life.

Breathing here is so serene.

Sounds of vespers, so beautiful

dagger, so alone, unnoticed.

You can hear Saints

clear their eardrums

Q-Tips cleanse mine.

I hear their scandals

I review mine.

IF I WERE YOUNG AGAIN (V3)

Piecemeal summer dies:

long winter spreads its blanket again.

For ten years I have lived in exile,

locked in this rickety cabin, shoulders

jostled up against open Alberta sky.

If I were young again, I’d sing of coolness of high

mountain snow flowers, sprinkle of night glow-blue meadows;

I would dream and stretch slim fingers into distant nowhere,

yawn slowly over endless prairie miles.

The grassland is where in summer silence grows;

in evening eagles spread their wings

dripping feathers like warm honey.

If I were young again, I’d eat pine cones, food of birds,

share meals with wild wolves;

I’d have as much dessert as I wanted,

reach out into blue sky, lick the clouds off my fingertips.

But I’m not young anymore and my thoughts tormented

are raw, overworked, sharpened with misery

from torture of war and childhood.

For ten years now I've lived locked in this unstable cabin,

inside rush of summer winds,

outside air beaten dim with snow.

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE

From the dawn, dusty skies

comes the time when

the eagle flies-

without thought,

without aid of wind,

like a kite detached without string,

the eagle in flight leaves no traces,

no trails, no roadways-

never a feather drops

out of the sky.

MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON