Walking on Sunday

Walking on Sunday

(“I will be your Father. You will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord who rules over all.” 2 Corinthians 6:18)

The gutters run full of muddy water,
sticks and burger wrappers, return addresses and leaves.
The windows weren’t broken, the glass worked just fine,
but he could not see out of them, they were boarded up, they
left him blind.

If someone stopped over, he might not answer the door,
too many friendly amputations had made him live in his head.
Besides, he had nothing much to say today, or maybe it had all been said.

He would sometimes move from the darkening dining room,
he sometimes would write what no one wanted to hear
from the front porch if the sun befriended him.

He gave up looking for letters, his heart had shrunk too small
to begin again.
He only trusts his children, his wife, and one or two he’s still afraid
to sit still with the truth.

And so the winds bring the thunder, the thunder brings the rain,
he hopes another day won’t plunder the wandering in his brain.
The lightning flashes at the boundary of his eyes,
he would let it go further, speak of his demise, but
too many would comment that they weren’t all that surprised.

So he holds off the wind with a parka, he holds the wounds inside with a pen,
he listens for the thunder, hopes the windows will come crashing,
and maybe he’ll find (under the excavation) something that passes for passion,
and speak his heart one more time again.

Would the one who died and was buried, the one crucified and dead,
take what others had rejected, wash his feet, anoint his head?
Would the one who slept on Saturday’s slab, the one who left us
with our hopes in our hands,
come walking on Sunday past the boarded up windows and
sit with the rejected, the fearful, the Shepherd with
his lambs?