I Let My Hands Hang

 

I Let My Hands Hang

(“But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” Matthew 5:39)

The long dark night gave way to the
floating sun and the light of day.
And I remembered why my sleep was so restless,
why my breakfast was so careless
and the memories of a singular slap to the face
replaced the peaceful dreams I could not recall.

I woke restless but the perpetrators were long gone
and all I had was a bruise below my eye.
I was proud (is that the word) that my hands
stayed at my side, that I did not answer back nor
threaten with stinging reprimands. I was not a
wholesaler who bought my offenses at bargain
prices to sell and release my hold on them.

The bruises quickly fade; the memory reaches
so far back it is ingrained like a limestone cave.
I should have counted to ten more slowly and then
back to one again. But the picture is finally floating
down the shallow rivulet toward the deeper water where
it falls below the waves whipped by the wind.

I cannot control my dreams. I have sometimes allowed them
to control me. Some I have dismissed with hasty fear,
others I wish had come true throughout the soundless breeze
of the day.

I would learn a better silence in the face of mistrusted words
that flew toward my mind. I let my hands hang.

The Canceled Acclaim

The Canceled Acclaim

(“Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.” Proverbs 29:23 [The Message]

The days were stitched together like fibers
on a loom. It was daylight too often, it was
late in the afternoon. I couldn’t predict what the
day would become; I only envisioned a few moments
when the light would favor my imagination.
I longed for something created to ease my mind,
something I could point to that broke the rules I
already patterned to sit me closer to the
heights of power.

Wishing I could live more lowly and still be
acknowledged for my unseen character,
I reminded myself of the notes I could play while
ignoring the fingers that slipped across the black
and white keys.

My patience was tested, my longings more congested
than a winter’s cold or a summer’s scorn. I only
desired something beyond the corners of
hand-me-down
notions that I hid behind the closet doors of
my mind.

I took comfort in numbers; in the crowds I thought
shadowed my measured words. I wondered if
I could pacify the spaciousness that my depression
deserved. I confessed it all, this addiction to
connection, and wondered which way I could turn.

Above or below, I could not decipher what the
final judgement would mean. I had lifted more
weight
than my peers had attempted. And yet I was
still questioned my mental health. It was
daylight I craved, and a handful of accolades I thought
would restore my attention to legal details
that never let go of my mind.

A Silver Set

A Silver Set

(“Good words that hide an evil heart are like silver paint over a cheap, clay pot.” Proverbs 26:23)

I know you hoped that we would see you shine;
I know you wanted to be redesigned by bowing and
scraping and ordering every word around the perfect
incantations that sounded like speaking in tongues.

We had a silver set when I was growing up, sterling
silver I believe. We brought it out on holidays and scoured it
with the cream we kept hidden for just this purpose.
We burnished and polished until they reflected the sun
back to our open eyes again.

But we are all just silver plated, thinly wrapped around a common
lump of clay. I watched how you would get discouraged and then
call it depression and exit to watch it run its course like runoff after
the deluge. You agonized over hoping to reach another level but
your humanity seemed to be to blame.

I’ve laminated my own life scores of years over. I’ve wanted
to find
someone who didn’t care that all they saw was much. But
the crowds I ran in demanded prayer and perfection. They
expected a performance that looked like a faith-healer trashing
crutches and wheelchairs. But I always saw the healed person
limping around the same echoes again.

Touch me and you touch dirt, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes.
Hold me and your fingernails will get smudged with mud.
Talk to me, bring the wine, and I will open myself up
one last time. I am slow to show the slivers in the silver
that protects my ego. But for you I will try it one more time.

And perhaps we will find a better connection than thinly
disguised silver can ever deliver.

Strengthening

Strengthening

(“He went from place to place…strengthening all the disciples.” Acts 18:23b)

I just dropped by to say I heard the clouds
talking this morning in a colloquy with the sun. They agreed
gladly
to break by noon and flood the day with glass-blue
rays on the afternoon. I
only mention this because I know how much you
have longed for the beginning of wakefulness
to rouse you from the doldrums. You once knew
the lift of renewed songs and friendships grounded
in conversations that lasted past the sunsets of summer.
I came to remind you that the stars can be seen
from this side of the world as well.
I came to remember, right next to you,
the way the air felt holy when we first heard the story
that the conclave of heaven with earth foretold.
And we decided, this time, that time, to believe it
like every other story that invaded our disquieted minds.
Do you remember? Will you remind me while I
walk beside you on this late sunshine afternoon?

