Monday Mourning Chores

Cleaned behind the refridgerator
Cut hair
Washed clothes
Went to Mass
Picked up pager
Told the truth

~~~~~~~~~~<><><><><><>~~~~~~~~~~

Here is my beloved servant

My chosen one

A bruised reed she will not break

"Coh ahmer Adonai"

A light to the blind

I came back to you
I remembered how you made me feel
When you believed me
Believed in me
I washed your feet with my tears
And dried them with my hair
Now lying in a pile on the ground
Soon to be swept away
The hair from a different time and purpose
I cut off for you

I told the truth for you
When it would have been easier to lie
To tell you what you wanted to hear
To make you feel good
I told the truth
And he told you to throw me back
Out in the streets
To earn my living again
In ways only the darkness understands

He will sell you for thirty pieces of silver
But I will buy you back with my tears
Stand beside you

Let my eyes shelter you when you cry out
That your Father is not here
I am here
Look at me
We will get through this
Together

Palm Sunday

Hands outstretched
Wanting more
Eyes blind to the price
Of what wanting more
really means

You tell me you love me
But that's a lie
I see your eyes
Your hands
Your heart
There is no remnant of me in any of them
But the words keep coming out of your mouth
well planned, well trained
But just words

April 17, 2011
Copyright April 2011

November 20, 1992

Poetry journal started back then.   "...if I don't pay attention to my existence, no one else will.  It is a cool., overcast November afternoon. I am anxiously awaiting for the return of my son from Camp Goddard in Oklahoma. I hope he will bounce off the bus with tales that will make him smile. His happiness found means I am a successful mother, not that I am completely responsible for his happiness, but rather, his laughter tells me that I did a good thing in creating him. I look around and see all the other parents and they all look so old, like they are MY parents, not the parents of small children. And then I realize, "Cindy, you will be 36 in December. You are not so young..."
My poetry had a very different flavor then:

I: Awakening

Debussy make the best kind of lover
He kisses your fingers and toes
And works his way to the middle
Where the chords fit snuggly
Weaving their way through you
To explode out your fingers and toes
And when the piece is complete
And air flows back inside
And your heart starts to beat again
With new life
All the transgressions committed by life
Pale to the feeling of music
That now flows in your veins.

When I think of all the pianists I've met
who aren't married...
We don't realize what it means to
devote oneself completely to the art
like a priest...one cannot be burdened
with things other than music
things that interfere with the art
But the irony is
that to truly express life
one has to live it
otherwise the expression is a fantasy
and quite frankly, some of us prefer the fantasy

II: Discovery

Tempermental musician
How do you see me?
Do I move you enough to write for me?
Or am I not even a whisper in your thoughts after our meeting?

I desperately need a legacy
different from the life I live.

Can you create for me that fantasy
from golden trees and green
of water white against sky blue
with notes that sing in yellow and violet hues?
Will you transform the memory of me
into pretended passion made real in the melody?
Or am I not even the blank page on which you write?
24 June 94

 III:  Truth?

Calmness upsets me
under the guise of reality
I play with the cards dealt
Never completely relinquishing my soul
to mediocrity
Always in pain holding back this soul
Slowly dying in the repression of expression
The air grows thinner in my cage
"Time to change the paper!"
Yet I don't
To change it...to obey
is to admit defeat.
9 August 94

Eucharistic Prayer

In the woods, long ago

I carried my Bible

Sat on a log

And read the Gospel of John

To the birds and squirrels and skies

Hoping maybe God would hear

And remember me

Take kindly my thanksgiving prayer

And rescue me from...

From what was I running?

I can't remember.

Lord you are holy indeed

( Lord, Make me holy)

The fountain of all holiness

(Will you share it with me?)

