Hamlet's Autumn

Hamlet’s Autumn

Shadows move to block my sight

Of the golden rods lifted to blue skies

Yet they cannot

Mere shadows cannot contain

The knives that disrupt my tapestry

Nor do they contain the substance to withhold me

That alone rests in my choice

To be or not to be

Do I move on toward the impossibilities

Or do I rest in the nothings of the shadows...

That is the question...

K, Duane Carter  11/23/12

Gardens in the Desert

Gardens in the Desert

When the mind is full of emptiness

The heart filled up with sand

the dryness reaches up into my mouth,

it reaches deeply into my hands

In that place I speak to the rock

The waters come forth in a wild, passionate rush

It wasn’t necessarily my command

It was His heart

He was waiting on me to join in with Him

Because it is just so much more fun that way

To watch the sun stand still the day

To see Him make all the difference

Just what is this thing that is underway?

Just what is this journey to restore?

Just what is this walk through heaven’s gates

Which fully satisfies yet still longs for more?

What is it that Your heart longs for?

What is it that Your heart desires?

What more could it be than to be rejoined

With the ones that carry eternal fires,

While all the same bringing the great waters

The restoration of sons, of daughters

Who only know love as their vivacious passion

K, Duane Carter 11/2/12

Shed Light

It saddens me that Christians don’t even understand the cross.  The very thing that symbolizes “Christianity” is disregarded, it’s meaning and power are completely ignored, and it’s message is NOT distributed by the very ones that wear the symbol on their shirts, necklaces, and ear rings.  And what I mean by that is all of this negative “these are the things that are going to happen to America if we don’t change” stuff.  I particularly love the word “judgment” (which in most circles is the equivalent of the word “punishment”).  BUT, we have got to understand something that is foundational to the greatness of the gospel:  the judgment of God has ALREADY occurred, and it occurred at the cross.  God has ALREADY judged the world, and He has already judged the enemy and inflicted the penalty ON JESUS at the cross.  He’s not going to release judgment (and understand that I am using the word ‘judgment’ here in the context of ‘punishment’) because He’s already released that.  What He is waiting on is for those of us who call Him “Father” to begin to live like the sons and daughters we are.  He’s waiting on us to live like the free people we are.  He is waiting on us to love.  That’s it.  He’s not waiting on us to beg Him not to smash us.  Maybe we should begin to ask the questions like, “We’ve been praying these things for years now, so why aren’t things changing?  Why isn’t this working?”  The answer is NOT because we aren’t protesting enough, being vocal enough, or praying hard enough.  It’s because we aren’t praying God’s heart.  Yes His heart is restoration, revival, and reformation of the nations.  But this will happen in love, because love never fails.  Punishment fails because it’s based in fear.  So please dear children of God, please STOP using fear as a “motivator” because that isn’t motivation or encouragement, that is manipulation.  Don’t give me the “love can give warnings” stuff either.  That misses the entire point.  Yes, love can give warnings, and right now it is warning us that we must do things God’s way, in love, and His way is not filling people with fear about crises and storms and wars.  If people in the church can’t get it that we are to love others and walk in the authority He gives us in that love, then I tell you He is going to find people that will (remember the Jesus movement?).  There’s the warning.  If you’re sitting in the community of Christ and propagating fear, then continue to expect things to look like they’re getting worse.  If you’re determined to love and love deeply, then get ready for the world to  change.  Get ready to be able to actually see things the way God sees them.  He isn’t worried, nor is He afraid.  It is very easy for light to remove darkness, and the darkness has already been conquered.  Remember this short sentence which I think personally is one of the most powerful statements ever made:  Love never fails.  

Shed light.  Shed light by letting love loose.  THAT is what will bring change to this nation and to the nations of the world. 

Carried

Carried

I spoke into the waters

The waters spoke then into me

My words went into their very mists

Their mists then set me free

I sit amidst the songs of God

Amidst the peace of trees

I welcome gladness into my soul

I rest here on my knees

I’ve walked around the bended path

The sights I no more see

But the roar is still inside my heart

Forever flowing out from me

No silence could ever stop it

K, Duane Carter 10/18/12

Ancient

Ancient

There is tremendous pressure when from the seed breaks the shoot

There is a great energy spent when the infant comes from the womb

There is enormous straining as the butterfly escapes the cocoon

So why should my life be any different?

There is a great fragility as the shoot breaks through the soil

There is the same as the infant breathes in the toil

There is that moment that the butterfly cannot 

So where am I in this vulnerability?

There is tremendous stability in the ancient oak

There is a vast wisdom in the ancients’ cloaks

There is truth and wonder in the butterfly’s flight

So why should my life be any different?

