Lawrence Hall, HSG
My Grandfather’s Hayfield
From my own fields I can hear
the band
The high school marching band,
oom-pah, oom-pah
From several miles away, with
merry songs
and merry cheers around the
homecoming bonfire
That was my grandfather’s
hayfield in my youth
Before the town and school replaced
the past
The shaking baling machine
compressing grass
Where the team captain gives
his whup ‘em speech
I found a terrapin where the
cheerleaders dance
From my own fields I can see
my youth
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The White Lady of the Well
She visits at dusk
She’s watching you;
turn around -
She’s just over there
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For English Pick Up the Anglophone
For English pick up the Anglophone
For French the Francophone
For others in Canada the Allophone
(“‘Allo!
‘Allo!”)
For Mandarin or Cantonese the
Sinophone
For Portugal the Lusophone
In Deutschland perhaps the Deutschesphone
(or
perhaps not)
And in Russia the Russophone
Please phone in, everyone
Because isn’t it wonderful -
So many phones, and each with a
direct line to God
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain
Li Po, “Ancient Air,” p. 84
A Book of Luminous Things, ed. Czeslaw Milosz
We read of the poets of China
In the days of the Golden Tang
In the time of The Gathering of Kings
When The Silk Road carried dreams
Government officials were the poets
And poets were the government officials
Who knew The Five Classics by heart
And wrote of China in Tang quatrains
They were writing to the Emperor
And now they are writing to us
Lawrence Hall, HSG
God in the Hands of Angry Sinners
As Jonathan Edwards did not say
How do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why do they bind their scriptures and
themselves
In anger, duct tape, and camouflage
Why do they raise high the AR and
their fists
Instead of salvation and the Holy Cross?
Where do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why have they abandoned the altars of
Truth
For the flagpole idolatry of the pagan
state
In coven-circles facing each other and
a pole
Like Canaanites and their wooden Asherim?
Why do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
If they would look beyond their own perimeter wire
They would see
A Maiden dancing
In
Galilee
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For Booger-Dog of Happy Memory
And for his pet human Max
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
-George Graham Vest
His fuzzy little bed is empty today
His dinner is untasted, his water bowl full
Awaiting his ungentlemanly slurps
And his favorite toy seems lonely and lost
He will not claim space on my pillow tonight
Nor chase dream rabbits while cuddling with me
Nor lick my nose to wake me up at…
(Geez, Booger, do you know what time it is!?)
Leaping and barking to be allowed outside
He will not bound into the kitchen at dawn
Happily barking his joy unto God
Circling and snuffling for his breakfast treat
A bit of bacon or egg from a loving hand
Because his brave little soul has flown
To wait for me at the foot of that glorious Throne
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cleaning a Metaphorical Rifle
The Detachable Magazine Holds Ten Lines
There is no such thing as an unloaded
word
And once a word has left the barrel it’s
gone
You cannot call it back – were you
sure of your aim?