Let your Spirit come upon these gifts of bread and wine

(And on me, let me be your gift...please)

Let them become

(Let me become)

The Body and Blood

(Your Body and Blood)

Of your Son, Our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ

(Of your Son, Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ

In this world today)

Time is a human construct

Because we are mortal

But He is not mortal

He was there then, with them

He is here now, with us now

All of time disappears in the prayer

The Thanksgiving prayer

The Eucharistic prayer

In the prayer, we have our first taste of immortality

On the night he was betrayed

(I was betrayed...I will be betrayed, handed over)

He took the bread, broke it and said

(He took me, broke me and said)

This is my Body

(We are His Body, we share in the gift)

This is my Blood

(We are His Blood, we share in the suffering)

Do this in remembrance of Me.

(Zachar Adonai...Zacharu, Adonai, Elohim...can't remember my Hebrew

Of course he did it in Aramaic...why, O Lord, don't I know?

Why can't I remember? Forgive me, O Lord, I have sinned.)

Look around the church. See the faces, remember the faces. The room begins to spin. I see so many hands clasped in prayer. Why do we come here? Why this place? Why today?

Here is the church

Here is the steeple

Open the doors 

And see all the people

See all the people. Heads bowed. 

They believe...or they want to believe...

Let us become one

As the Father and I are One

Let them know

All that we know

Remind them, remind us, remind me

We are not alone. 

Love, Cindy

Seeing into the Weave

12:39 a.m. April 5, 2011.
Woke and the feeling still won't go away.
Yesterday, my life made more sense than it ever has...ever
Yesterday, time stood still, and time stood together
*******

Yesterday, God said
You are not dead
Today you will know why
You were born blind
You will see well beyond them
Into the weave
You will see me
Into eternity

Why is today not like other days?
Because it is holy, set apart
Designed to heal
your inmost heart
Designed to stay
Inside God's way
Designed to heal
Those nerves of steel
Built to protect
An internal defect
A violation of the soul
From times of old

Today the miracle
Has been made clear
Through loving eyes
And listening ear
What once was lost
Now is found
You've made your way
To higher ground

Wounds that once crippled
Now can hardly be seen
Kissed back to living
Far away from the dream
That once killed you each night
On your pillow of tears
You've been given now back
The gift of those years
Lost to sorrow and pain
And wondering why
Now at last making sense
No reason to die
But to live now for Him
Who died there for you
And pass unto others
That love given you
Love, Cindy
Copyright April 5, 2011 @1:05 a.m.

Wind

Wind blows
God knows
Leaves bend
Showers end
Bodies rise
Beneath skies
Arms greet
Daybreak sweet
Teeth brushed
Hair hushed
Coffee made
Breakfast laid
Keys found
Heart pounds
Open door
Waits for more...

Cindy Johnson
copyright April 2011

Ashes to...

Within the Stravinsky motif

A curious child tests her limits

Plays with fire

And burns brightly

Til she burns out

Enter the stag

Symbol of strength and trust

Pulls her broken body from the ashes

Nudges her back into action

She has only the strength to cry

And her tears bring life

To all that was dead inside her

**************************

I have been commissioned to sing my note

Inside this creation

Only pleasing to God and a few well trained ears

Yet sing it, I must

I stand both inside and out

Not yet knowing whether I belong inside

Or out

What I thought was true

Is illusion

What I thought was illusion

Is true

 *****************************

"Authority rests in Me," He tells me,

"I give to you the gift to heal.

No one on earth can take that from you.

What I bind on earth stays bound to me.

Do not doubt your gift."

"But how? I am just a woman." I tell Him.

"Do not say to Me, 'I am just a woman.'

I will show you the path to walk.

I pulled you out of the ashes

And breathed life into you.

It is okay to cry. Your woman tears

Will breathe life into the dead

And give hope to the discouraged.

Your woman tears are your greatest gift.

They, more than anything else you offer Me,

Pleases Me the most.

They cleanse you

They bathe you

They make you holy

And give you great power.

Do not be afraid of them.

I gave them to you.

Each tear brings life anew

Feeds the earth again

Your special rain creates life

Because you believe in Me.

Because you love Me.

Because I loved you first."

Cindy

copyright April 1, 2011