I’m Holding a Worm

 

I’m Holding a Worm

(“The desire of a man is his kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar.” Proverbs 19:22)

Lay aside your baggage, the seats are free. The strange days
are opening upon the rivers and the seas. The damp air
wraps you like a London cloak and the
pines drip mist like honey from needle to root.

I walked by his door 60 feet from his porch
after mounting the hill where
douglas firs made their throne above town.
A little boy, 5 or 6, I did not know his name,
but waved and said “hi” because, well, I like the way
children lose their shyness at a distance. And
I have finally learned that
gifts and kindness reside in the voices of the young.
And he looked at me.
With eyes too far away to know their focus or color,
I still could see how his cheeks shone in the autumn brisk.
His mouth wound around his breath and he waved
hi
in return.
“I’m holding a worm,” he said.

Lay aside your doctrines, the gates are open. The strange days
speak like the river Jordan when Jesus went under. The damp air
is still chilly and cold and the skies are heavy. The road still
winds past they houses of children who pick up worms
and show them to strangers.

And late in this day I have learned,
whatever a child offers is a treasure; worm or hug,
fingerpainted dinosaurs or muddy pies;
they have offered the best, their own, their discovery,
their treasure.

She Never Dressed for Dinner

 

She Never Dressed for Dinner

(“Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker. Whoever rejoices at calamity will not go unpunished.” Proverbs 17:5)

She never dressed for dinner,
it wasn’t worth the effort. And days alone,
days of cold,
days of cardboard and railroad clatter
only repeat
the chatter she hears when she
limps downtown.

She sat in the back at church,
she sat in the shadows,
she always left early,
she knew the lines by heart.
The righteous always prospered,
the wicked lost it all,
and the way she saw it
she had no more to lose.

The snow snuck in the corners of her trailer,
the floor had rotted, and the children cried.
Once a year, or again at Christmas,
someone came by with mittens and a turkey
and she never was ungrateful, but she always cried.
What would she do when the mercy ran out?
What would she do when the big machine made
decisions, when the official positions were like
incisions in her soul? What work could she do
to earn a place at the table when she had no money
to wash her children’s clothes?
She knew the smell, she had grown up with it,
and stayed away from pretty places with hardwood pews
and unstained carpets. She knew their songs
but kept her distance.

They promised to pray, the people in the steepled building
warmed by weekly contributions. They told her to tithe. They
told her it would be multiplied. They had not lied, they
had not been honest with themselves and told the truth they
had been fed.

No one laughed at her. But no one treated her like a miracle,
a wonder,
a daughter,
a sister,
a reflection of her Maker,
a beloved image of God.

And Will Watch Your Eyes

 
And Will Watch Your Eyes

(“Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.” Proverbs 12:25)

There are eyes full of beauty but smudged with coal,
hearts so delightful and yet feel only halfway whole.
There are days filled with firelight and butterflies
but the mind shivers inside its frightening stories.
And there are those who would fix it all by
quoting a verse, a pithy proverb, an anecdote from their
own life aflight, who have never known the way the brain
can wake with fistfights beginning the most resurrection of
days.

I will sit with you when you feel there is no one to see,
I will find the silence, the presence, the coffee and the chair
reserved for the dearest friends who have practiced and perfected
never saying anything at all.

There are voices that move the soul like music,
but in their own head it is discordant, too sick
from the crush of air pressure and peer reviews
that they never sing unless caught by surprise.

I will listen with you, write your verses with you, hum with you,
I will find the middle notes that makes you shine, the tempo that
you find, the chord you created that, once played, coaxes the tears.
You did not need an audience,
you needed an accompanist.

Come, let us compose your story again.
Tell me the brightness, the jewel, the time you knew
the warm grass was meant for your toes alone.
Come, I will repeat it back to you line by line.
Tell you the peace I find in your unrhymed yarns
with more colors than I’ve ever seen.

And when you forget it, as I forget mine,
I will whisper just the first few words and watch
your eyes full of beauty again.

When My Soul Aches No More

 

When My Soul Aches No More

(“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.” Proverbs 10:11)

My plan was to sit beside you underneath the
umbrella to take in the salty fog and firewood air.
Trouble is, my chest is full of arrows and
my heart is caked with mud.
These days frighten me; our manufactured heroes
turn too easily on their own.
I meant to look up your number, call you on the phone,
but I thought better of it. The voices in my head keep
explaining
the pain of every conversation I hoped would loop us
back to easy friends. Instead

I walk in the rain and talk to strangers,
cover my wounds,
bleed beneath the skin that covers
a soul that aches more than my bones.
I wait
for an apology at least as loud
as the disrespect. I believe I will be waiting
for a while.

