Secrets and Wishes

Secrets and Wishes

(“Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:2)

There always seemed too many barriers erected to
keep you from hearing my pain. Sometimes whispered<
sometimes gravely twisting my words, I had shouted like
a lost child threatened with the universe.
Sometimes I drenched the sofa midnight with the tears
poured out every excuse I ever gave for giving up
on the winding path too steep for my age.

I could point to the overnight fasting I tried one
New Year’s Eve locked inside a local church. I planned
to stay there till noon of the first year. I thought I
would break through, that God would show up and pat
me on the back and clothe me with something that finally
covered my instabilities. Instead, I called my girlfriend at 8 to
come and pick me up while I insisted we get some donuts.

I failed.

I thought.

After decades of clawing the dirt, of bawling at altars with
gray indoor/outdoor carpet, of repeating the same prayer over
and over
in the hopes I would be heard. There were decades I studied
the long prayers of an elder who implored God as long as a sermon.
I could not rule out that I simply could not pray. At least not like
long-winded partners who filled the room with time. I knew I did
not shine nearly as long as the power-players who pointed to miracles
someone else who told someone else had told them.

But once I was out of that cocoon, the echo chamber that jailed me,
glass house that only reflected
what other said within it; once I read the classics again and played
with my kids again,
something softly took me into its confidence.

It’s like when my grandson wants to tell me a secret and so
I put my face next to his with my ear by his mouth. He may mumble
something incoherent, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. He knows
I heard and that is good for the both of us.

God, do you truly bend down like that? Can I stop the crying fits
and the long-winded approaches to your throne? Oh wait, if you
bend your ear like that, you have left your loftiness far behind. Do you let
me whisper what I had been afraid to say in the middle of the moments in the
glass housed churches I occupied?

Can I talk and walk and, between verses of the songs I listen to, share a sentence
or two in your inclined ear? Can we hold court, but right here on the earth where
my feet trod, and the sheets I lay in when I have something more to say?

Maybe I will sometimes need to shout, but not to get your attention.
I may even throw a tantrum when the stars refuse to shine, but I’ll
end up whispering my secrets and wishes into your ear.

We Cracked the Code

We Cracked the Code

(“He has caused His wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.” Psalm 111:4)

Our conversations were never empty,
though they ranged from laden to light.
We moved easily from jokesters to philosophy.
Do you remember pouring the wine that
brought solace to our bones? We wielded
the wisdom of toddlers learning the lay of the land.

You walked into the room like an uneasy breath
until we both learned there was nothing to fear.
We wished we had known each other longer
but we forged our way through the summer sludge
that stuck to both of our skins. Happenstance
had its work but never had the last word.

Trained in a different space and time we
might have lit candles for each other at the
silent altars of a lonesome cathedral.
We cracked the code like dual countrymen
raised on either side of the peaks we knew
as children. Somehow, we met in the middle
where I was an immigrant and you were a
natural born citizen. We capture the cadences
as we learned each other’s language. Mostly
we did not need to speak, though. We only
listened like eavesdroppers outside a
phone booth on the corner.

We were desperate for understanding, we were
anxious from too many shredded knees trying to
climb our way to acceptance. We could not leave
that behind.

And though it’s years since we have spoken,
the golden hues of sunset conversations have
not departed my mind. We were decades apart
before we met and perhaps the timing was all
that mattered.

Front Porches and Fire Pits

Front Porches and Fire Pits

(“May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.” Jude 1:2)

The negotiations nearly ceased when the
bands battled aimlessly. They played in different keys
and ragged tempos while we listened from opposite
sides of the park.
Gazebo against gazebo,
they played like the day would never end.
Our ears heard multitudes clashing. Those unused
tunes wiggled like earthworms below our feet.
No one planned it,
this disconcerting entertainment. It was merely the
result of too many musicians and not enough direction.

Thunderclouds had been building to the west all afternoon,
And when the lightning took us all by surprise the thunder
sounded out from one end of the day to the next.
It realigned our unrehearsed ragas and turned our attention
toward the rhythm the rain made as it hit the ground.
We had heard there were fires in the grassland and flash floods
in the hills. We counted out the time now, one and two and
three and four. We let the fancy trills and turnarounds go
for the simpler melodies of folks making it all up on
front porches and around fire pits. We put our instruments away
and merely sang. One word, two words, a break,
two words and then three.

We made up songs that sounded like they had been in the
back catalogue for ages. We learned them on the spot and
discovered we knew more than we thought.

We had been afraid that the discord we heard would
divide the afternoon from the giggles of children we were
used to hearing. We began sharing our apprehensions
across fences and learned there was so much more
we could say. We spoke and waved and tried our
concerted passages anyway.

We passed the lyrics on to our progeny.

The Words Came Slowly

The Words Came Slowly

(“Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.” Psalm 105:19)

Perilous sounds like a good word to start a poem,
Unaccomplished might end it.
Sold like a slave and bound like a trapped rabbit,
we sometimes are fettered by our own lack of imagination.
We hope to find our future buried shallow in
our back yard.
We never expected to be at the cliff’s edge
with no way to turn back into who we once had been.

