Category: Uncategorized

Whast if God has brought me this far for this to be the end? 
Has he not blessed me more than I have ever asked? 
He has! 

What if this gulf between her and I is his test?
if he has turned his face away from me to strengthen me, 
has he still not blessed me? 
He has! 

Has he not answered all of my prayers? 
He has! 
Has he not given me exactly the lesson that I asked for all those years ago, when I was alone? 
He has! 

So since I smiled through his blessing, 
I will smile through his correction, 
I will turn my cheek and find the lesson in this broken heart I try to piece back together.

T.S. Deary 
8/15 - 9/5/24

She holds tight her secrets, 
thinking no one will know,
from the smallest voice, 
to this current silence, 
that screams contempt, 
she holds them, 
thorns and all. 

She knows I see right through her, 
with her dagger stare, 
still I reach and she turns away, 
and I never really grow tired of looking for her smile, 
just like I promised her, 
when she used to run to me, 
instead of turning away. 

T. S. Deary
8/16-9/5/24

Over and Over, 
constant circular motion, 
constant mental commotion, 
over and over, 
mental bridges, 
climbing rocky mountain ridges, 
left behind, on my own, 
reactions overblown
over and under, 
in between unspoken words, 
always a distant third, 
over and over, 
passing to the left and right, 
over and over, 
always ready for a fight, 
under and over, 
just below the raging clouds, 
under and over, 
playing for the unseen crowds, 
over and over, 
in between unspoken Words,
over and over, 
tripping over mental curbs, 
no resolution, 
unspoken contribution, 
something in my thinking, 
leads me to seek abslotution, 
over and over, 
in between unspoken words, 
in between unspoken words...

T. S. Deary 
9/11/24

I went walking into the woods, 
along dirt paths, 
under tall and growing trees, 
wildflowers growing close to the ground, 
by puddles that reflected sunny skies, 
slowly growing cloudy, 
sweating in the summer sun. 

I want to go into the woods after the summer storm, 
with trees dripping drops of rain on the blowing wind, 
while birds sit in the sun drying their feathers, 
waiting to fly again. 

I want to go into the woods at the emergence of autumn, 
when the sun's angles begin to change and the days get shorter, 
as painted leaves cover the ground like a quilt, 
laid to keep the ground warm in the coming winter. 

I want to go into the woods in winter, 
when the trees are bare and the sky along the horizon is cold, 
while the setting sun turns the sky to the darkest black, 
the cold of space, 
coming down and settling in along the trails. 

In each and every time and place and season of the earth, 
revolving around and around, 
there remains to be seen only what is missed in the places where we stop to look. 

Familiar places change, 
to be noticed over time, 
when old becomes new and new becomes old, 
changing course and remembering the people that we miss, 
we wonder how they have grown and changed and pray to God that we will see them again soon and that  we pass through their thoughts the way they pass through ours. 

T.S. Deary 
P.A.F.M. 
6/29 - 8/9/24 

The problem with Summer is that it slowly fades from view, 
sinking below the distant horizon and burning memory, 
never seeming to last long enough. 

Summer pushes away towards autumn and then winter an inevitable collision of contrasts, 
counted and remembered in birthdays, 
marking the passage of time. 

The problem with winter is that it never seems to end, 
with its short days and those frenzied holidays that make the march of time seem so slow, 
as if the sun has hidden itself, 
intesified by our longing for the days of June and July.

Because in those days everything feels so alive, 
even though we have to embrace the slowly fading season over and over again...

T.S Deary 
P.A.F.M. 
7/3 - 8/9/24

I.  The Valley of Dry Bones

Man, seperate from God, is an immoral, lifeless blend of cells and impulses, 
constantly enslaved to his own will, 
rejecting the hand that made him.

Who among men, 
shown this valley, 
this life without God, 
could walk away and not be changed? 

Who among men, 
having been made aware of the Risen One, 
would continue in old days and ways? 
One God animates bone and sinew and soul, 
nothing can be taken for granted, 
His way, is the way of life, 
old life becomes new, 
no longer bones, scattered and lying on the valley floor.

