Pattern / AE Reiff

Pattern

If I a pattern of the universe divine,
See stars and plants joined in luminous light,
Hear the wind’s song, thunder in heart and mind,
That these portend symbols of universal might,
Then I consider first their means of union,
The balance of beauty with power and force,
What adherence! God seems like a woman,
Holds together his family of atoms from wars.

Out far within deep the reach of dark space,
He acts on this pattern of union for earth,
When he marries, he is husband and spouse,
Birth his great mystery, creation of life,
So while he acts as our father and mother,
All along we knew him as our lover.

~~

AE Reiff, 2022

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Talk / AE Reiff

Talk

When it comes to talk

everything is song,

a water breath for gills

breathes song and sings,

breathe song and sing,

they sing, they sing,

Everything has breath.

Everything that has breath.

Everything with breath connects

beneath the silent disconnect,

pure as flame that disappears

in sight and sound forget.

It comes to all who breathe

that water breath, gill song,

a temporary exhalation

that everything else that will have breath

is breathing all along.

Yourself, to meditate a roof below,

communes a creature like no other,

so unique at times at least to say

no matter what I knew that day

when everything had breath. Here I am.

Breath inspires talk,

language, expression, thought,

suddenness of wings,

a base of wind, of dust and sun,

cry of a moment, each moment timed,

three hundred eternal

breathes with the same.

Anything that’s done or so recalls

is breathing the same breath as all.

That’s what breath in search of talk

like any unique thing means,

Sound of breath.

Everything seeks song unconfined,

for air and water breathers’ breath of gills

breathe life, breathe song and sing. They sing.

They sing.

Everything has breath.

Everything has breath.

Everything that has breath.

~~

AE Reiff

from Frigg, Spring/Summer 2021
[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

There Is No Cold in Christ / AE Reiff

There Is No Cold in Christ

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm

To chill the bone, there is no frost in him,

No freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

He lives in us to keep his branches warm,

A green tree ever rooted deep within,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm.

There where the harvest hills through summer run

to fall, he keeps a barn, a winter bin,

no freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

He has into them, all his flowers, sown

A seeding of himself, garden within,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm.

He there, a gardener in his lovely plants

forms protoplasm and a living mind,

no freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

The Rose of Nazareth, Lord to flesh was born,

Accept his seed, sons, daughters, women, men,

There is no cold in Christ nor winter storm,

No freeze there kills the stem, no ice brings harm.

~~

AE Reiff, 2021

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

To Tame the Kingdoms Let His Angels Run / AE Reiff

To Tame the Kingdoms Let His Angels Run

Lift up your eyes and look unto the hills,

God’s glory is declarèd from the heaven,

He warms the earth as though the living sun

That causes plants to grow and rivers run

From Him had sprung. The meadow and green tree

Lift up a branch and all in praise of Thee.

Man he created sovereign under heaven

To joy him in the light-renewing sun,

There in his veins the dancing rivers run,

But he’s as much a mine as he’s a tree

That lifts a branch and sings his praise of Thee

Who lit the dawn and raised the blooming hills.

There was an angel standing in the sun

Amid the solar flare where rivers run

Who sang, the heaven’s a plant, celestial tree

With garnished fruit that stems its praise of Thee.

When stars are trees, then galaxies are hills,

Where poets dream embodied still of heaven.

All through the night earth’s springs and rivers run

While orchards rest in fields, the apple tree

Outgrows from earth between us, me and thee.

And if clouds sink upon the summer hills,

Surround our infancy under the heaven,

Then as we grow clouds part, outshines the sun.

Is it man or heaven, the springing tree

Whose green boughs so transpire their love of thee?

All praise the growth that lies upon the hills.

Stand on your feet you men, look at the heaven,

Redemption near, he comes with light, the son

To tame the kingdoms let his angels run.

Heaven, earth, man, tree, praise the living God, thee,

Who wrought salvation, light and life upon the hills.

Rejoice you lands, he comes, the king of heaven

Whose glory so outshines the lowering sun

That spinning globe that round him ever runs

Will cease and root in his eternal tree.

~~

AE Reiff, 2021

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Barley Feed / AE Reiff

Barley Feed

There is a harvest in a cutting down,
In the shed blood of the speared hero,
There is a redding of the land
Before green graves under sod.
Gold the heroes of valor, gold,
Directed to heaven, not strangers,
Wise men, they leave a country,
Dropping like fruit from a tree.

I am rich in cultivation,
A soft plough, I rend the ground,
The grasses, the aired bodies,
Stir about the break of day.
No sparing of the vine nor branches,
So outstretched the whitened lances.
An ardent star across the lightening field
No trembling saw that lofty hill concealed.

First flowers on these mountains
My wealth, the treasured sun,
The purpled blades shed blood.
No piercéd then would not be pierced again.
Now earth, be made sweet by this barley feed.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

The World's Body / AE Reiff

The World's Body

The spiritual did not come first

but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

I lay in bed

trying to get my breath,

slept a long hour or two before dawn,

gradually I became aware my body had risen

slightly from its sleeping form. This felt good so

I didn't move, went in and out of sleep several times.

