Born From Death’s Scorn

Seed, photo by the yes man, from Flickr

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” –John 12:24

"What shape waits in the seed of you?" –David Whyte

Born From Death’s Scorn

What longs to be born from the seed?

What shape waits in the seed of you?

What will emerge from the soil?

What will break through?

“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies . . .”

We will never see resurrection with these eyes.

© March 28, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

Softly Signaling Life

“I Am Alive!” photo by Robbie Pruitt, © March 18, 2013

Softly Signaling Life

The little one bumps

In Morse code

Throughout the night

My hand rests gently

Listening intently to her

Trying to decipher babblings

From within the womb

Softly—through her mother’s skin

Until we both fade to sleep again


© March 18, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

This poem, Softly Signaling Life, was submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets on Tuesday, March 19, 2013. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems here.

Hierophany

Photo of florescent light bulb 

Courtesy of Joseph Bataille, © 2013

A Haitian Perspective Blog: http://jgbataille.wordpress.com

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“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” –John 1:5

Hierophany

Facing into a new night

Darkness

Did not comprehend

The Light

Facing into a new Light

Facing into a new Light

Light

Did not comprehend

The Darkness

Facing into a new night

© March 1, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

This poem was submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets on Tuesday, March 12, 2013. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems.

Benediction: The Face of God

The Drama of Scripture cover from Amazon.com

An epic poem based on The Drama of Scripture: 
Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

By Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen

Prologue: The Bible as Grand Story

Act 1: God Establishes His Kingdom:Creation

Act 2: Rebellion in the Kingdom:Fall

Act 3: The King Chooses Israel: Redemption Initiated

Interlude: A Kingdom Story Waiting for an Ending: 

The Intertestamental Period 

Act 4: The Coming of the King: Redemption Accomplished

Act 5: Spreading the News of the King:

The Mission of the Church

Act 6: The Return of the King: Redemption Completed
Conclusion and Benediction: The Face of God

Conclusion and Benediction

As the wise men concluded their stories at evening’s end

Prayers and blessings would rise up like campfire smoke

The story echoing and stillness in the hope—transcend

And the minstrels would play their final chords

And the hymn singers their final choruses to the Lord

Prayers were offered up and chants—incantations  

The crowd would fade into the night back to their own places

The circle shrinking as less light reflected off fewer faces

The poets would add midnight oil to their lamps

Light their pipes and ladle out more brew

The morning was a long way off for them to be through

The images and prose floated like music—the lyrics presupposed

They knew they would not sleep until it was written in verse

So without plan, reservation, or thought—
they would not rehearse

Quill and ink scratched paper frantically in final prose

The poets proclaimed, “This is how the story goes . . .”

The Face of God

Once we walked in the loving gaze

Of the face of God

In Eden’s beauty paradise

On heavenly earth; on heavenly sod

Our transgressions made us outcasts

And dark winds blew us,

To the East, it threw us

The wind withered the land

The fallen outnumbered the sand

None could rest, not kings in their riches

Nor the poor with outstretched hand . . .

And the prophets cried out

The priests offered sacrifice and praise with shout,

And the kings waged war and decreed

Until it was clear, all people bleed

And silence deafened the people in need

Then the starry night came. . .

Wise men were called from the East

Back to their Prince of Peace

His star led them there

With gifts of worship so fine and fair

The Light had entered darkness

After four hundred years of silence

Broken in a babies cry

For all to live, who once had died

The Shepherds came with staff and rod,

And these wise men, to see the face of God

In former days, and in many ways

God spoke and now by His Son,

In these latter days

He walks again with His people

In Eden made anew

His face and their face; seen through and through

To once again walk in that loving gaze

In the Glory of the face of God

In Eden’s paradise

On heavenly sod

To be right again with our God

Heaven came down and intimacy restored

Both rich and poor have seen their Lord

© December 2011, Robbie Pruitt

Hebrews 1:1-4

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

Wisteria

Wisteria photo from Flickr, by Rick Kimpel, 
rkimpeljr, © March 28, 2007

Wisteria

Purple

Wraps around

And intertwines

In gripping love

Adorning

Vine and tree

With Purple

Majesty  

© February 21, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

Wisterias, photo from Flickr by formatc1, © May 10, 2008

TweetSpeak’s poetry prompt and musical playlist this February is Purple Rain and Indigo Blues (A Plum-good Poetry Prompt).  This week TweetSpeak Poetry offers Let’s Go Crazy–A Potpourri Purple Poetry Prompt Of Tyrannosaurical Proportions by Seth Haines here.

This poem will also be submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets on Tuesday. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems.

Purple Passion

Love Aura, photo from Flickr by Jsome1

Purple Passion

Grapes are fruits

Of royalty

And we feed on

Grapes in ecstasy

One at a time

Purple as satin

Sheets and silk

Purple Roses

Indicate love

At first sight

Purple hue

Transcends

The bluest night

A purple moon

Returns nightly

In varying shape, shade

And degrees of light

Illuminating slightly

© February 11, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

TweetSpeak’s poetry prompt and musical playlist this February is Purple Rain and Indigo Blues (A Plum-good Poetry Prompt).  This week TweetSpeak Poetry offers The Symbolic Duke And A Purple Play (A Poetry Prompt) by Seth Haines here.

This poem will also be submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets on Tuesday. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems.

Color Purple

Purple Roses in a Bowl, photo from Flickr by Mason2008

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." –Alice Walker

Color Purple

Alice Walker

Never met a purple shade

That she did not admire

Which did not persuade

Her regard for it would not tire

She stood with God

In fields of purple flower

With beauty that would not cower

Amidst splashes of the finest color

In the countryside assured

© February 11, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

TweetSpeak’s poetry prompt and musical playlist this February is Purple Rain and Indigo Blues (A Plum-good Poetry Prompt).  This week TweetSpeak Poetry offers Purple Plays (An Associative Poetry Prompt) by Seth Haines here.

This poem will also be submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’spoems.

Lydia

Purple photo from Flickr by Lady-Ro

Lydia

Seller of purple

To excess and royalty

Scent of lilac and lavender

Extravagance for all to see

Plum

But not the fruit

And not the color

Plum

Like no other

Indigo

Amidst

Our day-glow

Flowering

With Lavender

And Lilac

We don’t turn back

Maker, seller—Follower

Of purple linen

A sister—Our kin


© February 5, 2013, Robbie Pruitt


“On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.” –Acts 16:13-15


This poem, Lydia, was submitted on TweetSpeak’s poetry prompt on February’s Purple Rain and Indigo Blues (A Plum-good Poetry Prompt) on TweetSpeak Poetry, offered by Seth Haines here.

This poem will also be submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time Tuesday. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems.

Restoration is Here

The Drama of Scripture cover from Amazon.com

An epic poem based on The Drama of Scripture: 
Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

By Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen

Prologue: The Bible as Grand Story

Act 1: God Establishes His Kingdom:Creation

Act 2: Rebellion in the Kingdom:Fall

Act 3: The King Chooses Israel: Redemption Initiated

Interlude: A Kingdom Story Waiting for an Ending: 

The Intertestamental Period 

Act 4: The Coming of the King: Redemption Accomplished

Act 5: Spreading the News of the King:

The Mission of the Church

Act 6: The Return of the King: Redemption Completed

Act 6: The Return of the King: Redemption Completed: 

Restoration is Here

Restoration the final act

When all is made new

All that is broken had been seen to

When all is made right

All will worship at that day

When there is no more night

When Jesus has come back

He will have worshippers

A number too great to count

And to God’s own glory—surmount  

Recreation and restoration we are to be about

And on the mountaintop we will all shout!

It is, indeed, finished!

Death has been diminished

“All that is sad will come untrue”

And creation will be renewed

We will praise His name until that final day is done

Until all can say, “I am His daughter. I am His son.”

We wait until He comes on the cloud

When the final glory has been revealed

At the lifting of the final shroud

Then we will worship

With a many a shout—as we all yell out loud

Hosanna to our King

May His glory ever ring! 

This is how the story comes to its final end,
when all has just commenced

And all is made new again, as it was in former days hence

© September 7, 2012, Robbie Pruitt 

Morning Hope

Dawn of a New Day Coffeehouse photo from Examiner.com

Morning Hope

The morning hopes for better days in early reflections and first sunrays. No soda no beer will calm the fear, soothe the mind and make it clear. Tope. The color of taupe, and a morning reflection of hope, awakens the night and dawns the day.

Morning Hope

No ode to syrupy brown

Pop and fizz—not my biz

Condensation

Dripping brew

Off bottle brown

Nothing to see to

Barley and hops

Second at tops

Bubbly—no better than Brew

Water washes down

Better—when filtered brown

Through bean

And morning hope

Sweetened and creamed

To color of taupe

© January 21, 2013, Robbie Pruitt

This poem, Morning Hope, was submitted on TweetSpeak’s poetry prompt on January’s Battle of the Beverages Prompt on TweetSpeak Poetry, offered by Seth Haines here.

This poem was also submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today. Check “Mr. Linky” for this week’s poems here. 

The Church and Her Mission

The Drama of Scripture cover from Amazon.com

An epic poem based on The Drama of Scripture: 
Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

By Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen

Prologue: The Bible as Grand Story

Act 1: God Establishes His Kingdom:Creation

Act 2: Rebellion in the Kingdom:Fall

Act 3: The King Chooses Israel: Redemption Initiated

Interlude: A Kingdom Story Waiting for an Ending: 

The Intertestamental Period 

Act 4: The Coming of the King: Redemption Accomplished

Act 5: Spreading the News of the King:

The Mission of the Church

Act 6: The Return of the King: Redemption Completed

Act 5: Spreading the News of the King:

Pentecostal Kingdom Come:

The Church and Her Mission

We will go

Tell it on the mountain

Until all will know

Dance and sing and put on a show

Until all the world comes aglow

And all has the chance to be grafted in

Until all will come to know

The King has come and freedom is shown

To know Him and to make Him known

And God’s Kingdom has come

On earth as it is in heaven

And the yeast is worked into the leaven

Community rises up—everything is held in common

Brother is brother’s keeper

Love escalates and rises ever steeper

Heaven has come down and blessing abounds

Tongues of fire emerges and descends

Fire flames, rearranges, changes and begins

His presence and power from nation to nation

Witnesses consulted, witnesses made

Flame so bright there is no shade

This is how act five closes, with flames of fire and community

Power displayed so brightly the whole world would see

© September 4, 2012, Robbie Pruitt

This poem was also submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.