Can We Hear the Whisper?

Can We Hear the Whisper?

(“Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3)

Don’t faint at the irate rantings
of crinkled skin that want to fry the world up
like bacon on the rack. They think they can see,
and all they see,
is darkness, doom, and tragedy. While they wait
for a warrior or a lion to finish off their prey,
there is a better day ushered in by a lamb,
a slaughtered one,
to reflect the possibilities like
fertilized eggs birthing hope.

It is easier,
so much easier,
to elevate the madness of the masses
than to sit in silence with the
sadness of the few.
Penned in like a locked cell,
a walled city shuttered against foreign
interference,
many have missed the inheritance of
a new pentecost that makes us stop
and listen to tongues we have never
heard before,
to see
shades we have never seen before,
to sit in the shadow of trees planted
ages ago
and reimagine every
fighter jet a homeless shelter,
every automatic rifle a garden rake,
and every steel-toed tongue a
poet with healing in their words.

Can time turn in on itself,
can babies lead the parade,
can tigers and fawns share the same lair,
can donkeys convey the king?

Can we offer liberty to everyone and
stop pretending
we don’t know what we are doing?
Can we hear the whisper that, sung often enough
will entice us all to the riverside
to finally lay our
swords and shields down?