When My Spirit Rises

When My Spirit Rises

When my spirit rises

Unencumbered and free

No weight or worry accompanies me

Interesting that I value things

When in the end the spirit flies

Leaving them all behind

How much I worry and fret

But this too shall pass when I am gone

My spirit rises out of this shell

A virtual butterfly reborn

From caterpillar to chrysalis

Reborn in the image of God

Spirit Creator Redeemer Savior

Knowing there is no place for the earthly

In the spirit world beyond

I can’t take it with me

But then again… Why would I want to

When my spirit rises

Leaving it all behind

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Posting for d’Verse open link night, in memory of our fellow blogger, Glenn Buttkus who passed away. This is one of my favorite poems that I wrote back in 2018.

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We are of One Blood

When self-preservation

at all cost

overrides our understanding

of humanity,

Ideologies arise

blinding us to the truth

that we are all of

One Blood

that pumps

through our veins

interchangeable

with you or me

regardless of color

race or ethnicity,

Life-saving blood

revealing

that we are all one

in the midst of

our diversity,

but not exclusive

in value

or superior in

entitlement.

We are humanity

created in the image

of our creator

Spiritual channels

of light

in the darkness

We are hope and comfort…

not death and destruction.

*

My sad condolences to the people of Buffalo whose family members were attacked and killed yesterday by a raving lunatic who thought his humanity was greater in value than the lives of others who were different from him.

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

When My Spirit Rises

This week my childhood friend and his wife lost their middle-age son to cancer. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child. As I share in their sorrow, I wanted to share this poem that I have posted a few times before. It expresses my understanding of what it is like to pass on from this life to the next.

When my spirit rises

Unencumbered and free

No weight or worry accompanies me

Interesting that I value things

When in the end the spirit flies

Leaving them all behind

How much I worry and fret

But this too shall pass when I am gone

My spirit rises out of this shell

A virtual butterfly reborn

From caterpillar to chrysalis

Reborn in the image of God

Spirit Creator Redeemer Savior

Knowing there is no place for the earthly

In the spirit world beyond

I can’t take it with me

But then again… Why would I want to

When my spirit rises

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Is Your God is too small?

As long as we can keep God confined to an image

or a person, we can control the use of him/her

to conform others to think like we do

~believing we are the only ones~

While others find God’s Spirit all around them

Experiencing love and blessing in all they do

Exchanging religion for real spiritual connection

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Merril introduced us to Puente, bridge building in our poetry. We are to take the first verse and connect it to the third verse by a single bridge line that completed the first verse and leads into the third. This is a first for me, so I am sharing some thoughts running through my head today.

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Meaning in the Meaningless

Old in age, I am young at heart

Seeing my way through an uncharted maze

I look for light in the winter dark of night

Racing slowly toward the finish line

*

Days creep by, as redundant weeks roll on

Attempting to find meaning in the meaningless

Believing in that unbelievable Spirit of all Creation

Experiencing grace and comfort in not knowing

*

In this winter of freezing joints and pushing buds

I defy the waiting cold earth with warm sunshine

I write my simple poems from inspired words unknown

As night closes in, each new day dawns

“I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-falling leaf” – from The Paradox by Paul Dunbar

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Laura asked us to consider writing from the perspective of paradox. She gave us some lines from different poems to choose from for inspiration. I chose the one from Paul Dunbar’s, The Paradox.

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Spirit Questions (a Rubáiyát)

I wrote this a few years ago for the d’Verse Poets Pub. I thought it would be good to reflect on as we exit 2020 and enter 2021. We have lost a multitude of people this year to Covid-19. Death has a way of bringing things into focus. It brings us face to face with our own mortality. The thoughts in this poem reflect on spirit within each of us.

Where dwells the spirit before life begins         

Waiting to entwine with genes at man’s whims

Does it float in space riding red stardust

Or in ocean waves where the raindrops swim

*

Where dwells the spirit when I took my first

Breath of life // of heart and lungs merged thirst    

Spirit seems at home in this flesh and bone

Fragile body // heart pumping till it bursts

*

Where does my spirit dwell when life is done   

As eyes close in death and the race is run

Breath leaves the body and the spirit rises

Rejoining spirit with Spirit // lives on

******

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

At the End of the Road…

What is you concept of God and heaven? A couple of years ago, I reflected on the concept of God that I was taught as a child; what the Bible taught us about God, and now, in my winter of life, what I think about those images and concepts. I saw this sign along the road a few years ago. This poem addresses more questions than answers. What do you visualize when you think of God?

At the end of the road when my life is done

what will I find will there be one…

who will meet me there at the pearly gates

with hands outstretched  no need to wait?

Will he be tall, short, fat, or thin;

When he sees me will he break out with a grin?

*

Interesting to me how we fantasize

seeing God like us, as we rationalize…

Dreaming that descriptions of hands and face

describe a reality that has no race.

Metaphors become reality as we describe our God,

forgetting he is Spirit, and that would be odd;

For a Spirit has no shape, no hands to hold tight

Only a presence of the purest light.

*

So whether God is he she or it,

the God we meet will probably not fit

the idea we have in the back of our mind.

Won’t it be interesting what we will find

…at the end of the road?

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

The Edge of Light

Dark sleep rises at the edge of daylight
Dreams of life that chased around the labyrinth
gone // lost forever // not to be recalled
Squinting I see the light of a new day
Hesitant to open my eyes, I reluctantly rise
Walking through the door of a new day
Into a room filled with welcoming light
Grateful to be alive my spirit rises

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Lara at d’Verse asked us to choose a room to write about. Rooms almost always have doors to pass through, so this is the theme of my poem. This poem began this morning as I was trying to wake up! It also took me to a deeper meaning as I come into the winter of my life.

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Matter & Consciousness

Running barefoot in the stream of consciousness
I bang my toes on all sorts of matter
It got me to thinking
“What came first… matter or consciousness?”
Solids, liquids, gasses,
or the conscious presence of the Spirit
When it comes to you and me
it seems pretty easy to decide;
Consciousness enters at conception
and departs at death…
dust to dust and ashes to ashes
and the spirit goes back
to God who gave it.
All we are is inert matter without consciousness
Just dust and bones
Life/living is a stream of consciousness
Amazing how fast our matter turns back to dust
without the flow of the Spirit within us.
When it comes to the universe
consciousness seems to be the guide
behind all that happens to matter.
Patterns, organization, gravity, magnetism
Keeping everything in sync;
Consciousness before life…
consciousness during life…
consciousness after life…
We are all part of the flow
of the spirit of the universe

******

Photo: Dwight Roth

The Spirit of Christmas

When spirits join in perfect harmony
There is Peace
The joy of sharing one’s soul
Brings Balance
Spirits rise in joyful song
Experiencing Community
When spirits find joy in self-less giving
There is Gratitude
When God’s Spirit touches our spirit
There is Agape Love

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Posted on d’Verse for the prompt Spirit. We are to write a quadrille of only 44 words using any form of the word Spirit.  To me, soul and spirit are very hard to separate. Today I have looked at spirit from several different perspective.

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