Your certainty met my mystery head on.
I’m sorry I cannot cut and dry
my mind so precisely.

Another day fades while your face sits
well within the gaze
of my preoccupied last act on this
theater-in-the-round.

Here is what I want to remind you,
I have always loved you and imperfectly,
like bitter pecans or a faded rose, like wet ashes
in the fireplace or an unruly dog. And
I would
enjoy another burger or cabernet
before the final day when my soul
aches no more.

Heroes Offer Bread

Heroes Offer Bread

(The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. Proverbs 10:3)

And so we set another shooter free who
thought he could thin the ranks of looters
in another state.

And we lionize the baby-face vigilante,
we call him hero and put his silhouette
on t-shirts to promote the next angry citizen
to take aim.

And we forget how to pray.

Heroes offer bread when cities blaze,
heroes bring a cold cup of water to reduce the heat,
heroes find the reason anger took to its feet,
heroes march the Via Dolorosa,
walk closer to the cross the more
the violence burns. Peace finds the ways
to become new heroes of the age.

Don’t shout so loud over your gun-toting victories,
don’t push verdicts like they are divine exoneration.
There is a Kingdom above all kings,
a government that lies upon the shoulders of the wise.
There is a campground where all are welcome,
there is a neighborhood where children are fed love
instead of anger.

Rioters may pay, but I don’t get to decide the verdict.
Looters may pay, but I do not get to perform the execution.
The streets of Jerusalem were filled with
mobs and moral judges
that both sent the Prince of Peace
to the cross.

When our meals are anger overcooked and burned to the edges
we will starve, we will bloat, we will boast about every alleged
grievance,

While the few leave their fields unharvested for the poor.

And They Thought He Was Lost

And They Thought He Was Lost

(“You blind leaders, you take a small bug out of your cup but you swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:24)

Rounding the final lap
he wanted to
stop
and
sit down. He had already
won 101 and
102 meant little to him now.

He sat until the final runners
lapped him, then
stood up,
looked around,
and walked quietly off the track.

He picked up his phone,
called a friend and
walked the mile to meet them
at the coffee shop. They
sipped their lattes and
spent an hour with few
words needed.

He walked home and lit
a big stogie although
another friend once told him
she would prefer he take up
nude sunbathing than
smoking cigars.

Making Up for Lost Time

Making Up for Lost Time

(“They make strict rules and try to force people to obey them. But they themselves will not try to follow any of those rules.” Matthew 23:4)

You make so many assertions that
they pile up like
sand dunes
leaving us to shovel our way out to
the light of day.
You stand atop the mounds like
triumphant kings
guarding against insurrections while
you coerce new converts to
“stand over there”
while you drown them in sand
all over again.

You leave them tied up in knots
while you string them along.
You patter on like geniuses about
angels and pins, sacrifices and sins,
while you dine behind passwords and
gated walls.

You hide it from them until the
weight benumbs them, and they think
god must enjoy a creation that is too
heavy to bear.

Between the poverty of your insinuations
and the wealth of encyclopedic rules you insist
they memorize, not flip through,
there is a completely unreasonable world
where

Weights are lifted,
sight-lines are shifted,
sand is sifted to build better beaches
where play is allowed
day in, day out
by the unruly spirit

That God has breathed into the world.

Take my hand, we will dance until the
we fall down laughing and crying,
making up for lost time spent
learning the steps from an instruction book.

Let Mercy Rain

 

Let Mercy Rain

(“Do not allow mercy and truth to leave you. Fasten them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3:3)

Why shouldn’t we let mercy rain, soak the ground,
awake the grain, turn the curious heads around to
see the dewdrops left on the leaves of grass while
we slept?
A more precious ornament cannot be found
than the opalescent dance of light-strings that play
before our eyes. I am guilty of overlooking miniature
mercies.

Still others erase the common sense that keeps the
dogs of dogma at bay,
loudly announcing facts without existence,
and proudly display their resistance to simple kindnesses
that keep roses alive because the next-door neighbor
loves to view them out her afternoon window, reading
slowly in the autumn afternoon. Her tea steeps, she sips
with each page. She remembers younger days.

Granted, I have not tended my roses well. Spindly and
top heavy,
the last butter-yellow bud sits atop a sunward branch and
may not make it until winter. I will do better this year,
and prune them soon before the first snow flies.

Why shouldn’t we let kindness snow, cover the old,
awake the new baby’s eyes, turn the toddling boy around
to throw the first snowball at mom to make her laugh;
while she barely opens the car door with her eyes half-closed
from waking?