My Basic Intentions

My Basic Intentions

(“Whoever loves pure thoughts and kind words will have even the king as a friend.” Proverbs 22:11)

I fashioned the words I needed to
cash in the debts I was owed. I would never
ask for repayment directly but hint at
the mindless muddle it left me in.

Should we meet up to discuss it;
will you repay me when you can?
Or should I write it off, call it grace,
leave it alone transformed like mud into gold?

I’ve got words inside me I have rarely spoken,
fortunes I have not spent. I don’t need the cash,
I didn’t mean to bring it up again.
Rivers sometimes overflow their banks.

I would rewrite the note I sent if that would help.
I should not have raised the subject at all.
I am afraid that trees sometimes fall without warning
and unpredictably finish the day on the forest floor.

My intentions were pure, or so I hoped;
it was the wording that got in the way.
I did not know how to bring it up and
now I wish I never had.

So now I’ll say it all out loud; I’ll recite
what were my basic intentions. I’ve erased
the moment from my mind and left it behind
to feed my roses that have just begun to bloom.

That Pinpoint of Time

That Pinpoint of Time

(“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22:13)

Did your time feel like it was funneled down a
vortex slide into a single pinpoint of everything?
All the past and future convened to meet in a super mass
of holy magnitude and whirlwinds of exceptional mass.
It seemed as if the air had solidified and the ground turned
like a twirling toddler getting himself dizzy and falling
on the floor.
I was going to hold the door open for you to walk out
into the sunshine. But you were lost in your encounter
with all of time meeting in the single space you occupied.
Your yesterday caught up with you,
your tomorrow greeted you on the back end. There was no
escaping the way that time began to unravel your straight-line
existence. You could do nothing but smile and test the
air to be sure it was still breathable.

We had met years ago when time still ran a straight line.
We knew where we had been and hoped we would enjoy
where we were going. We never thought that we would
encounter the fullness of the mystery of the tornados of time.

While everything moved horizontally toward the edge of your existence
you could count the days by moons and suns. But here was all creation
swirling around you, day and night meeting each other from
front to back with future and past sharing places under your
gaze.

We did not expect to find the Spirit moving in such a way that
we could find her no matter which direction we faced. It was not
simply our past and future, but the rule seemed to be that whatever
direction we looked the divine had been there first. It was only
a hint, but it seemed the crucial mass of time reminded us
of the Spirit that occupies everything. Yesterday and tomorrow
were now full of the light that shines without the sun. Frightened
at first
now we twirled ourselves at the invitation of the Spirit that
filled all things front to back, top to bottom, horizontal and
vertical, we knew the diagonal was fully filled in that
pinpoint of time.

Composition

Composition

(“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3)

I had just sat down to let my mind wander between
muses of immunity and sirens of mediocrity and I spotted,
coming across the lawn and toward my adolescent apple trees,
a doe of uncertain years loping across my view.
It was not unexpected. She was one of a dozen who would
venture to my yard over warm summer days.
She made me wonder where she goes after nibbling
the buds off my roses. Next year I’ll find a way to
keep them off the menu for my four-legged visitors.
But today she sauntered past leaving them, maybe,
for a midnight snack the next time she comes around.

I started the day by rolling the burden on my back
to a stronger companion who volunteered to show me
the way home. I walked along streams of consciousness
and pondered how I would start this poem. I still
am not certain it has begun at all.

My daughter told me about rescuing a baby bunny from
the jaws of their big tabby cat named Timmy. She chased
him into their garage where she thought she had him cornered.
But he slinked through a slightly open door into the
laundry room. She caught Timmy and he released his prey.
Chasing him back outside, she quickly let her three dogs out into the yard.
She scoured the house, looking everywhere for the
injured bunny and finally found him hiding at the back of her
clothes closet in the bedroom. No wounds were visible, just
a spot where bare skin peeked through the fur. Taking him
outside to let him out in the wild near a grove us bushes,
there was a mature rabbit waiting, its mother, she was sure.
The rabbit ran and my daughter loosed the baby bunny
into the bushes.

She and Timmy are still fighting.