Skip the Explanations for Now

 Skip the Explanations for Now

(“Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace) and be thankful.” Colossians 3:15)

Skip the explanations for now,
the commentary can wait.
Tell us the story, front to back,
inside out. Don’t leave out a detail.
Give us every quote.
Tell us how the budding leaves
narrated the next call to prayer.
Remind us how the grass underfoot
was the grace sowed into the tiny universe
we see from our fields.

Did you meet someone on the way?
Did she smile, did she dance?
Did the old man stop and ask you
to take a chance at smiling again?
(I believe I have met him before.)
Tell us about the dogs, one a baby Labrador,
the other a vanilla and chocolate mix;
tell us how they ran at you, how they
startled you,
and how they pranced and played as if
you were the happiest part of their day.

Tell us about the children in the back row
talking
while the teacher wrote on the board.
Tell us about the muzzle flashes, the screams
that pierced their half-grown bodies. Tell us
why, if you know,
a boy, a legal man, needed weapons of war;
why anyone would want one, why anyone would
conclude the rights to own it outweigh the
right to keep on breathing.

Tell it, and skip the excuses for now,
the legislation cannot wait.
Can you feel the full mass of every
massive wound effect as each round
tore into flesh? Tell us what you heard,
tell us what you think, tell us why weapons
are called
Peacemakers

While the children of God wait for the
Prince of peace to rewrite the story.

Tell us, from start to end, why we do not
begin just now.

Think What You Want to Think

 

Think What You Want to Think

(“Therefore, if you have been raised with the Messiah, keep focusing on the things that are above, where the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God.” Colossians 3:1)

I hope you don’t mind that I
write
between my tears again.
Maybe my questions are too personal,
maybe my heart is not hard enough.
Today I think I’ll hold it inside.
Today I think I’ll let you guess what is
happening inside me.

Think what you want to think,
sing what you want to sing.

But I can think of nothing to sing when
I recognize the path I’ve been down
time and again, still the gates are closed,
the doors are jammed, the windows barred, yet
there is still a welcome mat on the front porch.

I hope you don’t mind that I
wait
and do not knock this time.
My answers are too personal,
maybe my heart is leaking too much.
Today I think I’ll stand outside.
Today I think I’ll find the address of someone
who cares to share
what is happening inside of them.

Breathe what you want to breathe,
cry what you want to cry.

But my chest is tight, my tears sucked back
into my eyes.
I liked your house for too long, I guess. I
was comfortable there
until I was not.
Today I’ll wait because the weather might change.
Today I’ll shake in the cold because I don’t have
enough clothes
to invest in another friendship
fraught with impossibilities and silence. People
still frighten me.

And yet, even a shard of each star we gazed at
lies buried somewhere in my heart.

Eat what you want to eat,
drink what you want to drink.

And I will knock on your door once more,
a bottle of wine and two chairs on the front porch.
Perhaps after a glass or two
we can turn the first few pages of
the next chapter.

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

 

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

(“God was pleased for all of himself to live in the Son.” Colossians 1:19)

I.

Don’t ask me how I am,
there is something crumbling from
within my heart today.
The foundations are cracking,
the mud walls are melting,
the roof is leaking,
and this has sent me into a panic.
full.
stop.

I used to feel chosen,
don’t ask me how I feel today.
I once felt cozy and ready to sing
for anything that came to mind.
Now my fingers cannot find the chords,
my feet stumble over the rhythm,
my heart only knows the lyrics from
love songs 50 years ago.

I used to love exploring,
don’t ask me where I’ve gone today.
I once followed the Tuolumne River,
I once climbed Sunset Crater,
twice I sat at the annual folk festival
in Manitoba, finally dancing in hippie earth
tone fashion.
Two decades behind me, the festival has
moved underground, or perhaps
disintegrated into.
thin.
air.

I’ve driven through blizzards to
deliver a teenage daughter to her father
70 miles away who was dying of cancer.
I once tried to dig to China with a
tablespoon in my backyard SoCal.

This is exactly how I’ve been,
the slow crumble of stumbling years
and the trusted signposts no longer useful.
So, hollow within, and losing my bearings,
the emptiness unleashes its harshest poetry
within a brain that already is quick to hear
the distressed and aged wood of blame, regret,
and failure.

II.

Even the trees seemed to ignore me.
The mourning doves only stared at me.
The breeze deceived me into thinking
the next day would be easier.

But, finding only a speck of golden silence,
I heard the footsteps of god in the
easy branches and blooms of the apple tree.
I heard the whisper of god in a cat
meowing from behind the brush pile.
I heard the song of god in uneven time
in the wind that changed key so often
it actually sounded like me.

Kenosis. Emptying.
Filling. Completing.
Incarnate. Proximate.
Are the earth, the moon, the sun,
the mud, the ducks, the rabbits, the planets,
the roses, the snakes, the thorns and
rivers all
the generous emptying of god into all creation?

