Give it a Rest

Give it a Rest

(“Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are.” 1 John 3:1a)

We know how hard you’ve worked,
and how loudly you run that vacuum machine
careening into the table legs to make your point.
No one has ever noticed food on the floor like you do.

Give it a rest, son, let the best give way to the
love that’s done more than your chores (duly noted)
will finish today. We hear you put the cleaning brush away,
the cabinets close loudly, your exclamation point.

Give it a rest, daughter, let the mess whisper like a
pile of dead leaves God let sit months until the following spring.

We know you know much, how much you know is punctuated
by your opinion pressed against the best ideas, even when
you came into the conversation one breath between a comma
and the final question mark.

Give it a rest, brother, let the silence attest to how you
and two or three, know less than cement opinions that
wall out hugs and empathy. You know we know that
you don’t know it all. We know less than we know and
still are blessed.

We know how frightened you’ve become, and loud words with
concrete argumentation stone you silent or sting you
to grind your teeth with words you’ll take back later.

Give it a rest, sister, let the decibels suggest your distress
is full of woodpecked holes you never asked for; meet
the agony with less anxiety recoil, instead let the silence

Within the loved child that you are, let the dust settle and
the words fall upon the floor. You are more than their agitation
and your itch to set everyone straight. A child of love, the King
has named you; the whisper of the name more certain than
the shouting of the exceedingly sane.