HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY AWE!
My mom, Lois Rutt, died just short of 90-years-old, on September 27, 2022. I wrote a set of 14 poems for her memorial service around the theme of one of her favorite Bible verses: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” [1 Corinthians 13:12]
These poems below are also available online in PDF format at: TopPun.com/Lois-Rutt-Memorial-Poems.pdf
Down With Upside
When I am down
With those occasional mourns
Needing to be
Re-mined
I awe weighs have this
Parently
I won the lottery
And holy sow
MOM
Is just
WOW
Upside
Down
That Mystery Spot
You are invited
To spot
Under stood
As inevitable
As death
And taxing
Where the holy mundane metes
Mysteries of mysteries
The deference sublime
Of divine raiments
Of putting on
That sacred sight
Wear the living
And dead meet
Through That, Collide-a-scope
I saw her
Through that
Collide-a-scope
Of life and death
Eternity and now
The presence
Of assurance and doubt
Incomparable gifts and cryptic lessens
Picasso-esque
With a thousand facets
A priceless gem
Studied in perspectives
Never only about mine
An innocent babe
A curious child
An exploring youth
An accomplished adult
A serene elder
Such an inscrutable seeing
Awe at once
Singular among many
Guileless in every forum
A daughter
A sister
A wife
A mother
A grand mother
A friend
A neighbor
A child of God
A grand daughter at that
Great, great, great
That cloud of witnesses
Mysteriously peers
So greatly mist
I AM, Cracked, Open
A son
Of another Mother
Shone softly
Gently in treating
Follow the light
Which may peer
Neither hear nor there
At first
But…
Fear not
For it is a reading light
In a tome you need never escape
And once cracked
Open
Just
In time
For a book signing
By the author of authors
The book of life
And as awe ways
The first edition
And wile skeptics might claim
“No way”
The beloved community
Is free to proclaim
In unison
“Yahweh!”
To What?
To what
A veil
A bride waiting
For that consummate kiss
And companion to the eternal
Holy known
Wear death
Is mirror shadow
And life alight
Oft Balance
To be won
We must halve
One foot on earth
One foot in another realm
Leaning back
Into that hardy hard certain
Offering of empirical probability
With its rewarded skepticism over awe
And its inevitable lessens
Falling forward
Into that hearty ardor uncertain
Offering of divine possibility
With that beloved trust awe embracing
And that looming what is frayed
Finding ourselves
As sojourners of truth
Oft balance
Betwixt
Light and shadow
Glistening to awe
That we are
When it comes to favorite Bible verses, you can’t have just one. Mom told me that one of her favorite parables was The Parable of the Two Sons, Matthew 21:28-31:
But what do you think? There was a man who had two sons.
He went to the first one and said, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard.”
“I will not,” he replied. But later he changed his mind and went.
Then the man went to the second son and told him the same thing.
“I will, sir,” he said. But he did not go.
Which of the two did the will of his father?
“The first,” they answered.
Here is anew and inclusive version:
Mothers Will [Notably Not Possessive]
Mother had
A trifecta of sons
A singular daughter
And some in between
Those awkward periods amissed
Birth and death
As siblings of God
Sow much more
Than miscarriages of just us
Raised right
And decidedly left
In no particular order
Set free into the whirled
Deferent at different times
Sometimes far aweigh
Weather going home early
To be apart of this hole-y family
Or sharing a vocation
And most certainly a meal
Breaking bread
And some say cheese
As it is written
Read into the book of life
Sometimes “Yes” and “No” in the same sentence
And those eternal questions
Generations of brethren
Abiding cistern
Wherever two or more to gather
Who did
Mothers will
Flipped
He was just
A rough draft
In God’s arm he
A dim reflection
A mirror image
Of what is
Truly sighted
As life can only be
Understood backwards
And a mist
Those seamingly endless
Daze
When God peers to have
Flipped off
As a madder of fact
She just
Flipped on
Memorial Garden
Awe roads lead
Back to the garden
Unearth as in heaven
Being there
More than
Chance
The fruit of joyful work
And greeted by son
And till
I AM called
A father with many names
As well
As mom
As sister
As daughter
Life springs awe
Weather a blooming weed
Or a garden of eatin’
Arose is arose
By any name
And perfectly agreeable
By those who tend
Just saying
I don’t no
Perhaps once agin
Breathing life into the dust
Of treasured city blocks
A perfect resting spot
Fore that Grand Circus Park
And Central to won life
What is it Awe…A Boat
At times
Life is a beach
And we shell
Sea phase to phase
What is it awe
A boat
A message in a battle
A harbor still
In salty waters
Weather one reading or a gazillion
Even a thirst addition
Is mere reflection
Finding our self
And perhaps something ails
What are we
Too due
Saying “Yes”
As know impart
And when effacing
Those fateful lessens
Fully no’in
That Upper Room
Brought up
That there is
An other side
To every tale tolled
The mysterious plays
A mist life and death
Raised up right
She new
More than a roomer
Of being grounded
As won of everything
In that upper room
Which is
Another story
Ω , It’s Awe Greek to Me
At the end
Of the alpha bet
In compassing Omega, Ω
More than sum lucky horseshoe
As fourth right as x,y,z
At the coroner of faith, hope, and love
Without spin
Lying in One’s
Grave coordinates to live by
And bye
And that daring die mention
Love the only realm
With any room
This Is Not A Poem: Owed to René Magritte – The Treachery of Images (aka, This is Not a Pipe)
The whirled is butt dancing images
Truly revealing
A mirror hint
Of what isn’t
Quite there
And get
A lode of this
When trolling for the reel thing
The same is helled true
Fore whatever is professedly herd
Know madder how a loud
Or scent your weigh
Such flimsy mettle
However powerfully smelt
Or all together snorted
Or even bettor yet
That tantalizing taste
Raided as miraculous
A savour of all
Is merely the flavor of the dais
Fashioning its own end
Saving the most sublime for lust
Can you feel it
For here is the rub
Being
The best of awe
Is simply a bit touched
And never the less
Their eye am
And if I
Portend
To ether
Under stand
Or over lord
This is nothing
More than
A commencement
Of being
A mother flicker
As just
When I thought
I could see
The light
At the end of the tunnel
My mind was blown
Like a wring of smoke
This is not a pipe
At awe
I am
Soully lit
The Point of Know Return
My eyes lifted
To the hills
From whence my help came
And there were no mountains
The way having been made smooth
And the road straight
What queer abet was this
A trillion points
Of light
One star among many
And just
A mirror preface
I AM
Light
That singular won
The point of know return
Ever Lusting Foolishness
