We Refused to Turn

We Refused to Turn

(“These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.” Daniel 3:23)

You erected an idol to yourself,
you demanded worship at the statue of your
insanity. We could not comply, we could not
bow
like it was some worship song flowing up
from creamy faces to the sun. You
sent the worst after us,
to subdue us,
to confuse us.
But we refused to turn our faces to
the effigy built in your image.

You sent the worst to arrest us,
door to door you knocked with your
covered faces, asking questions we had
no obligation to answer. We politely,
but plainly told you to fuck off.
Your brutish hands clutched the door
and we smelled the acrid tear gas you
had punched into crowds that were countering
your evil directives.

In short, burn us in your furnaces of fury
if you will but the short and full of it is
simple:
We
will
not
bow.

Singe the edges if you will.
We will sing our songs of sanity
to your appropriated helmets of state-sponsored
status. We will move with resolve
to introduce the truth. If you arrest us
we will stand. If you apprehend us, we will
still speak. If you sentence us, we will steadily
place our purpose where it belongs. We will
avert our eyes from your monstrous image and
turn to the invisible God who is truth and truth
and truth.

Our Comfortable Borders

Our Comfortable Borders

(“Nothing is secret but what will be known. Anything that is hidden will be brought into the light.” Luke 8:17)

We assumed we were seeing well,
the light was bright,
and our apostles were speaking truth.
We were aligned and everything seemed righteous.

But the corner we occupied was filled with darkness.
Our eyes had dilated to let in the
limping bit of light that was left. Our prophets
were hidden with us, calming our souls
and caressing our egos. We sung it all
so well
that people outside patted us on the back for
our stellar harmonies.

But one of us woke up.
One of us ventured a few feet away from our
comfortable borders. One of us
happened upon the rays of light that could have
dispelled the dark side we had taken for granted.

Our egos had swollen in the dark, our narration
memorized to keep out the loudest voices of transformation.
We had become accustomed to every patch of
ground we stood upon. We were blind in our
stupor, we were stained by our hiding place.
We were constrained by our habits and lowlights
behind the scenes. We had locked down our faith
and configured it to fit our biases fashionably.

But one spoke from the outside, from the light that
unsighted our darkness at the first look. But soon,
accustomed to the rays and particles that filled space
like the facets of a diamond
we were confronted about our preconceptions.
We were no longer protected. We were no longer
accustomed to arrested proclamations.

We turned away from the darkened corner and
listened to the ones who had brought their
shaded self into the light. We saw the
unambiguous recitations of truth and were
confronted with our own contributions to the
darkened minds we once called sane.

A piece at a time we climbed out of our
cavern and, taking a backward look we were
astonished at what we had assumed. We
wept over our misapprehensions, over our
staggering domination of the narrative that now
seemed to be a pinpoint star fading into the background.

We were changed by the light we had shaded. We had
worn visors that hid the corners of our hearts.
The songs now were of resistance, of revolution,
resolution, and renovation that uprooted our attachment
to a few square feet of surety. We had crowded into
corners and thought the world behaved in predictable ways.

It was grace that created the new perception,
it was vast prairies full of sun that called the invisible
dawn that deleted our defense of a few square feet
of certainty.
It was a noise like bluebirds,
it was motion like rainbows rising from the plains.
And we left that claustrophobia that turned us into
inspectors of the imperfect and embraced the light
that led the advance of a new prophetic voice that
brightened the darkest acts of our religious wars.

The Circle of Mercy

The Circle of Mercy

(“God encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

I dreamed how many times I had fallen,
how often I was afraid of stepping over the edge.
I dreamed of tainted love that caught me napping,
of uncertain words of dread. I sweated sometimes
just remembering the sadness I felt and the sadness I caused.

But I also dreamed how two lifted me up, two who didn’t
mind walking next to me in the pit of my despair.
I put them on my calendar, today and the next,
meaning to thank them for breathing life into this
stumbling soul. I never meant to try to go it alone,
though that could be inferred from the way I hid inside.

I found them later that day, ready to shake their hands
and encircle them the way they had enfolded me.
But their hands were already busy lifting another from
the abyss where they had fallen. It’s not that they were
too busy for me; they invited me to come and

Join the circle of mercy along with them.

