To Photograph the Moon

To Photograph the Moon

(“I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers.” Ephesians 1:16)

It might have been luck that brought us this far;
it is hard to tell between the rain, between the mailboxes,
between the houses, and between the minutes slowing
everything down.

One thing we had not counted on was
how seldom we found the cracks in the sky.
It was our habit to number the stars at night
and to photograph the moon like a goddess casting
spells over the trees. Shadows moved in and out
of each other.

We can talk on the phone for an hour,
we can catch up after 20 years. Where are the
connections we’ve prayed for? Where are the
the parties we used to plan?

If you painted a picture of what you see out your window
I would follow it like a map.
If you allowed for just a hairbreadth inside your heart,
I would leave everything intact.
If you spoke the words you never sing for anyone,
I would memorize them and inscribe them,
I would make them part of this poem,
I would enshrine them for further review.
I would never forget how the words are you,
and you full of paragraphs yet written, tales still
untold.

I appreciate your prayers, but next time

Let me see your eyes.

Fragrant Air

Fragrant Air

(“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3)

Fragrant air:
like the tiny pink cherry blossoms new;
like the golden flowers on the broom bush;
like the rows of sweet mown grass yesterday old.

Cotton sky:
like forgotten dreams unmemorized;
like nameless candles mid-center of the room;
like flows of honey on a sticky afternoon.

Satin dance:
like triple robins home for a rest;
like hummingbird snapshots of a Wednesday afternoon;
like elementary children flush-faced after school.

Ageless One:
like mountains and moons light-years from now;
like anthills and anthems, geysers of simple songs;
like laughter and weeping, signs of questions on the

Fragrant air.

Today I Will Chase Joy

Today I Will Chase Joy

(“Christ made us free. Stay that way. Do not get chained all over again in the Law and its kind of religious worship.” Galatians 5:1)

Do you want to be a part of the gathering
drinking beer, shouting across the room with
questions about what else is happening this afternoon?

Do you want to share in the secrets they reveal
once the tavern is full? Do you still want to
laugh like you did nearly every day of the year?

How we turn. How we display our faces which
are not our faces at all. How we decide to
de-occupy the places that once
opened us so wide the tears flowed on tap
and we didn’t mind.

We used to believe that God was the center of it all.
Then we decided there were places the divine
would never stoop to go, so we stayed away;
that became our newest goal.

But today I will chase joy. Today I will laugh
and spill my secrets. Today I will still be shy
(like we think god is shy), and put sticky notes
on my friends to remind me who will laugh with me.

There are people who drop the holy spirit right on
top of you
when they turn to you and smile.
And they didn’t mean to. It just exploded
on their face
and suddenly you are thunderstruck.

Yes, I’ll join any gathering that sounds like
children breaking pinatas at a birthday party.

A Rabbit Scampered

A Rabbit Scampered

(“Let us know, let us pursue knowledge of the Lord; his coming is as certain as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the autumn and spring rains come on the earth.”  Hosea 6:3)

When I looked up a rabbit scampered
at the edge of my vision. I suspected nothing.

I will not waste this day. But I will write honestly and
say—in my mind, not aloud—I’d rather have lunch with
a well-worn friend
than sit like a solitary monk. I was not made to be
a hermit. I was not created for this tightness in my chest.
I worry that I’m less than enough for anyone.
I worry my reservoir will overflow and everyone will see
what I’ve been holding back. So I stay alone in a town
where the river calls campers and dogs to sniff out
the steelhead and salmon.

Circles are better than points on a map.
Guitars passed around the group until everyone
has their chance to introduce the newest tune
born of love,
or lament,
or laughter,
or loneliness.
The four-bar ending of every song always includes
a quartet of hands upon the singer, a place in the
circle’s center
to see the heart that broke or bragged. The soul
that confessed its fears, its agony at possibly
leaving there unrenewed.

When I got up to leave, Emmit the blind
met me, licked my face like he knew me
and walked me to the door. I think I like
old dogs the best.