K, Duane Carter 2-16-12

Glimpse

Glimpse

I have seen a glimpse of angels

Right here on the porch

This morning eternity was in the creek

Meandering through time’s torch

While those of the highway overpass

Went by toward their destinations

All the while they still went by

The creek moved still in contemplations

It always has, it always will

So I rest here in my chair in the sun

The hovering came, watching my watching

Then came a display of the bright heavenly ones,

Which I happened to simply catch in a moment

Yes, it was more than mere reflections

But it was much better than a nothing, naught

It was a marvelous resurrection

I didn’t need an answer, 

I didn’t need to know

I simply needed beauty

To remind me it was so

K, Duane Carter 6/30/12

Midst

Something about this picture reminds me of me

Formed by volcanic activity

Rocks and desolation everywhere

Yet

Signs of life breaking out in the midst

Water, though frozen, is present

Promising more

More life, more goodness, more refreshing

All of this covered in the cloud

And even in the desolation

It is beautiful

K, Duane Carter 6/21/12

The Moment

Often at sunset

when the sky is a series of colors indescribable 

But every one of them a hue of violet and rose

It is at that moment I realize

There is a greater world

There is a reality more real than the one I know

It’s not that I don’t like the skies of blue

But it’s that these colors, these phases, these hues

Are stepping stones to a more lovely place

I can almost feel the air

it is alive

These moments are the moments living is all about

These moments are the moments my heart lets out a shout

Because it sees the things that I don’t see

It feels the things that I have never felt

Nor could ever feel

And survive to relive the experience

I simply wish sometimes these moments were eternal

Because I always realize that they are

K, Duane Carter 4/21/12

Sunset Morning

Sunset Morning

I step into another sunset morning

Where my eyes are closed

And I see the dreams

The place where I don’t know what anything means

Yet I know that it means everything

I hear the rhythms of distant stars

They awake the heavens and 

Dance does meet

With the sounds of the baby’s kicking feet

Even as she is hidden in womb

The wonder calls us all from the tomb

To taste, to smell, to dance, to live

To wonder, to know, to love, to give

Then I awake to amber skies and

The sounds of sunrise

I cry out to the top of my lungs

From the very depths

Life bursts from me, and it continues on

It’s time to rise

Time to shine

The light is on my face

And it comes from His

I awake to the amber skies

The sounds of sunrise

I am truly alive

K, Duane Carter 4/8/12  Happy Easter!

Mountain of Smoke

Mountain of Smoke

I stand at the base of the mountain of smoke

No thunder, no fire, no trumpets

Just stillness, quiet, wind

In the distance soft

An ancient flute begins to sing

Just stillness, quiet, and wind

And the sound of God walking in His garden

The opportunity rises again

Once again I am given a choice

Walk in the mists

Or not

I step upward

Gasping for air

But I won’t turn around

For I want the cloud to consume me

Yet it already has

I step onward

Gasping for air

I cannot turn around

I want the cloud to consume me

For it already has

K, Duane Carter 4-7-12

Reclining

Reclining

I could sit here in this chair all day

Pondering the mysteries and wonders before me

And when the day is over and done

I am deeper into the struggle than ever before

Knowing less but feeling more

Closer to You than ever before

Closer to me

I can watch the sweeps dance across the waters

I can see the ducks resting in the rain

As I sit here in this recliner seeing it all

Writing out a simple refrain

I sense I am walking to something deeper

Something beyond the dark and the pain

Though I am more still than I have ever been

The rain keeps on falling and falling

The water keeps on accepting the earth

The sound of its music brings laughter

Its moisture brings clouds in the mirth

Heightening mirth more than ever before

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before, still even closer to me

The wind has joined in with the laughter

The grasses now see they are green

It reminds me that my heart is a flower

It blooms in the realms that aren’t seen

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before

Ever closer, even closer to free

I see

K, Duane Carter 3/24/12 

Is. 61

Isaiah 61

I sometimes wonder if there is no greater prison

Than the one I’ve built around myself

I wonder if I have worn a mask for so long

That I cannot even recognize myself

I don’t realize who’s doing the thinking, the talking

Nor the acting

I’ve locked the doors, and never had a key

Or if I did, I’ve long lost it

Back in the dreams of my childhood

Now those are just mists over distant mountains

As I grab another chain and place it on my feet

I hear of a distant Wanderer

One who knows His way

Yet no one else ever knows

I wonder if I lifted my voice one time

Loud enough to shake the earth

I wonder if He would respond to the tremors

Or would He rather smell the scent of angels

Instead of darkened earth

And tattered flesh

I feel a nervous silence in the masking

I feel the chains cringe in the asking

I immediately know

A whisper released will raise the dust

Healing oil comes from the rust

While a fragrance of hope begins to fill the air

I just released a whisper there

For that is the only thing I ever had

The earth does tremor, but

It isn’t my voice that did it

Rather it was a distant roar

And then a rumbling of the running

Something, someone running

While the earth shakes

And the sunlight comes through the cracks of the wall

The shaking is breaking my prison

Suddenly I am quite afraid

What am I supposed to do when I get out of here?

It seems this is the only place I have ever known

Who am I supposed to be when I am released?

It seems this the only way I have ever known

The rumbling is now an earthquake

I can’t even stand on my feet

And the last thing I remember

Is everything I’ve known collapsing all around me…

And the smell of Love…

K, Duane Carter 2-18-12

Walks are good...

I am walking along

a place so quiet

I can hear the wings of the moth beat

I can hear the grass sway in the wind

yet

I cannot hear the river

So I keep walking along

I hear the quail chirping in the blackberries

I hear the duck wings as they fly swiftly by

yet

I cannot hear the river

So I keep walking along

humming a song

that flows from the river within

I lift my eyes

to late winter skies

It is more the beginning of spring

before I realize anyone, anything

I see the river

Rising up before me

yet

before I saw it

I heard it

It was then I knew

K, Duane Carter 2-16-12

Hope

Hope

I am swaying in the wind

Anchored to this earth

Yearning for the mirth

Of flight and fancy and feast

Yet leafless and among the least

I reach for sky, reaching through the why

Longing to breathe the incense

The colors they do speak to me

They speak of freedom and royalty

Which is where I’m told I am

I reach out to grab the wind, the hand

All the while moving in circles

Yet there is promise, yet there is hope

I find beauty in the presence

Life in the smoke

I feel the roots to the earth are strengthening

All while the promise of new green breaks through

The clouds speak of a new tomorrow

And the start of a new today

K, Duane Carter 1-26-12