I could hear differently then, wheezing groans, coughs

and forced breaths and sounds like long sonorous moans.

I was either asleep in this raised state hearing my own flesh

cry out in pain, or awake hearing the world's sound,

loud early in night which had since calmed down.

It was like a train or a moan the world cried out,

a patient deep in pain this resonant thing

with a mellow groan and travail.

I heard it snoring

in some detail.

I conclude from

this a spiritual world exists,

that its spiritual body lacks sense

and that something is terribly wrong

if it makes these sounds like an old folks

home. Back in flesh I didn't hear it again.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

New chapbook from poet AE Reiff

Frequent contributor to The Penny Blog AE Reiff has a new book, The True Light that Lights, published by Parousia Reads in October as part of its Parousia Christian Poetry Chapbook series. Copies for Kindle can be ordered on Amazon here. 

Reiff has been a long-time contributor to Penny's Poetry Blog. A selection of his work, including poems from his new book, can be read here.

Sunlight / AE Reiff

Sunlight

Sunlight pours down in cloudy days between
yellow patches of earth, as green stones steam
in the rain and sun. I am sitting there
with a cat who follows me everywhere,
watching the colors softly in the morning.
The cat cleans itself, its claws are in.
It is content to follow the seasons.
This summer the cats lay in cool places,
heads down, following the seasons.
I suspect the passage of time brings this ease.
The cat mellows, springs down. The day begins.

~~
AE Reiff, 1972

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

Encouragements for Planting
http://encouragementsforsuch.blogspot.com/

Amarant / AE Reiff

Amarant

Immortal Amarant, a Flower which once

In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life

Began to bloom, but soon for man’s offence

To Heav'n removed where first it grew, there grows,

And flowers aloft shading the Fount of Life.

And where the river of Bliss through midst of Heaven

Rolls o're Elysian Flowers her Amber stream;

With these that never fade the Spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams.

Paradise Lost, III: 353-361.

Where Love-Lies-Bleeding stretches all bejeweled,

I watch the fields that purple with their blood,

Incarnate flowers quicker turn to red,

A spark, a torch, forgotten in a flood.

Was this their care and that a sign, to light

The mind of spice that fills the heart?  Or must

The crimson drape of time obscure the flight

Of sunlight fleeing from the mind of dust?

There flowers bloom a vein of Love and Life

To wind about a disembodied cross,

But lose into the earthly air their life,

As night, dark sun, burns darkly on their loss.

And now my heart is but an aging sack,

For Love's gone to the world and won't come back.

From their blissful Bowers

Of Amarantin Shade, Fountain or Spring,

By the waters of Life, where ere they sat

In fellowships of joy: the Sons of Light

Hasted.

Paradise Lost, XI: 77-81f.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

The Plant / AE Reiff

The Plant

I live among you though you know me not,
But knowledge came to me found out of doubt,
Hear, see me on my stem, I have come out,
For now I rise and bloom while you’re about.
I could but now receive you for I grow
Nearer to where my Lord his veins let flow,
He has me and he will not let me go.
I am undone yet he shall be my Lord,
He has into my life his water poured
That I bleed with him for he loves the world.
He loves the world with his own shed blood,
He has given me the way that I should go,
He has taken away all of my will and He would
That I scatter these seeds he would sow.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Heaven's Man / AE Reiff

Heaven’s Man

Who then first found the cosmos in a man,

Divided minutes of his arc, set axis?

If man be heaven's, then heaven is for man,

And this his truth, how big the universe.

He is no sun that planets orb and orb,

Or like the moon, his body old and dead,

Nor is he earth, that planet swirling through

His sphere, or other, Mars or Jupiter.

What is man that heaven admired him,

Or sons of men to be so greeting them?

Creating heaven with a touch, his fingers,

God gave to man dominion of his hands.

In all the world and worlds beyond oh Lord,

I seek to serve you and to know your word.

~~
AE Reiff, 2019

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Angel Standing in the Sun / AE Reiff

Angel Standing in the Sun

It came about a sun all blazing bright

had showered gold into the heart of man,

as clouds transparent sprung with golden light

like wings of angel’s gold through blood then ran.

And shining out in glory still like light

a being light-radiant of golden man,

whose living passion like a redding sun,

with bright and fragrant flames of gold had run.

To you in whom all gold has been perfected,

First Begotten of the fire and flood,

My heart is raised to your sole light protected,

Blaze there thou Dayman in the fiery blood.

My thought is ever sprung from one desire,

That please you to burn sole within this fire.

