A Parasol
Mushroom
A tiny white house
Appears on the lawn at dawn
But where is the toad?
To a child a
mushroom is a toadstool. I have never seen a toad resting on or sheltering
beneath a toadstool, but I keep looking. I imagine it would be rather like
Bilbo Baggins, smoking a pipe and reading its morning letters.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
What Time is it in Wal-Mart?
And call to children in the yard
“What century is it outside?”
-Pasternak, “About These Poems”
My daughter gave me a nifty Apple watch
But years have passed; it mostly spends its time
On the charger, dreaming of happier hours
When minutes joyfully leaped over each other
I found my dusty Timex in a dusty drawer
$8.00 at Wal-Mart a long time ago
(the watch, not the drawer)
I fitted it with a new battery (I can do stuff)
Its sweep hand leaps over its painted dial
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Kreeft,
Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm
Peter Kreeft: The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written:
The Wisdom of the Lord of the Rings and The Brothers
Karamazov
I was yawning over my book late
at night
When the driveway alarm squawked
unimaginatively
In its mechanical voice,
“DRIVEWAY ALERT!”
With guard-dachshund and flashlight
I addressed the alert
But there was nothing, only the
wind and damp
Perhaps a squirrel had triggered
the alarm
Which is silly, because squirrels
don’t drive
And shouldn’t be wandering around
in the lane
I am yawning over my book again -
What are you reading at bedtime
just now?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
In Monastic Solitude
In monastic solitude I sat
Among the lilting liturgy of the leaves
Vocalizing no prayers, thinking no thoughts
Only trying to empty my poor mind
And listen to the Hymn of the Universe
The blessings of bees, the chantings of cicadas
The singing Silence of the spring-ing sky -
But in all of this I was unsuccessful
And that’s okay
My mind is too cluttered to pause and to be
But still, you see
I thought I heard You sighing in the wind
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The
Distinct Click of a Zippo Cigarette Lighter
A man
An old man
An old man slumped in a wheelchair
An old man slumped in a wheelchair outside
the cardiac clinic
Smoking a cigarette
An old man smoking a cigarette, not
the clinic
The clinic is not smoking in any way
While armed with smug looks of
disapproval
We could pursue him with guilt and consequences
Along the disinfected corridors
Of offices, labs, and consulting rooms
Maybe even past the patch-painted
corner
Where the cigarette machine used to be
And the pay ‘phone and the newspaper
rack
But Bogart and the Marlboro Man are
dead
A Zippo clicks as it did in his youth
Leave the old man smoking his past
alone
Because he is alone, and because he is
dying
And his cigarette is the only joy left
to him
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Carpenter’s Pencil
For Gary Kirbow and The Guys,
Brent, Jeff, and Sam
A carpenter’s pencil – a marvelous magical wand!
With a mystical mark, a thoughtful touch
Of the master craftsman’s weathered hands
It wondrously works visions into being:
Transoms, beams, joists, joins, rafters, cabinetry
Trestles, trusses, uprights, piers, stringers, walls,
Timbers, cornices, doors, lintels, moldings, mullions
Trim, frames, laths, panels, planks, sills, and studs
The master shapes them with an artist’s utensil -
The marvelous, magical carpenter’s pencil
(At this point Kirbow will tell a naughty joke)
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Death Comes for the Cardinal
While tending the tomatoes and peppers and such
I found the corpse of a cardinal – too much!
And my sweet little cat with a grin on her mug
Licking her paw with a ‘tude all smug
I’ve told all the birds to watch out for the cat
But they will dive-bomb her – rat-a-tat-tat!
And thus a brave cardinal or insolent
bluejay
Will be snatched to its death on a sunny
day
O, bold birdies, soaring down from the
sky
Mind the claws lest you dive and die
Or as is said in Iberia, by every don and dona
Always remember - leave that cat alone, ya!
(Apologies to everyone in Catalonia)
A play on Death Comes for the Archbishop
