PCC INSCAPE MAGAZINE
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Divinity of Christ and The Christmas Concert on Orcas Island at Victorian Valley Chapel

Two poems by R.J. Keeler.  

Divinity of Christ

​Divinity of Christ:
The gathering light of candles scores
my guttering faith, a cyst--
refracted by these pithy flames

it needs endure a lance.
My frail faith, my Christocentric ill,
canst thou be ignorance,
or spite? Or via negativa?

Or, —no! Divinest sadism?
Were Christ at hand in living flesh
would He His grace and chrism
sustain—or bow to grace this man?

The search for truth sustains
the man—the quest for truth, a pathless
land. But truth bestained
sports tiny teeth—they know no end.

In truth, my faith has rived.
But He found His through life on earth;
now lifts His hand to shrive
my frail faith, to heal that wound.

Quite alien but curt:
neti neti! Not this, not this!

Such Upanishads avert
Christ’s tender, holy blessing.

The Christmas Concert on Orcas Island at Victorian Valley Chapel

This ovarian island comforted ice
after Polaris sank and Archer followed.
This glacier’s ice, many large-fish thick,
lay black and silent in tented hollows.

Then slowly homeward trudged
our sun, that glacier's executioner;
it flinched and shot its warmth, let
ice recede, let flower and sky concur--

a moss that cradled snow now's home
to melting song. Inside this tiny church
a dozen candles flickered toward
the narrow, crowded, public bench

on which we sat—as when my mate
comes home and leaves her tired, ur-
ban creature outside the door. We sang
tonight about a simple gift of myrrh.

Above a cold and remnant mist,
brilliant stars—unseen, unbidden--
blink and shuffle as Ave Maria signs
all we commoners suffer hidden:

our brightest fears, our darkest hopes.

Born St. Paul, Minnesota. Lived in jungles of Colombia, S.A., up to age twelve. BS Mathematics NCSU, MS Computer Science UNC, MBA UCLA, Certificate in Poetry UW. Honorman, U.S. Naval Submarine School. “SS” (Submarine Service) qualified. Vietnam Service Medal. Honorable Discharge. Whiting Foundation Experimental Grant. P&W's Directory of Poets and Writers. Member IEEE, AAAS, AAP. The Boeing Company. Does not subscribe to the cattle-prod paradigm of poetry. May tend to melancholy.
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  • About
    • PCC Inscape Instagram
  • Feral Parrot : The Blog
  • INTERVIEWS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ISSUE ARCHIVE
    • PRINT Chapbook No.6 Healing Arts
    • Online Issue No.9
    • Online Issue No.1 Fall 2016
    • Online Issue No.2 Spring 2017
    • ONLINE Issue No.3 Fall 2017
    • PRINT Vol 72 No 2 Fall 2017
    • PRINT Vol 73 No.1 Fall 2018
    • ONLINE Issue No. 4 Fall 2018
    • Online Issue No.5 Summer 2018
    • FOLIO No.1 Fall 2018 VOTE
    • ONLINE Issue No.6 Fall 2018 Fall Spirituality
    • FOLIO 2 Fall 2019 Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos
    • FOLIO No.3 -- Moon Moon Spring 2019
    • FOLIO No.4 Celebrating New PCC Writers
    • FOLIO No.5 City of Redemption
    • FOLIO No.6 Spring 2020
    • FOLIO No. 7 - Winter 2021 Into the Forest
  • 2022 Handley Awards
  • Inscape Alumni Board
  • PRINT Chapbook No. 7 Healing Arts