But Your Words

But Your Words

(“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away.” Mark 13:31)

My magnificence, my manuscript,
my masterpiece, my sheets of handwritten lyrics
and longings double spaced on the old Underwood
were boxed away once I left home for the first time
and from the time until reminded what words meant to me
once I inked them out of mind; it was 20 years.

Sometimes I bragged about them, sometimes bereaved over their loss,
sometimes remembering them, my tour de force, other times
(considering the source) I knew they were derivative,
clunky as bricks and cheap imitations of the poetry gurus
who always caught my breath.

But Your words, paper or heard, can still bring tears
where other words quickly incite new fences around
my acreage.

But Your words, always and now, know the corners of me,
better than the mourners of me who have conditions for my improvement,
who have eyes fixed on my every movement,
who never dissent, but with a turn of phrase, a well-placed accent
distort the courage I crave.

But Your words, spoken unfeigned, wash over craggy blocks
of desert cliffs, the heart held siege by drought, until
shadow and sun, until green leaves appear. The tears
are merely the heart’s irrigation.

I have lost more words than I have written, but never
have forgotten the face that inspired them,
the planet motions that conspired slim volumes of day.

But Your words, laughter or sad, are truer than faces I’ve forgotten,
tracing hope like a halo, a love so fearful I sometimes shudder
and wonder why I think even one word I’ve uttered
is worth remembering

When Your words, thunder and still, find the wound
and without lecture, pierce the callous and soften
until I hear better what I have heard so often.