These Invisible Threads

 

These Invisible Threads

(“For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not abandon you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.” Deuteronomy 4:31)

I hide it; it has been damaged so long.
I lock the doors; I have been lonely so long.
I used to read the junk mail because it
was addressed to me. And if a personal letter
arrived face down under the furniture flyer and
the weekly shopper,
I would open it anxiously. Written words had
pierced me and left me bleeding before.
Now that the wounds are old(er) they surprise me
when saltwater inflames them like the first day
(when was that day? did the sun shine? did someone find
me tripping over my words? did someone hear me unguarded?
did my sin become fodder for the grinding wheel? when was
that day? and how many others? or months. or years.)

Or was I scooped up before my head hit the pavement,
was I engulfed in flaming love,
was my ruin the conditions for a new world coming,
was my injury the bed where fire and life collided
to reconvene uneventful joy and the beginning of
a friendly walk down the Emmaus road?

Lately I still cry and so do some of my babies.
Lately I still will the clouds away filled with maybes.
Lately I still read words harsher than I wished and (dance
steps) they do not slice me.
Lately I’ve written letters in my head to every one
I hid from, every one who hid from me, for precisely
these invisible threads, gossamer and strong,
that should never have been severed
at all.

I Will Not Eulogize

 

I Will Not Eulogize

(“And the people were shouting, ‘The voice of a god, and not of a man!’” Acts 12:22)

I apologize; I have been
talking to myself.
I saw the advertisement about the
anointed one
coming to town. I hoped to avoid the
crowds, knowing how loud and insistent,
how proud and consistently the hype was played
on guitars and purse-strings.
But I rode in the backseat of a preacher’s
Lincoln
for reasons I will lay aside for now.

I will not eulogize; I have been
thinking for myself.
I saw the lines after the show,
wrapped around the building twice and
then again,
just to have the prophet’s hand placed on your head
to heal what wasn’t broken
and learn to soak in the personal and private
word spoken like it was god.

Before dawn the next morning the faithful
gathered for private prophecy, a token musical recording,
and banking information so the prophet could receive
your donations deposited directly. I did not care that
he told me not a hair of my head would be
harmed. I knew the grandma who went before me.
Promised long life, with her heart pried open,
she penned the number with ease and went home
coughing from her unhealed pneumonia.

And Jesus hid from the crowds. Herod wanted the masses.
The Anointed One stayed on lonely mountains.
Herod reclined at banquets in Herodium, his
palace and fortress, once the masses turned to mobs.
And Jesus walked upon the water, and Jesus’ feet touched the ground,
And Jesus opened his hands and feet and heart to
wounds
so the love would flow out.

And still Herod gets all the press.

There is a common theme; rallies political and
revivals religious,
that promote big sweat,
dire threats,
fear that remembers debts insisting on
their payment.

And still Jesus meets those who travel on
deserted and dusty roads.

November 2

 

November 2

(“You have encircled me; you have placed your hand on me.” Psalm 139:5)

Pick a day of the week or choose
a season.
Walk the sleeping fields where the cut alfalfa
hugs the loam. Breathe the autumn air, both
gloomy and inviting. Watch the leaves barely
awake,
the last of the year. Gone from green to oxblood
and orange, they hang on until the last breath sends
them
fluttering like messages from the gods. The
fog carpets the hills, a screen behind which
the lady-in-waiting prepares for
the coming spring.

Waiting by My Window

Waiting by My Window

Waiting by the window for the rain to fill the yard,
hiding in the closet where joy has been locked up tight,
formless friends never knock on the door while
a few ask about me, electrons sending their questions
with a handful of taps on their phones.

We used to run through the rain,
we used to sit on couches without having to explain,
we ate vegan spaghetti and pasta fagioli,
we traveled over the Cascades for Christmas,
and sometimes played tennis at midnight.

Waiting for the phone to ring, all I get is notifications,
someone has stolen my identity, someone compromised my passwords.
Losing my trajectory I feel my orbit failing,
near the apogee of my revolution I see home-base
rapidly fading.

I have the whole day to think, all day to question my assumptions,
but my mind aches from the outside in
and could use a break
from an old friend or two
who wouldn’t mind meeting for a beer
or a dark brew espresso.

Last night was Halloween and I sat where I could see
the children outside my window
just before they knocked on the door.
One called me by name, and I wish he had stayed.
But his bucket was not full yet. His young voice
stayed with me, a log on the hearth, a distant
ember-infused
smile.

But back to my orbit: I am sorry my tangents
have taken me away from the only solar system I have
every known.
And the distance between us is like a heart slowing down,
memories unmade, and no crew to guide my flight.

Waiting for the apology, and many are waiting for mine.
But I am dust on the shelf. The vise around my brain,
the floods and the rain,
the months and months of isolated pain

See me
waiting by my window again.