He who laughs last...

...Thinks slowest.

I have people in my life who love me...But I don't know it
I have people who I love deeply...But I don't show it.

She wanders up and down the halls
Dreaming of perfect bliss
She can't see the heaven before her
The kindness she'll often miss

Caught in the webs of could-have-beens
Should-have-beens, might-have-done-thats
When the tree of life before her
Stands, his hands open, laid flat

"Climb my branches, swing from them
Tell me your stories and wishes to be
Build within me your house
Stay connected to me."

But her head wanders elsewhere
Her eyes look down the street
Her heart plays games with memories
Of when two lovers meet

Touches gentle and sometimes harsh
Lovers remembered then forgot
Waiting always waiting
For something that was not...

"He's waiting for my yes
He's waiting for me to see
All I ever needed
Was right in front of me"

Like Dorothy, over the rainbow
Like Blynken, sailing starry seas
Tin man, scarecrow and lion
Guard her until she sees

What she wanted she always had
Given to her before birth
Life and longing for love
While waiting here on the earth

The gift was first a man
And then the little boy
Hands to hold and trails to walk
And tales of endless joy

He wrote to her He sang to her
He played her a little tune
He romanced her in the garden
Under a half-crescent moon

She bent her head and laughed a bit
Under the starry sea
"How do I say yes to you
When you've already said yes to me?"

"Open your self to the world
Love them with all your heart
By loving them, you love me
From you I shall never part"


She closed her eyes and finally saw
The Love that held her tight
Bigger and stronger, bolder and longer
And she knew she lost the fight

Looking over the fence was over
Waiting for doors to unlock was done
She found her perfect love
In the gift from the Father and the Son

Cindy
July 5,.2011
going to keep working on it...

Someday

Someday
A man will stand behind me
Put his arms around me
And tell me that he loves me
And I will lean back and smile
And remember
That it doesn't have to be hard
It doesn't have to be an uphill climb
It doesn't have to be perfect
I don't always have to be afraid
Or in charge
I can just lean back and rest
And know the only thing expected of me
Is to be there
And open to his arms

Someday
I'll realize
That love is not about
Who you are
Or what you do
Or what you might do

Someday I'll realize that
Love is not about tomorrow
It is about today
And today
I lean back
I rest in his arms
I hear his heartbeat
Fully human
Fully Divine
And completely  totally
Body Blood Soul Divinity
Mine

Someday is today
And the ring He gave me
Is a rainbow so big
It encircles the entire world

I can love you because He loved me first.

Cindy Johnson
May 12. 2011
7:56 a.m.

Never quite turns out as you expect it to...

Needing an Annie Dillard fix?Pop Tart? Extra pair of glasses
*****************************************
Sitting on the steps
Wind blowing through my hair
I remember when
I didn't have a care
Just sitting on the steps
With my mind open wide
Waiting for real life to happen
Waiting on the slide
Touch it with my hand
Oh! Too hot to handle!
Yet shiny silver so seduces
Burns my backside like a candle
Should have stayed up high
Should have stepped back down
But instead I took the leap of faith
And went flying into the ground.
**************************

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