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

(“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 14:11)

Can you spare an hour, a sliver of time,
a coffee, a piece of pie,
an hour to see me the way I am?
Can we careen into the afternoon like
skis on powder?
Can you join me and then leave
a piece of you behind?
When I began writing this I
had no idea
where it would end. Starting on a day
when the walls enclosed my room and
then now in the sun in the early afternoon.

I was reading a new book, a book of words and
the word called grammar. I read slowly, letting
each sentence linger on my mind like wine on my tongue.
And once the reverie was complete, lost in pages
of scholarly guesses the

Breeze manipulated the bamboo windchime,
hollowly, wholly, and brought my eyes back to
blue skies, green scenes, and a hummingbird
spotted like a border collie. I had never seen her
before.

My invitation still stands. I have circles where no
one exists except in my imagination. I have a thousand
contacts in my phone,
but none of them live close to home. Silence
is untranslated. And that makes writing a greater challenge
than transcribing the conversations of a dozen tables
late afternoon at the bar.

My opinions have changed on their axis; my outlook
is a search for meaning on a sea of love. So, if you can,
if you will, sit at my table and tell me your tale. We can
cast our words with flyrods into the evening. We can
walk past the stream where crows try to sing and
children laugh at everything mid-July.

There Are Tunnels Up Ahead

There Are Tunnels Up Ahead

There are tunnels up ahead,
carved out of the mountain,
squeezed between the peaks,
excised beyond belief,
miles of wet rock paving from
bottom to top.
There are years of darkness when
the turns up ahead have waited for
the eyes of a hundred passengers to adjust.

Perhaps that is where we lost track
of the progress from home to last.
Maybe we were so constricted we all
came out the other side and accelerated
faster into the light.
Sure, and we had no choice but
to follow the taillights before us.

A few began the journey with good intentions;
others, in a rush to satisfy objections snuck out
of town under cover of darkness.
But they all were funneled toward the gaping hole
black as space. No one escaped.

On the other side, though,
wonder of wonders,
a chosen few swore on their life and the
lives of others
they had never encountered the darkness,
nor could they.
Perhaps their eyes had been closed from birth.
But the earth will tell their story
with verity,
the tunnel makes certain of that.

I know there is an opening at the far end,
I can feel the slow whoosh of wind on my face.
But there is no light yet, nothing to guide me to the end.
Sometimes I just want to pull over and wait for someone
who knows the best way around the mountains in my way.

But once I saw the reflection, a tiny wink on
the graying granite, I prayed I might exit with a new
story
to tell.

It Is the Kiss of God

It Is the Kiss of God

(“Three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.” Daniel 6:10b)

Can you see the fusion between what is seen
and what lies beneath it all? I know it sounds
unusual,
I know it might seem absurd,
but there are more things richer in the
silence of things than in many words.

Even the hills in the distance with their cedars reaching
high
draw the slow clouds near until they are
two lovers with foreheads touching together,
and all I can tell you; it is the
kiss of God.

I have endless symbols at my disposal,
invented phrases and bright proposals to
lure the doves to the houses I’ve built for them
on the edges of my eaves.
I only wish I could coo the way they do,
I wish I could woo them to make their home
beside me.

I don’t mind saying that I’ve walked in darkness
far too often. And yet I had few who knew
how night-time fell around me like a cage,
like a cast-iron door welded across my forehead.
If I saw you coming up the driveway, I’d point you
toward the hills, up to the clouds,
and be tempted to escape backwards into the woods
at the back of my property.

Do you know what I mean? My own understanding has
crackled like a broken blister. My own longings are
mostly unanswered. Yet hope refuses to die. And it
is the only reason
I find time to pray between sentences written and
clouds unbidden.

More than anything I wish I could make the words sound
like the doves who sing their alluring songs. More than anything
I would like
another curious day watching the new moon fall on the
fog while we drink ferociously. We will sing jokingly
of the serious decades we spent only to land upon the
hills that kiss the sky barely halfway into the day.