Rolled Up on the Couch

Rolled Up on the Couch

(“We were made like that man of earth, so we will also be made like that man of heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:49)

My feet are cold standing on the floor,
the thermostat is working, I just set it too low.
What I would give for a larger footprint
that kept me warmer while the rains plot patterns
in the mud.
I woke up early, two minutes I think, and I napped
for an hour waiting to write. My head aches,
the same as it has for 17 years and I wonder when
I will ever be able to jump for joy again.
I don’t mean to sound self-occupied or whiny,
I don’t mean to take all the attention.
But I’d rather be back in the middle of things
thinking I made a difference or two. Instead, I’m
holed up,
rolled up on the couch waiting for the echoes
to pass like yesterday’s thunder. I’m waiting to
play something experimental, keyboard configurations
of things so stable they are candidly spotted under
timed-sequences of tune. I want to cross over on
the bridge to another beginning, an angelic singing
of possibilities. I want to say it without feeling
damaged, but the past catches up with me, the future
pulls away and presently I am stuck inside a
cyclone of consequences that I’ve almost owned.
I’ve left most of my justifications on the side of the road.
One day I will not sink beneath the weight of pain,
I will rise above this gravity’s habits of resistance,
and simply be wrapped up like I once was before
I placed my feet on the floor wanting warmer mornings
and longer passages of joy.

Space Now Between

Space Now Between

(“God blesses you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.” Luke 6:20a)

Somewhere between complete confidence
and the quilt of unknowing
there are thoughts that once were strong as
mud-bricked walls. They have not fallen,
but they speak underneath my consciousness
and call me to listen above their current frequency.

Somewhere below my previous expectations
and above the poverty line there were verses
of poetry I had not written. And if I did, I swear
the meaning would be hidden. If only I had learned
the song long ago. If only it was committed to
the filing cabinets inside my mind.

Somewhere away from manufacturing
and toward clear crisp creation I faced a
new situation where want became the previous
shortcut I always took. Now I walked close to
silence, the stillness of innovation unmeasured
on the page.

At this point I would honestly say that finances
frightened me
like fire consuming my innovation. I pictured a
some day that would be a sunnier day without
the halting breaths between words. Today
I cannot tell you what will break between
midnight and noon or what phase the moon is
as it circles like a hula hoop. But there is space now
between what I know for sure and what I will never
discern
for sparks to ignite an avalanche of blessing
on the mountain slopes beneath my feet.

And We Frolicked

And We Frolicked

(“Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’” Ezekiel 37:9)

It was a strong wind that lifted the crossword images
from the river to the sightlines from the shore.
We were scratching
jigsaw puzzles we bought for Christmas.
The sonic booms tried their hand at prophesying
new faces of the moon. All they ended up doing
was scaring the dogs huddled underneath the tables
in the living room.
There was an exhalation that warmed the journey
we expected to run in the morning mist. We were
dead on our feet,
deceased upon the heels of our discontent.
We ceased moving and wallowed in the mud
while waiting for the wind to come our way again.

We had been looking for our necessary mood when our time
finally ran out. We were dry as corpses, broken like
long-held fantasies of winning back our losses. That
was the day breathing and the sun turned to sand.

But there was movement in the air, we could feel it
though we could not hear it. There were wild geese
honking up the sky in their v-shaped migration. And the
wind stirred between us, lifting us lightly above ourselves,
entering ourselves, unwrapping ourselves, reviving our
selves in ways we had wished for so long. We missed the
ways things once were when the trees caught the breeze
in their branches and shared it with the forest floor.

The wild geese stirred the wind again and like a burst
of unbounded joy we opened anew to as breath
entered us, centered us, reoriented us; we saw anew and
thanked the spirit. We heard anew and knew the tune. We spoke
too soon, so we quietly listened as our skin felt the touch of
wildness we had been pursuing for years. In our stillness
it caught up with us, and we frolicked like we had been
born again.

Love Surrounds

Love Surrounds

([“Love is not] rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. 1 Corinthians 13:5)

Take the time like it matters,
preserve it like messages from the mountains that
love lies waiting for the forgotten and the unseen.
They had flinched when the words cascaded toward them,
sharp accusations and suppositions and nothing an inch worth
of truth. The implications were clear though the cause was not.
They only felt good once they lowered him a peg or two.

But love lies waiting like a rescue hammock, it meets the
expectation of summer sunny afternoons. Though others gave it
stingily, one gave kindness first place and made room for others
whose hearts had been silenced by those who forgot they
did not know enough.

But love surrounds the wounds left behind by
judgment without cause. Love asks how the hurt began and
listens to the stories even over and over again
until all facets have been exposed to its light.

We thought we had caused their irritation, that we had
manufactured words in a smelter and fashioned them into
swords. But that was not our plan. We formed
platters to serve everyone. We kept hoping to
manufacture a moment in time where the blinders fell
off and we were comfortable to see each other as we are,
even if we had never seen that way before.

Some did and found the scars still healing. Some bound
them anew with bandages and care. We filled a bowl with
water and washed their hands while we waited for
the rest to arrive.