You can say what you want,
you can seek however long you will,
but my story will always stay the same.
Unaccompanied in a land I did not recognize
I stuck my claim on the lyrics hidden between
each note and time signature.
I memorized the songs of my youth and
sang them solo while I waited for a door
I could not open
to allow me entrance into the next level of
my dreams.

Affectations may be the words you find snuggly
tucked away mid-poem,
lingering may be the jump-off point to the final
verses. There were strange sounds that sifted between
the cracks of my catalytic walls. There were unfamiliar
songs teasing me to spend my spare time learning them
like they were my own.

Renovation began the moment I entered the
dimly lit room.
Patterns emerged like dust dancing in the sun.
The words came slowly and I learned them well;
the tempo was off, but I sang them sound.
Completed sounds like a good word to end a poem,
Unharmed might begin it.

A Blank Slate

A Blank Slate

(“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20)

I’d like to believe I am a blank slate.
I’d like to think I’m ready for the writing on the wall.
I’d enjoy the chance to talk in private the ways
I preside over public speech.
I’m ready for the old instructions to be rewritten
on my heart.

You were lying by the side of the road, a
castoff
of better times. Nothing in your pockets and
nowhere to go, you canceled your subscription to
unhelpful words of painted pain.

I’d like to believe I’d give you a chance.
I’d like to believe I’ve read the situation well.
I’d enjoy the chance to enjoy an open door
before I closed it for the afternoon.
I’m ready for the completion of the courses
I signed up for free.

You were worn out, a castaway who once
believed
in basic rhymes. Your mind was crawling with
nowhere to go, so you sat on the side of the road
and waited for--and waited for--the mail to arrive.
Words on paper might transform the vagaries
of time.

I’d like to write on the whiteboard of your heart.
I’d like to think you could read me like an open book.
I’d enjoy the chance to show you something
more than recited dogma, to serve you something
more than leftovers and crumbs.
I’m ready to accompany you through the shadows
others had left behind.

As You Started Your Descent

As You Started Your Descent

(“If I say, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your faithful love will support me, Lord.” Psalm 94:18)

Was the path too steep for you,
Or too slippery like a
snake on the ice?
Were the days laden with thunderstorms
and rain? You had been walking such a long time
that fatigue caught you unawares and
captured you in its claws. The day plodded on.

You had started a run,
jogging before the heat set in.
You waved everyone on that passed you
as you took to the trail. You always started it
slow
knowing your muscles and lungs needed to
warm up beginning so early in the morning.

The pathway rose above the suburbs and became
isolated at the top of the hill. The cedars and firs
lined the path and people had all gone into town.

So you quietly wondered if the mail came this far.
Your mind wandered cautiously; you thought about the
children who played outdoors in the summer sun.
You heard their laughter while you measured the
peak ahead, the point of the excursion.

But the mud from yesterday’s downpour
oozed onto the path you tried to finish. Like an
unfinished song you began to slip, one step away
from sliding down the hill.
It was not planned, it was the last thing you expected.
You reached out to nothing in particular; a tree, a weed,
a hand, a creed you could plead before you went down.

It might have taken a second; it might have lasted
the afternoon. But the hush of the moment kept you
rockily on your feet. It made you remember the times
others held the hand you offered before they reached
the ground. And a drizzle of laughter lit the
path for a moment as you started your descent.

Paper-Thin Verdicts

Paper-Thin Verdicts

(“And the anointing that you have received from him dwells in you.” 1 John 2:27a)

Things become clearer the farther I am from the
shore of my previous encampment. I was divided.
I suspected that love would win the day,
that spectacles faded away the longer they
sank into deepened ridges of belief.
We were not nearly as rigid as some,
but I shook and trembled when the
drought left me thirsty and burdened,
hardened against the living springs.

I still see the occasional pantheon of
unfulfilled wishes for something more solid
than words on paper thin verdicts. But there
were times when people came from miles away
to spectate at the reports they heard on a
balmy Sunday afternoon.

We learned to live off the experiences we
heard described by preachers of a dozen
days too soon. I read their books and imitated
(quietly, I should add) their rhetoric and stubborn
proclamations. People were sitting on windowsills
to witness it all. But moments later they still
walked away lamely to return to their games of
mutual superiority.

Today I hear, and demand far less; today I
appear to be listening for a voice I missed
when doctrines turned into trauma, and my
mind was wired for weirdly preoccupied
judgement. Today I learn, and understand far less;
today I am happy for the messy ways that the
Spirit speaks. When people traveled for miles
to see Spirit sensations they never thought to
find her in their own hometowns.

Yes, my ways are dustier now,
my mind uncertain but happy with the
unanswered questions that do not demand
decisions for the defense. The gospel is
muddier than that. And that makes me convinced
that clarity has presently inspired itself
on the eyelids of those who find that a word
or two
can fill an entire day of believing.