~~
AE Reiff, 1972

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

The Bright Extensive Will / AE Reiff

The Bright Extensive Will

                         For Beatrice

As starry seas are caught up into clouds
To whirl Earth's sphere throughout all time,
Through space and out, where rising in a shroud
They roll the bright extensive will to find
Their will to fall again in showers, so crowds
Descending off the wheel give misty signs
Of life, and sons of Elohim who bow
From out the sky, concentrated and blind
In all their beams, then enter creation.
As though one could with the word written
In earth's center in the matter of its making,
As earth's heart was into pieces breaking,
Come into the body. Then wars should cease,
And earth, all surface, sky and core, find peace.

~~
AE Reiff, 2017

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

The Branch / AE Reiff

The Branch

When

the Lord of All

descended into flesh,

came through the

 million worlds

into the one

of mercy,

wisdom,

beauty,

love,

unlike the prism that divides the ray,

undiffused, he came into the body's clay,

the Son

of the

Divine

Wisdom,

the Son, the

Incarnate

Redeemer.

Our world

has been

recovered

by his being

no extra-

terrestrial

 intelligence;

his human body

shaped it to a tree 

that roots in wisdom

but whose beauty's trunk

to the earth sphere a branch extended,

on that tree the Lord Beauteous hung suspended,

and then we were enabled to receive him.

~~
AE Reiff, 2016

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Once Like a Light / AE Reiff

Once Like A Light

Once like a light in a sculpted city
That now lies dark under fallow ground,
So once the land unknown was full and free,
With cedarn  hill and golden meadow found.
I traveled to dawn, went toward the sun
To see this marvelous land, and it was good,
But there I saw a siege works and a gun,
Within the nation tops of watchtowers stood.

I went from the mountains to mourn the nations,
To grieve the fury, destruction and the death,
For over them I saw terror advancing,
Fear from the south, destruction from the north.
Below there stretched a molten lake,
Which sunset proved to be the blood of men,
It rose to the height of a horse’s bridle,
And flowed away with the rain.

I looked in the holy book, inquired
After this fair land, its destiny,
I sought thus many days and nights,
But I had no eyes with which to see.
Wars of Magog, northern powers and lands,
Decrees of pestilence and blood, hailstones,
Fire and valleys of bone and I closed the book,
This knowledge was too much for me.

I sat to await the tumult’s fall
When I heard a voice of thunder,
And turned to see as if one called from water,
And saw the form of a man.
I was lifted upward from the sun,
There it was, between the earth and heaven,
I saw all things were written in a book,
Which I read not for they are soon to come.

Then one said, these people need a warning,
Son of man how shall they hear?
I cried for grace but his eyes were fire
That pierced the cloud where I had hid my fear.
You shall go lest they escape their doom.
You shall go. Though I feared bitterly
When his hand was thus upon me,
Yes, I said, here I am LORD, sent me.

What is the fate of the beautiful people,
Will they win in the end? What of the siege,
How far does the field extend?
What is not written is told alone by age,
But the warning is not for them,
But lands turned inland far from sea.
Yes LORD, will you not send me to the beautiful,
Lest the day come and they know it not?

Such a strong and handsome people,
Theirs is a marvelous land, good above others,
Shall they not hear the warning voice?
Amen and Amen, so be it then,
There thy voice shall dwell.
I know this peoples’ boundless beauty,
But their foreheads are as flint.
A diamond shall thy forehead be,

Thy words a new sharped sword,
Lest they hear me and restore my word,
I give thee the vision of the land.
And he gave me a colored glass to see with,
And a written scroll to speak the warning word.
I opened my mouth and ate the scroll
And knew the words that it spoke,
And warning to the people thus I took.

~~
AE Reiff, 2015

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

Jonah / AE Reiff

Jonah

When fine gold lost its luster
and I had no breath,
when the precious gold had altered,
and waters closed over my head,
sons once worth their weight
and pots of clay the work of hands,
I called on the LORD from the depths.

~~
AE Reiff 
2013

Encouragements for Planting
http://encouragementsforsuch.blogspot.com/

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

Solitude Surrounded / AE Reiff

 Solitude Surrounded

Speaking

Of the white ace

Of spades in the universe surrounded,

using words like mystic and visionary

 to confound each other,

we go our way de-verbalizing verse.

But there is a human need of singing,

of praise to prove us grateful for our being

beyond what the cathode and the radio say,

everyone tells us we’re not meant for that.

Different temperaments for all, humanly speaking,

till  no one is left in the world but ourselves singing

the Great Solitude, surrounded by the air our gravities attract,

not thoughts like our own but their opposites,

solitude surrounded, compassed by pets,

 homes, wives, children, oceans, walls,

When a monastery would have suited best

And

We

Live

Long

 Lives.

~~

AE Reiff

2012
Encouragements for Planting
http://encouragementsforsuch.blogspot.com/

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

News / AE Reiff

News

He is coming.

The sky is clear.

But it was beginning to rain

When sun disappeared.

For the city of heaven

You had to have rain

before it got near.

Time altered its shape.

First in the dark,

trees with somber trunks

rhymed within, lined the rim,

twisted with drought,

quarreled with rock.

Noah town was

beginning to set

when Moses said

Jesus was outside town

And Abraham and Angels

were flying around.

~~
AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography