You Infuse

You Infuse

(“Anyone who says, ‘I live in intimacy with Him,’ should walk the path Jesus walked.” 1 John 2:6)

Only You know the reservations,
the slow procrastination that paints me
static. I do not care about the dimensions (2D or
3D with glasses), I am sad about the stagnation.

Only You know I am like a painting at a museum.
A father takes his son to see “The Blue Boy” on the wall,
and the son takes his own son to see the same. I am the same,
unchanged. Beautiful in silky grey; warm in the background green,
I am mounted and unmoved.

You are a Master Artist, not a painter. I am
a new creation, not a painting. A father and a son
visit me apart and are not ashamed that I am unchanged.

Only You infuse my taciturn crawl with fragrant oil,
the perfume all nature wears unaware. In silence sometimes
I find
the tears I cried over misshapen mimicry are part
of the elixir, the tonic of Your love.

Being, I move. Trying, I lose every scented molecule
of Your affection. I have stocked an entire pantry with
colognes and sprays to disguise misguided efforts
to hammer my own painting tightly to the wall.

I would never lose the fragrance if I merely moved in
closer to
only You.

Cliff-Edge Day

Cliff-Edge Day

(“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3)

Holding tightly to another cliff-edge day
I hear the dirt clods tumbling below, beside, away.
I see the patch of grass, the brashly painted island
with boundaries tightly drawn.

I do not wish to write another screed of pain,
the words have piled up like broken lava
and I stand atop the cone, the crater, knowing
sooner or later
I will tire of the subject and take a 

European vacation just to prove I can still
live outside the lines.

There is a force (I shall not say “hand” or “arm”,
anthropomorphism does not suit the spiritual subject
in concrete verse)—(yet, I should not say “force” or “power”,
as if something like the hum of machinery kept me
from falling)—

There is a devotion (not mine, but Another) that
refuses to see me fall, though boulders roll unevenly
passed the appalling picture without explanation;
I am secure, though I would rather crawl alone past
the constant question, “How are you?”

I am beaten, I am worn, I am divided, I am torn,
I think with dust in my eyes, I see with  my mind
addled with icy sunshine; and lay quietly on the same
couch (my body imprinted in blue cushion by now)
when I would rather stand Grand Canyon tall, rising
early, adhering late to the Canyon walls.

Yet, all is stalled by the fingernail grasp that
uses a whole day’s energy by half a day at noon.

God's Chosen People

God’s Chosen People

“But you are God’s chosen and special people. You are a group of royal priests and a holy nation. God has brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now you must tell all the wonderful things that he has done.” 1 Peter 2:9

Darren Sproles shouldn’t be playing NFL football. The average height of an NFL quarterback is just over 6”2”. Running backs average height is 5”11” and weighing in at about 215 pounds. Not only does Sproles play in the NFL, he broke the record for most single-season all-purpose yardage in 2011, with 2,629 yards. Playing for the San Diego Chargers, New Orleans Saints and the Philadelphia Eagles, he is the first player in NFL history with 2,200+ all-purpose yards in four different seasons.

To Console or Call

To Console or Call

(“More than anything, keep loving each other actively; because love covers many sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

It all smelled naked to the untrained eye;
like shame in the garden, rain during harvest,
so we covered it up with fragrances and smoke.

We were frightened and cold.

It all was larger than our own small acreage;
like memes in their orbit, tales oral and ancient,
so we hid in closets or glued green leaves on our broken branches.
We were broken and old.

Our minds were bigger than our bodies could take us,
our dreams unlimited have become finite over time,
the choices, from tears or sins, stares and pain,
have little chance of presenting themselves again.

Old friends, has my behavior surprised you? I must say,
you are as fragile as recent as I can remember. I would
not fail you even when frightened by the swordplay that,
I must say, wounded and nearly destroyed us both.

In these final few chapters I am wrinkled,
the band of pain is tightened around my brow and
I could use the eyes flashing with acceptance,
the voice sure with remembrance of both our broken wings
and broken hearts,
the standing invitation that never asked questions
and the pool of forgiveness (just mercy, no suggestions)
where wounds could be both cleansed and forgotten.

My feet are cold, my eyes are tired,
new friend are kind, but old friends are desired
who,
knowing all love all. We all were in the garden,
we all took a bite, we all have cursed and all have
accused, and now, as we ease toward our final mooring

I would give all for you, old friend, to console or call,
with love covering all. 

Surprise: Some People Don't Like Me

“Those people are surprised now that you do not do the same wrong things they do. And they say wrong things about you.” 1 Peter 4:4

Let’s face it, none of us wants to be disliked. I didn’t huge slices of my time to theater productions in high school hoping people would boo me onstage. I didn’t join my first Kiwanis club hoping the people in town would call me names. The same is for all of us, isn’t it? Perhaps you are part of a hunting club, or a group who plays dominoes once a month, or the Yearbook club at school. We never join with the thought, “And I’m sure this will make me hated by my friends.”

Share a Slice

Share a Slice

I wonder who would take me to task for asking
questions no one else asks (but is thinking).
I wonder would my words be rehashed over the
tiny backlash they caused, though the ship (is not sinking).

