The Crossing Point of Our Lives: A Gathering of Christian Poems

By John J. Brugaletta

The Crossing Point of Our Lives is just that--an examination of our lives to see how close we are to the turning point toward the cross and all it implies. This is done through two types of poetry: lyric (brief) and narrative (a story and therefore longer). Both types are designed to lead us to meditation on our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666795066

John J. Brugaletta

John Brugaletta enjoys reading the poetry of poets like Billy Collins, Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost and he writes his own poetry with a similar elan. After teaching at a state university for three decades, he moved to the far northern end of coastal California where life is edenic. This is his eighth book of poems.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

The poems below were previously published in the journals indicated, some of them in a slightly different form.

The Penwood Review The Potter

Amethyst Gabriel

In Quest of the Holy Grail

Scarlet Leaf Review The Beginning and the End

Talking to God

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in,

and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they

are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise

of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining

of a door.

—John Donne

THE POTTER

I have known the fresh ball of clay,

the slap of it on the wheel,

thumbs opening the turning mouth

and the careful rising

of the fragile walls.

Without my knowing it,

I was imitating You, my Lord

when You created me,

first in the womb, then on my feet

learning to walk like the Son of Man.

I ask that You forgive my collapses,

for I am only mud

and I know nothing.

Be patient with me

that I may serve You as a pitcher.

MESSIAH

Each year we wait for You to join us in

our Seder meal with empty chair for You,

or at festivities like Easter, Christmas.

Are we to live in expectation, daily

examining in moral mirrors if

our peccadilloes, unregarded, make

us too unworthy to behold your face?

For careful as we try to be, we err

unconsciously or else through habit.

We long for justice and for peace of course,

but mercy too. Come help us holy One.

Defend your people with your strength or tact.

NOTHING IN EXCESS

In me You may observe that age

of nations which revert again to tribes.

This is the era of a dagger in

the chest of neighbors who will differ some

in their idea of a perfect world;

the era also of a ton of hatred

to an ounce of care; hatred toward

concession for the blue types or the red.

It is the time extremes are taken as

a form of strength and rally-flag's allure.

Attend my plea, O Lord. It is for me

as much as for my wayward countrymen.

I would be healed of this distrustfulness.

Don’t let my will exaggerate the rules

You handed down until they merge with sin.

HIS FOOLISH AIM

My Lord I’ve sinned most grievously

in seeking the applause of giddy folk

instead of yours.

And when acclaim has come unsought

I strewed the word around as if

it pleased You too.

This tarnished urge to be admired

controlled me when I wore short pants

and has till now.

I search for my excuse in vain

for I have known for years what You

desire from me.

Yet on