I am Not the Joker

I am Not the Joker

(“The Lord does what is fair. He brings justice to all who have been hurt by others.” Psalm 103:6)

Someone told me today that I am not alone,
and I believe her words, and I know her heart,
and I know there is embrace and warm breath
on my face. But like so many, she is miles and hours
and days and time away.

I would stay in the kitchen or sink into the couch
of only a handful I’ve known who find me, who have seen me
without my costumed face and were unafraid of
the lesions on my soul and skin.

I am not the joker, never been one,
I take my humor in doses.
I might be the jester; in the long run
I make up lines for the masses.

Once I was the first to arrive, not always the last to leave,
but I rarely left early. Find me in a corner with one or two
who take every laugh seriously and turn every truth into
a limerick. I once played password with a couple and
my wife
until early in the morning, 4:30 or 5. Our boys were babies
and slept until we woke them with donuts bought at 5:45.
We shared wine and meals and
stories about grieving our parents’ deaths. That was
35 years ago, and now I am, having traveled a different branch
of the same river,
lost to them. And I cannot find the way to unlock the logic
that cast me out of their grace.

And then again, my faults have left me covered with mud.
I paid better attention to my hygiene then. Now, with
a beard less trimmed, I believe my faults plus my faith that
frolics in a different stream,
have left them wondering where I’ve ended up and
where I began.

But others tell me, again and again, that they feel the same
hurt,
they know the same
pain,
and would do everything they could to find me in the drifts,
where others simply gave up the search.

On days like these the rain is too stealthy for me.