Vermillion Lizards

Vermilion Lizards

(“Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.” Ezekiel 19:13)

The paper thin clouds were vermilion lizards crossing the sky,
every memory was gladiolas and hibiscus, yet the
present story was saguaro and milkweed.

Turning toward the only breeze we can find
and stepping across undefined stream beds full
of pebbles; the parched taste buds of drought

A dehumidified sigh is lost among the rusty squeaks
of hawks tracing, dot to dot, a rabbit’s trail as the
shadows grow longer and supper is served.

None of us want to sound ungrateful (some of us do,
I wrote too soon). Some of us remain so fateful
we cannot admit the cracked lines upon our tongues.

But, when the past seems emerald and greener,
when our wishes outnumber the days allotted,
when we long for rainy days and play-school friends,
even in the desert, when we empty our pockets
and place the dust upon the end-table of our existence,

God, let the desert please us, as it must please you;
as fully created, cared for and crammed with color
as the East Bay Hills or the Northwest Harbors.

His Own Family

His Own Family

(“But if someone does not provide for his own, especially his own family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy 5:6)

My own are now gone, victims of genetics and illness.
My own are the ones who called me “their own”,
the ones who tied the first laces of our shoes;
my brother and my sisters, younger than I;
the ones who taught us to water trees at the roots
not at the trunk,
and who lived through us a degree too much and
too often; but less than most.

I read an article that angered me, that makes me wince
at being a Christian,
a writer who insisted this verse, so brimming with family
love,
and family provision,
made every parent suspect whose
children gleefully waited for the public school bus
every day.

Oh the comments that overflowed, the agreement from
Bible readers who do not read their Bibles.

They:

            Push your kids through. Hold them back a year. Give them 

            more opportunities than the next child. Make sure they memorize

            the words, excel at sports, take first chair flute, never a bit part

            in the musicals. “ Spend your time, climb faster so their

            lives are not the disaster that the children up the road have become.

Paul, to Timothy, paraphrased:

            Don’t let widows spend a day without your care. Honor the parents

            before you; save the sweetest moments for the parents before them.

            While some widows, silly and superstitious; the real widow is

            a source, a comforter and affectionate blanket of hope. Don’t

            let darkness darken her windows any day at all without

            the laughter of children at her learning and stories filling

            her moments and increasing God’s glory. Never let her

            slumber be preceded by alone. Care for your own!

My own are gone now; Mom decades before Dad, and, if they had
lived longer, they might be in our home; alongside our youngest one
learning Christ-like affection, and family, before hopping on the
school bus for the day.

The Air Sounds Like

The Air Sounds Like

(“When the Lord saw her, he felt sorry for her and said, ‘Don’t cry.’” Luke 7:13)

We scratch our heads so often; we question the days and argue with clouds.
We debate the death the looms above the final step for every journey.
We come home from this vacation, we return from that trip to fish,
we pull into the driveway half wondering how we’ll get in the front door;

But one day we will not return. A journey where the footprints simple stop.
No one computed the demanded time, and so our fathers and grandfathers still
have lemonade far into the afternoon, while
a mother and daughter have been parted since the second full moon the first child knew.

“It’s alright, it’s ok,” we say. We know the end of the trail
appears somewhere between one inhale of forest and the last exhale
of goodbye. If there is a half circle gathered around our final moment,
there is waiting, watching. Every vision is a solid stare, fast and focused
upon the nose and mouth and silence (undemanded) fills what might be lost.
One unintended, brings his fingers to the back of his head and scratches just
as everyone concludes the end has come. Mouth and lungs, eyes and fingers
are in suspended animation. The first, second, third, then three at once, then
uncounted
the tears spread around the room without blush or hesitation.

Only few notice the eyes that see unseen. In the silence, the solace is quieter still.
The hand, perhaps, that escorted the waiting one across the final precipice,
was the one who waited now, to dry eyes and find the middle of every room
where grief has swallowed a family, a church, a town or nation. He is
the exact center measured from every tear dropped from eye to earth.

He is the exact reason the last exhale happens beyond our hearing;
He is the exact substance, image, feeling of each one in the room and
the One who made each one in the room: He is the exact. Whether

He touches the bodies of the dead, or the brooding of the living, He touches them
with life,
with feeling,
with breath that leaves the air sound like the first day of birthing over again.

Church Return (this is not about gun control)

Church Return

(“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 2:1)

“They are taking our guns,”
“They will confiscate our defenses,”
“We cannot wait,” “no time to sit on fences.”

And we arm our hearers with every alarm bell, call presidents poison,
government brazen and the rest of humanity, (the ones unaffiliated with
you and me)
will be frozen by ray-guns spraying icebergs on the deserts and churches.
It’s no wonder no one listens to us anymore.

“They only want to revel in sin,”
“They are redefining all our favorite definitions,”
“We must fire first,” “pound our admonitions.”

And we, who needed an arm on our shoulder, now arm much bolder
the askers with worlds of questions. We flinch, or disdain the
honest refrains of image-bearers who can’t understand our fatal divisions
of sin. We legislate some, ignore our own, inflame hell for others and
excuse our favorites. 

