Friday, November 23, 2012

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


Friday, November 2, 2012

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


Thursday, November 1, 2012

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. 


Thursday, October 18, 2012

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


Sunday, August 26, 2012

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

Saturday, June 30, 2012

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


Saturday, June 23, 2012



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

Saturday, April 21, 2012

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

Sunday, April 8, 2012

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!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

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

Saturday, March 24, 2012

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 

Saturday, February 18, 2012

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

Thursday, February 16, 2012

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

Thursday, January 26, 2012

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