You Know the Grace

You Know the Grace

(“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

Clothed in gold, washed in spring rain,
the grass is thick, the streams parade life
and young men’s dreams from foothills
to the pregnant river of long poetry;
creation’s own form of praise.

Surrounded by breeze, underneath these old
feet each day is cool with dew that never
dropped upon the soft green blades
of this playful morning before.

We wore our castoff clothing like
princes;
Our half-scales and jazz chords like
incense.
The music we hear, though
assembled before a not ever was played,
is beyond our talents; the gift is
in the singing;
what we never dreamed of before.

And yet, the key can sour with time,
the odes and dirges overtake our jubilant hymns.
And yet, the day can bristle with age,
the plush rose petals brittle and late.

Rich with melody, yet faded with age
we may forget the sun on our faces,
the soft earth’s carpet on our back,
and the words that sent us leaping may
fashion weeping instead.

What, day of joy and night so old,
how may I find, discover, define,
and hold forever
the single afternoon memory of a
meadow spring—unvisited for decades.

How old is Your gift; the music, the rain,
the warm, the same thoughts that
once coaxed love from uncertainty?
But ageless is not old; but ever.
And the song; redemption’s dialogue of
God and man

Will remain the tune I whistle
half-forgetting its title.

To Be Played in B Temporary Minor

To Be Played in B Temporary Minor

(“Our temporary minor problems are producing an eternal stockpile of glory for us that is beyond all comparison.” 2 Corinthians 4:17)

It rained like the notes of a dusty upright piano played
in the parlor corner behind a dozen conversations.
The massive maple frame vibrated and rang,
and thunder background awoke the lazy gathering
like fire.

What is this dissonance, where the lost chords,
the freezing droplets at my back door? Who first
struck the white and black, the lightning aimed
like a late attack upon our senses?

What hands hewed the wood and studied each joint
to take the strain of 236 strings and 17 tons of tension?
What hand threw the flood and fire that started in the wall
and climbed while no one watched it smolder overnight,
after each guest from young to older left for home?

Whose frost wet the embers? Whose mind chewed through time
and swallowed the old piano whole which hands
on which mother and child suffered etudes and
dreamed the Beatles best tunes?

The home was empty when the fire attacked,
lives were saved, but memories and melancholy
still litter the battlefield where the uncompromise began.

Would you walk alone, now, with the sound alone, now;
would you settle for less once the music is silence and
the wedding photos are sloppy burnt? Will the

Stockpile of grace
consume all that was taken
and replace the hand-me-down piano
in a new parlor in the Father’s house?

I Never Counted

I Never Counted

(“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17)

How long will you try to control my trajectory,
keep my like a kite on a line, telling me I cannot fly unless
held back by your length of twine.

How short is your far. How near is your goodbye?
You feign interest in helping, and turn backwards speaking
in unholy tongues
to the same ones and said I was troubled in the head while
handing me your own letter and unforged signature to introduce me
as a capable candidate for any who might inquire.

How long are your lies, and how short is your memory?
How broad are your definitions, and how narrow your expectations?
How long will you torment me, with such a velocity that while you lie to me
the opposite words flee to tidy the mess within moments of breaking
it in pieces? My own words were chards at your feet. My friends’ words
are probably burned while the enemies’ preserved for posterity.

These ten times, and seven years, you reproach and not once
would you allow
a single confrontation with the cows of Bashan.
And finally, I wonder why they call gentleman, one who
takes my precious one, the innocent one, the one with more Grace
than Boldness; when they take her and throw darts at her simple words
and make her the newest target of their quackery.

What I never counted on was freedom for every step I had fallen upon.
What is stranger yet, it seems, they still are redeemed, though my breath
gets caught at the back of my tongue to consider it.

Oh liberty, Oh freedom, misery that dies where sins are crucified,
and life wider than the reaches of noon-day eyes is the constant surprise
for those who do not trip over the Rock of redemption just because they
pursued perfection too impeccably.

"Father, What do You Want?"

"Father, What do You Want?"

^“Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, ‘My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?’” Matthew 28:9

Jesus took His three closest associates on one final, intimate moment together. His arrest and crucifixion loomed large on the horizon, and late that evening He seeks His heavenly Father for solace, a bit of negotiating, and final submission to the plan set long ago for mankind’s freedom.

The Previous Phone Call

The Previous Phone Call

(“I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to you.” 1 Corinthians 16:23)

Now  the last phone call I received was well-intentioned,
but I have a view from another side of the mountain,
If I speak as I see, acknowledging the focus of the other’s scene,
everything can be disremembered and spread like stale smoke and perfume
until my observation is dissolved as completely as the last bubble
in old champagne.

If you looked at my heart carefully, microscopically, methodically,
a quarter century ago; you know before the first peek; you hear
it speak in healthy rhythm, and you would doubt any deficit of
love or
surrender,
sprint or
marathon,
though the breath may be heavy, and the mistakes plenty,
you would find only the few healed scars from crashing
friends and cars in laughter afterward.