II. Places of Bone and Ash

How do we explain these places of bone and ash? 
These places with high brick chimneys, 
whose smoke never stopped billowing into the sky, 
along with these piles of shoes and discarded suitcases there are ovens filled with piles of bones and ash. 

How do we remember these places of bone and ash?
Where men with piercing blue eyes and perfectly polished boots stared into gaunt and starving faces and in seconds granted them life or death? 
Also the ones with their heads shaved and their arms marked, reduced to the status of property, 
and still the chimneys never stopped.

Where is my mother? 
Where is my father? 

(they all, eventually, looked to the chimneys, they are in those places of bone and ash.) 

How do we live with the legacy of these places of bone and ash?
Those wooden barracks with shelf like beds, holding skeleton faces, 
starving flesh and wasted eyes.

(whole generations destroyed and wasted into smoke, bone and ash...) 

How do we reconcile those who saw the smoke and breathed their last breath, inhaling poison, with the culture of a modern nation?
Whose people created art and music and whose children laughed and played and grew to see another day,
and whose fathers and brothers stoked the fires that sent some burning to the sky, 
obliterated.

There is so much left behind.
There are some men's pictures in scrapbooks, 
some in the clawed out scratches on walls inside gas chambers.

(memories of those who survived...and some in piles of bone and ash...) 

How can justice be brought to mass graves and these brick remains of chimneys that still rise to the ait like skeleton fingers, 
places where vultures perch, 
those watchers of death, 
cold eyes, 
impeccable dress of black feathers, wrinkled and grotesque heads. 

What remains of those chimneys reach up to the cold sky, 
silent and stagnant, 
visible and permanent, 
watchers over these places of bone and ash, 
remebered always, 
amid that constant, audible whisper, carried by the wind, saying..."Never Again." 

III. Lessons from the Dry Season 

What you fail to understand is that I have already walked through the desert that you are only beginning to tread upon. 
You, not even walking, more like crawling.
Me? I have already come out on the other side, but what do I know? 
I have seen and known the wonderful and the barren but why would you want to know that? 
Especailly since you know all already.

I have known the emptiness of wanting and not recieving.
I have heard the finality behind the divine, NO!
I have known the quiet loneliness of unanswered prayers!
I have given up the assumption of pleasures once valued.
I have been lost in the battles of "should be's" and the dilemma of ease for everyone but me. 
I have asked what strange and elusive silence this is and what pretense has God sent me? 
What is this lesson I an being forced to learn? 

So why do you pretend? 
Why all these whispered secrets, that we all know anyway? 
Pretending things are one way and then saying something else depending on who is around? 
This deception is unnecessary!

Excercise discretion! 
There are some things that others need not know, 
in this desert, you learn that lesson fast.
Have you known the answer, NO?
Have you known the absence of blessing? 
or, 
is this time all you have ever known of the barren desert and the sting of want? 
All this mixed in with everyone's comments, 
you have to learn to walk by changing where you look! 
There is a solution here, 
the only way is to choose what you think, 
to come to understand that there is more here than meets the eye, 
there is more than the sum of all these parts. 


T.S. Deary 
4/18 - 5/22/24

Tired of the blank faces, 
taking up all these academic places, 
preoccupied with phones and games, 
distractions only equalled by the opposite sex, 
nothing floating in their heads, 
nothing learned, 
nohting gained. 

Tired of being excited about what I want to pass on, 
only to be trampled,
pushed aside, 
returned to sender. 

So often temptest o give up, 
or to let out what really needs to be said, 
about a lack of effort, 
inability to handle a challenge, 
instead I reamin in that quiet spot of confidence, 
whose voice says that I am right as I collect all the disregarded words in order to write the books they need so badly to read. 

T.S. Deary 
4/12/24

There is nothing like the benefit of silence.
In silence dwells the divine, 
the soul settling presence of God. 

There is no silence like mountain silence, 
high above the earth, 
the air is still and cleaner, 
the sun is brighter, 
God feels closer, 
in that silence His presence is signalled, 
well beyond the horizons we seek, 
in noise, pleasure and the lust of greed, 
there, in the mountains, 
His presence never goes away.

The wind whispers through trees, 
songs and notes of the creator's melody, 
a reminder that God is not only present but also often speaks in profound silence. 

T.S. Deary 
4/12/24