I firmly believe that God blesses each and every person with at least one great gift. You ever have a moment or moments where you are doing something you know you can do well, but when your heart and everything is in the place it should be, you can do something really incredible? When you aren’t just doing something that you are good at, but you are really sharing your gift and using it to enrich the life of another person? Some people do it without even realizing it.

Here’s a question: what is your gift? Don’t say you don’t have one; EVERYONE has one, and for some it is a gift that is still waiting to be discovered. I know one of mine is poetry, which I’m sure you all have realized by now. Sometimes I will just “hear” a short line or phrase in my head and when I really focus on the person I want to share a poem with, words flow like water and before I realize it, I have a poem.

I like writing poetry as gifts for the women I know, when it is appropriate. I certainly wouldn’t write a poem, say, for a woman I did not know very well, and I would ask permission of a woman if she were with someone; I know not all men are poets but I do know how envious other men can be when it “appears” that another man is moving in on “their” girl.

So my friend Katie is having her birthday tomorrow, and I thought it would be quite fitting to write her a short poem as a gift. She’s been a wonderful friend and a constant source of joy in my life. Here follows her ode:

Enjoy!

An Ode to Katie on the Occasion of Her Birthday

How could any man recall a world

before that blessed moment when

Aphrodite breathed upon the dust of

this barren land?

Breathed a bare whisper, a zephyr of promise

to the elemental particles to temper them,

shape them, tame them into a vessel

worthy to carry the secret her sweet

tongue bore but a moment before

it kindled the beauty that burns within you?

In some instant, within this life or in some life

past, surely I have pleased the goddess in some

way, for little else can reveal the mystery of this

mercy, the beneficence bestowed upon my

modest eyes, for none could bear the light of

your beauty unless its sharp and cutting quality

were sheathed in the finest flesh the earth could

offer. Oh the hearts such a blade could wound,

and what joy one could find in the suffering!

To bleed praise and admiration upon that which

quickens the beating heart or resurrects that heart which

dried to dust countless years before!

To sing the song of the beauty that restores the

heart in languor to a state of

Rapture…

a state rivaled only by the truth that

such a vision will ne’er be seen again

until long beneath the earth these eyes have lain.

I’m WAY better now! I got a little medicine and now I can swallow things again! Woot! Today I’m showing the Clone Wars cartoons at my church. I can’t wait! My good buddy Spidyredneckjedi is coming down to hang out. If it weren’t so bloody cold outside, it’d be a perfect day!

Holy crap. I am sicker than I have been in a couple of years. My jaw is sore, my throat is on fire, and I’m super tired. I haven’t been able to sing in choir since Tuesday, which is a huge bummer because I LOVE choir. I even called two of my professors tonight and informed them that I will probably be unable to take the quiz or the test that is scheduled for tomorrow. I’ve only ever missed ONE exam because I was sick in my whole life, so it isn’t like I’m faking it. Oy. I can barely speak or swallow or YAWN without burning pain filling my neck and throat. I sure hope I can get into the doctor tomorrow. Take it easy everyone, and don’t get what I’ve got. Blech.

I’ve always felt that since Valentine’s Day was never an occasion I had any reason to celebrate, I might as well make it better for someone else, right? So I usually take this opportunity to let all the women in my life know that they are indeed extremely important to me. Here are two poems that I would like to share with you, hot off the press. The first one is dedicated to the women in the Chamber Singers choir that I’m in, and the other is for the women of the Concert Chorale that I’m in. God bless ALL of you, man and woman, and thank you for all that you are!

Ethereal song, caressing my heart,

enfolding the quivering flesh gently,

within the sonorous breath heavenly

O! Death to joy if e’er from this I part!

This gift, bestowed upon I, this creature,

could no more be refused than water can

be spurned by the exile in the wasteland;

blessed am I to receive but a small measure!

A holy drop deep from the wells of grace

to echo across the soulless divide

‘tween notes, where but exhalations reside

and all music fades, leaving not a trace

but for the rapture now resonating

within the lone heart now convalescing.

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

Oh earthly angels,

Glorious gates through which

Beauty enters the world and life,

Lying humble at the threshold of

Your feet, pays Beauty’s toll with

Heavy sighs.

Sing on, dear ones, sing!

See how your voices grow as

Slender stems of ethereal delight,

Reaching up to tease the teardrop rain

From the clouds, deaf, and lamenting the

Absence of your song.

Did you know the sun burns alone on

But passion, the very thing you breathe

Into the world when your blessed tongue

Imparts but a small grace upon all present?

The world is a dark place without you here to

Make it shine, and how all life shudders between

Each movement, withholding applause for fear of

Missing even the faint whisper of your breath!

If you listen, you will hear the rhythm of life’s heartbeat

And the descant of life’s prayer, begging the Conductor to

Draw a fermata above your soul.

Freaking SWEET. So, anybody out there watch Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi Channel? My favorite character is Admiral Adama. Why? He’s honorable, smart, honest… just an outstanding man as far as television characters go. OUTSTANDING. Great rolemodel. I also felt that these character qualities weren’t just an act, but came from the person playing the part, Edward James Olmos. So I shot him an email to tell him so: