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

Slumber

Slumber

That time between the worlds, secession

Where sleep is dream and wake is a question

Where our souls get closer to where our spirits dwell

And oceans wander and the deep does swell

Where light and life and echoes cease

To be just yearnings and are released

There the call of wonder comes

It beckons for the light of sun

Yet is saddened by its appearance for

The soul does long and cries for more

Of the time between the worlds in slumber

Worlds where what is not is number

Worlds where what can be are living

Worlds where what we need are giving

Everything our heart desires

In living waters and spirit fires

We step into a flowing river

That brings us warmth and makes flesh shiver

Until it seems it is no more

Where last week’s sky is this week’s floor

And all of this wrapped up in time

To walk along in slumber’s rhyme

Is to be so close to heaven we can taste it

K, Duane Carter 12-22-10  

I was going through some of my older journals, just looking at where I was at last year and thinking over the past year, and I found this.  It sparked something on the inside, so I thought I would share it.  I pray it sparks a flame in you also :).  Happy New Year.

Footsteps

Footsteps

Tonight I heard the sound

My heart, my soul, my flesh have longed for it now

I heard, I felt, the rumble

The rumble of God taking a step

He comes, with light in His eyes

With goodness flowing from Him

Love flowing from His every breath

Life arising, felling death

I heard it again, another rumble

Deep, shaking, earth-trembling

But what is this?

The sounds grow closer and closer together

Until it joins into a thunder

A mighty, shaking thunder

Faster and faster it rolls

Until I realize

It is my Father

Running to scoop me up into His arms

I fear no more

I fear no more

The rushing wind of His mighty arms sweeps me up

I am raised to new life

The thunder is now a roar, the roar of the Lion

The roar of billions of angels

Saying it is time to rise, look up, arise

The Father’s face I recognize

Though at first all I knew was the sound of His footsteps

It’s amazing at what happens in the silence

K. Duane Carter 12-29-11

Reflections

Reflections

Years have slipped on by

As I have wandered this grassy knoll

I have steadily wandered further west

Until the ocean has hemmed me in

Now I stand with this familiar feeling again

Of the unknown, the untested, the unseen

The wondering of what everything does mean

While all the while not really having to know

Doubts are fading, peacefulness grows

In this garden that I have come upon

Where I never hear a familiar song

Yet my heart has heard them all before

My eternal eyes see an eternal door

My mind does not know how to unlatch it

The yielding does know how to catch it

Entering on the invitation

Not striving in dark gyration

I simply walk into something so much bigger than I

Not remembering the when, not understanding the why

I simply walk in realizing

Good Father led me the entire way

He’s led me far today…

Right in the midst of the stillness

K, Duane Carter 12-1-11