I wonder, if I held my tongue, and never disrupted
the party line, sung only the verses we all know (from memory),
I wonder, if the bell was rung, not to incite a riot
among the faithful; just to fill the space (sometimes empty).

I would share a piece of my mind, a slice of my brain sustained
from the 90% unused. It is kind to speak truth or (raise my hand)
when pieces don’t fit, when pieces are missing. I would share
a piece of velvet, a piece of cake; a pie, a muffin, (no lies stuffed)

In the middle of honest thought some fear is heresy.

Mercy of Music

Mercy of Music

(“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3)

The flat picking swirled carelessly once it started around the room,
just like Dylan, maybe Tom Petty, with careful lyrics, and EmmyLou harmonies,
my eyes were set free; the simple tears that release the deepest angst
just below the second layer of skin. Or maybe it is like Levon Helm’s
final whispered song, sounding like the old guitar and the gutted throat,
the kind you can cry, or dance, or touch fingertips to. The kind, if you
are alone,
you let play in a loop and lullaby your way
to sleep.

I’ve been so far from the music I made, kept it square within
the boxes I found in the attic played “Gnostic Serenade” and
partly understood. Early days I danced with laughter, dropping beats
and missing sevenths all over the floor. I was young. I was an apprentice.
And you don’t start over when the people are up and dancing/

I was foolish, Jesus, to think you preferred only monastery and
diligently metered music. Older ones who played their mandolins
like guns,
never missed a line or lyric. I did nearly break a whole in the floor,
keeping time at the piano with my left boot banging below.

If I haven’t learned this by now, that music is Your sweetest gift,
so full of mercy, so fragrant like lilacs in spring. Someday I shall
breath the Asian spice deeply and understand the scales, sometimes
more than 12 tone and between the beats (maybe in 9) the scuttle of
feet on gravel is the bridge that brings all of it home.

I don’t know.

But I’ll never waste another hour or minute, tossing away a world’s good song,
because time, because boredom, because fables built fences to keep our
senses pure and unaffected
by the mercy of music misunderstood.

No Glass Jaws

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is pure. That’s the most important thing about it. And that’s not all. It also loves peace. It thinks about others. It obeys. It is full of mercy and good fruit. It is fair. It doesn’t pretend to be what it is not.” James 3:17

I used to follows boxing quite a bit. For a peaceful chap, know as a hippie and growing up  in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970s, I’m sure this seems a bit incongruent! Truth is, I haven’t watched a professional match in over 20 years. But back then I did: Ali, Frazier, Holyfield, Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard; I would watch any time a top ranked bout was broadcast.

Honest Song

Honest Song

(“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13)

Now the day played upon their porches like
southern homes and sprawling lawns. Each morning
was the same,
the songs all remained in collective memory; planets
circling the comet tail of unwritten history. Lyrics barely
changed, (a word, a name, he and she), and we always recognized
the melody. Thousands of players and heard it around
the same porches on days as long as these. Some tapped time
to the trains clacking by; others to the crickets hidden from sight.

The children were shy once someone caught their eye, yet,
unobserved, they cartwheeled and caterwauled, ringing the
aging apple tree and whirled like Jupiter’s moons; holding hands,
a human carousel, the laughter lifting above the music until
everyone fell with the dizzying ease of equal parts child and
invisibility.

The old phrases take us home, the unwritten melodies, better
live
than recorded,
are the ones that have courted our hearts to love meadows
more than avenues,
and
maypoles more than
altitude.

With less knowledge than the perfected players,
the sheer truth of honest song presses kisses on the forehead
and grass stains on the knees.

Pulse in His Pillow

Pulse in His Pillow

(“If a person thinks he is religious, but does not keep his tongue from speaking bad things, he is fooling himself. His religion is worth nothing.” James 1:26)

The fog was pounding, morning throbbing,
no words were spoken, just the early grunt awoken
by the need to attend with friends with pain refraining
the hope he held for the morning.

Yet midnight ran slowly until 12:15,
12:15 made the rounds to 1 am. All he heard
was the pulse in his pillow; each heartbeat heard
scurried ahead to the next, insistent on keeping the
body unsynchronized. Sleep has its own patterns and
the body sometimes misses the closing elevator door
to transport it to basement quiet and calm.

The mind was full, always full, racing from old flames
to new hopes; from praying to claiming a post-hypnotic suggestion
of peace. Using his brain he slept in a meadow, alone and safe,
familiar and cocooned; but the thoughts followed him from
comfortable couch to warm earth bed. And the pillow pulsed
again, refrain, again, coda, refrain, verse and chorus, again.

The chemicals were responsible, it was clear. Four doses a day
kept the goblins away, though their darts were felt in the best hours.
Systems have faults, built by humans, and the system failed to
resume his prescription timely. Untidy cuts down the middle of
tabs, brought him to one-third his daily dose, for three days and
a half. He had no weapons to bring down the demons of chemistry.

He missed meetings; a beloved hour with two nearly newlyweds.
an evening at play with music and Word, and a morning to break
Friday’s fast with men, comrades he had learned to trust.

And feared, having missed doing his job, peace would be
jumbled and jigsawed, words defensive and short-story-first-person.

And, with every weapon unloaded, he goaded the best words (or
none), until chemistry found its proper homeostasis