But grace. but Grace. One syllable. It should linger an entire stanza
upon the final “s” that sounds like the breeze erasing our burned out
efforts to please. And, having missed the mark so entirely, missing the
target completely, we minimize it for all others (the ones unaffiliated with
you and me)
making them miss by far what we missed by nature.

Church return. Church, lay down every earned privilege, every pillaged soul
who hears our famous word (whispers “g r a c e”) and waits to see the
love-of-enemy preachers and blessing-for-cursing teachers and 
second-mile business who ask no questions about the sins of its customers.

Church return, armed with grace. Church, lay down your fire and arms,
last and first, invite the scarred and scary into a new way, patient family;
Church return with the fires of love and, Church arise with the waters of mercy, and
Church sing out the songs of joy and, Church receive the bathing of the Spirit

And walk, and run, delightly undisguised; forgiveness the frontgaurd;
grace disallowing any retreat.

Laced the Seedling

Laced the Seedling

(“Therefore see, the days are coming—oracle of the Lord—when I will punish her idols, and throughout the land the wounded will groan.” Jeremiah 51:52)

I.

Once upon the lush hills that faced the setting sun
a seedling bent toward the rays, a child of the forest began
its slow ascent toward heaven.

Barely wide as a finger, it poked through mud and loam;
a tiny firstling, a life unnoticed cast a late shade uphill until,
twice its present height, the shadow prophesied the future reach
of imperceptions rising.

Yawns broke through the evening, the fawns scratched against its skin,
cells begat cells, cambium begat xylem, and roots grabbed the earth deeper
than day. Richer than the bare-skinned plains and slower than the
willows along the river banks,
contentment defines the stretch into spring again and again. The
same buck elks sojourn in the same bright silk sauterne
left by the sun nearly every afternoon. The damp smells
of hopeful and fills the air with home.

II.

It goes without saying that everything is worth buying at
one time or another in its purest state or chemical imbalance.
It is worth noticing that the groves are sometimes replanted,
and old trees kiss the seedlings goodbye before the felling.
Lumber homes and wood-burning stoves, well-polished buffets
and antique displays of frontier tables and New England gables;
every grain is turned, captured, sweated and pressed into
human displays of utility and beauty.

Little league broken bats and perfectly bent bows, the arrows
honestly honed, and the bats truly turned so in the hands of
experts and novices their sweet spots find the mark.

And perhaps a few cells thick, after baths and interment,
the factories turn out the sheets for the next page-turner’s
printing. Inky symbols grooved upon the tree-skin
give directions, pain infections, start reflections,
end dissertations, begin palpitations and true/false,
the sweet deceit sways many once the ink has dried.

III.

Begun unaided, we bound the pages of what began
in the lazy forests unnoticed by man. “God has spoken,
chapter and verse; I’ve memorized each passage, rehearsed
and rehearsed.”
And yet, when thought is applied to the paint that has dried,
we might discover some have been reversed.

Oh, not God’s own Words (the truer than we know)
but our cut and paste, our personal parfait to please our
personal tastes.

There is One who sung the seed to life, who laced the seedling
like a violin string, and set it singing the forest’s song of
creation. Never rehearsing, the chorus rises from sky-warmed
patches of round and swirls between branches,
circles and dances in patterns invented by heavenly joy.

And those who beheld it suddenly knew the Laws
and Commandments are not letters and dictation. Somehow
the sweetest song ever heard resounded undisturbed;
flexible and true were never antonymous,
and Heavenly Words are best understood by those
who hear music in the desert, new tunes on the pavement,
cantatas in cathedrals and the best lyrics among the poor.

Those With Time

Those With Time

(“The Lord will do what he thinks is right.” 2 Samuel 10:12b)

We erect the fences, dividing lines, cutting the earth like a giant pie.
But we do not carve pieces to share, but to make each neighbor fully aware
what is not theirs. We would split a tree right down the middle
to include just a jot, just a little more land to call our own.

We build barriers, at least seven feet or more, to keep me from seeing
they eyes across the board. We know all too well that if we gazed in silence,
without words breaking the sky, without fashion clues or hairstyle whys,
and stopped.

So time took one slow beat at a time,
one tick, the next, one more, and then four,
five slow strikes of the chimes, six the next pulse,
round the straight face of time so slow
you lose count, you do not move, your eyes
head high, his eyes hear the same stroke and

Finally time is one long hallelujah chanted ahead and behind.

Fixed upon that moment, glued to the gaze of two sets of eyes
seeing,
first time, graceful, aligned without interruption by cross-examinations
and proper explanations.

Your fences have served their purposes and now, the only thing you know,
all you can smell plus all you have chosen well, is in this exchange of
pulses and particles and rays; you both have thrown away everything you
learned about the person behind the eyes.

And as time, which has not stood still, but like a river, has made you feel
one with its current and all it carries to the sea; the eyes give way to the same

Slow beat one at a time, one tick, the next, and all you know,
it is not clockwork that has measured so well, but two heartbeats that
surrounded by grace
beat in time; sans orientation, religion, status and sans race.

Grace is the upbeat that tore down the walls and left the world
whole and warm, for those with time to see.