Examine again the sautéed pathway, this
slow-cooked journey never running from self.
My fear has always been what men and friends would
do to me
if they could see
the banquet I serve myself. I smile when they
serve me all their best,
but my chief interests run counter to the daily special.

Grace is not a mask, it is the dialogue I would have with God
once every human eye had turned the other way.
It is the phone call I would have with you,
begging you to withdraw the names you gave me
and my best,
and join the dialogue we could have with God
once every human eye had learned the other way.

The Layers

The Layers

(“My beloved is mine and I am his, he pastures his flock among the lilies.” Song of Songs 2:16)

The first layer of attention, the lightness of feathers,
the breath of linen, never left for over the briefest season when
I moved apart the leaves to find another pathway lined
with false proposals. Inclined to believe what I see,
I sought them for the loneliest era; time undefined by
the finite or eternity.

I cannot be specific about what layer was next, or how many,
or what order they came; though I do know the last two as I’ve
grown into a new set of clothes that feel like comfortable hand
me
downs.

Love was never questioned, no seriously; the first layers were
dance and six-strings, never weary of late nights, long walks,
unending talks of what we thought might be heaven to day,
or might be gone tomorrow. Unexamined, our love bounced
like wagon wheels unsprung. We were nearly nomads,
finding gifts between concrete cracks and below rocks
settled in mud
after the rain.
We acknowledged hell with a mere glance, little thinking
love might leave us wordless about eternal agony.

But these final layers, no, not the ones on top, not the last
bit of whipped cream topping a parfait; these final layers lie
deep within the dish, the final taste of perfect goodness. Here
is where
our minds met, and nearly exploded in the velocity of
pleasures and restriction, passion and restraint in head-on
competition for an affair of the heart that satisfied the mind
as late as sentiment slept.

Would this Lover of my Soul satisfy its imagination,
half would not be rich, semi would not be full;
but let reason ring with passion, affections
speak with acumen; and the whole more complete
having examined each competing thought with
honest eyes and unswayed heart.
We acknowledged hell with more than a glare, more wondering
love would put it there for any creation; and leaving
each interpretation to other tongues. There may be
more clever ways to constrict the days others spent
on loves with different names than we have heard.

Stolen Focus

Stolen Focus

(“And I know God has made everything beautiful for its time. God has also placed in our minds a sense of eternity.” Ecclesiastes 3:11a)

Meanwhile the rains let up for the moment when,
looking up,
the seagull stole the focus from the cliffs in the foreground.
A white brush-stroke across the opening sky, it rose while
gravity kept us all tied down.

At Least One

At Least One

(“Then the King will say, ‘For sure, I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of My brothers, you have done it to Me.’” Matthew 25:40)

I noticed the color of his voice, dark as midnight,
sorrowful as rain. I saw the sadness in his face, wrinkled in pain,
eyes squinting, the hurt unrestrained.

I expected the warmth I knew, the grace of noon in spring,
the mercy early and new. So much time had passed from the first
to the last
time I understood the best I could do
and the worst I had done
were not loaded upon a scale nor
could cancel each hellish act
with deeds done well.

I knew it now, embraced it how,
son and daughter, brother and sister,
are the new names for my anonymous past.

Today I could not understand, the frown, the hands
clenched like a widow’s upon the casket’s edge.
What loss could change the songs of heaven to
simple silence, a long pause of eternal time,
(a mere second of you disapproval took forever
as you scanned my face from eye to eye).

You looked at me, and the pain was a cannonball of sorrow,
as you looked upon the disregarded, the unrobed, the lately regarded
worst of sinners and simply said to me plainly, amen and
world without end:

“He was my friend” 

Reading Dizzy

Reading Dizzy

(“A house is built by wisdom. It is made strong by understanding.” Proverbs 24:3)

He pulled the rotted handrails from my front porch
resting upon treated redwood front steps green. He meant
to replace the old splintered rails that with deep wounds where
the grain had run. From icy tan to dusty brown to the
aged grey of old wood and men, the rails showed the years,
and the work the power-frost had wrought upon the handhold
that now was nearly faded from day.

But he’s a spinning top, a whirligig jumped off the table
and clattering between wooden legs and fleshly feet,
fast, furious, so much a blur no one know what he is.
His label is indecipherable; the more he spins, the less he shows
of himself to us.

But he knows, he thinks, the words that tumble faster than
his works,
will make up for the languid faults everyone knows and
everyone has read who did not know. He speeds through the story,
and then speeds to the solution for your story, and you are
never sure who began and why your car was now scheduled
for a break job in his garage.

He calls the friends with the handrail, and, though he means well,
he may have to put it off a day, the brakes need him now, need
him faster, show him better. And you never mind very much; a week,
a month, or until the next frost when you will mount it yourself.

He moves so fast; he is still afraid we might read him real,
and then, what tender would he possess to gather the next friendship
to replace the sadly spoken ones; the broken ones who left,
he thought, because the label was clear. The spun as well as he, and
spinning

Read no one’s labels at all.