And pain, will I find the divine there?
And suffering, from top to bottom,
god has not rationed suffering,
has not risen on a jeweled throne above it,
but entered into, nailed his very body to
the angriest pain and stayed until cruelty
was finished.

If this is the god of the universe,
then perhaps my crumbling heart is
the perfect sanctuary to meet the
enfleshed one.

I Believe in Your Eyes

I Believe in Your Eyes

(“But it was very good of you to help me in my troubles.” Philippians 4:14)

I don’t believe in pedestals,
I don’t believe in princess crowns.
But I believe in beauty,
I believe in the way your name sounds
every time my heart hears it.
I believe in your smile that melts glaciers.
I believe in your eyes unafraid to see all of me,
I look for your lips to form the words you hold
close as a treasure.

Hearing the embrace transfixes
wandering moods.
Warming fingers touch another’s arm and,
we dare once more to trust,
to breathe,
to hear the heartbeat the same as another.

What if faces meet, cheek to cheek,
lingering a moment longer than expected?
Touch heals the
untouched
places where only scars once were found.

Would someone touch my face this once?
Would someone hold it in their hands?
And then, as the moon rises upon our shadows,
may there be the whispered hint of
midnight breeze, someone’s hands upon my own.

There are words I fear to say.
And I fear, there are words still locked within.
But if I do not speak them, they grow tired and adolescent.

Let my words, the mature words of friendship and love,
swirl between us, never-ending, in the universe we
inhabit, in the spaces between us, in the moments
heart knows heart.

Some I trust with my words, fewer with my hurts;
I’ve been too careless with my secrets, too vocal about my pain.
Be my safe place, hear my confessions, and,
like the air that carries words between us
I will carry yours in trust, in confidence,
in love that honors stories without villains
or heroes.
We both can name
the pain and let it sit in the atmosphere
between us.

Cottonwood Fences

 

Cottonwood Fences

(“…they rounded up entire communities, to hand them over…” Amos 1:6b)

And now, with everything compressed on the back of the
weekly
garbage trucks,
there is more space for storage.
But why do we lasso entire circles who could have
played in the fields on their own
and put them between stainless steel and
wood slat fences alone?

I would prefer a carousel,
I would prefer a serenade,
a glass of lemonade made by the
brother and sister around the corner.
I would prefer the tales they tell.

And now, with every border crossing open season for
daily
bounty hunters,
there is less space for the high bridge.
So why do we herd them and burn our naked brands
into their sun-thatched ribs
and prod them between cornstalks and
scarecrows back again?

I would prefer a round-dance,
I would prefer a folk ballad,
a cup of corn soup made by the
sweaty brows of mothers and sons in from the fields.
I would prefer their invitation to dinner.

I’ve stopped shouting in the canyons that
no longer echo. It’s time to wake up everyone,
let everyone breathe. Or are you paying admission
now
to hand out just a
few days of freedom?

Once you colonize the land,
what will you do with the firsts who
walked it before
you ever erected your cabins with
cottonwood fences.

Deviations of Joy

 Deviations of Joy

(“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” Joel 2:13b)

There is no roar like the roar
of those who think they have found
the very same ground
underscored by prophets before.
They will press the heads of dissenters
beneath the topsoil to the clay
and have them confess away every
stray inch of declination from the mean.
The averages were thought out long in advance
and the guardrails attached, the blinders worn like
eye-patches, and the wailing over sins of those not yet
in the arc of the square.
They prophesy hardpan while the
Spirit is breath and wind.

There is no sigh like the sigh
of those who, true and unloud,
sing the very same song
scored by the son of god alone.
They will peek their heads behind the clouds,
above the forested hillsides
and heave their panic away, their pain
inches from coordinates left by men.
The welling and weeping were released in sand
and sky, the sails swollen with wind, eye to eye,
turning by starlit notions, navigating through the slight
deviations of joy.
They prophesy feasting while the
lines form, spiral and more.

A Fine Bouquet

 

A Fine Bouquet

(“Be humble and give more honor to others than to yourselves.” Philippians 2:3b)

Impulsive, let me.
Toddlers low to the ground
blowing bubbles,
sending gray-haired dandelions
around the yard.
Chromatic, free me.
From the brush’s edge to the
canvassed sky,
let absurdity fly, clouds and
dust and sand and all.
Extensive, send me.
Toddlers walking like
bumblebees, yellow weeds in
hand.
A fine bouquet.

Memories are Sticky

Memories are Sticky

Memories are sticky and
left alone they attract ants like
candy on the sidewalk.
Some we hang on to while we
brush the ants away.
Others we wish to be released from,
setting us free from the sweets of
another time
that have long ago been discontinued.

Yet, sitting in one place,
never venturing between the forests and
the sea,
we download another app,
fish for something to keep our minds
from alighting on friends now gone,
backs now turned,
the doorbell that never rings,
the endless sameness of things.
To my shame I admit,
I sit stuck in one place too long.

I could knock on your door, I know.
I could phone you, though
disembodied voices unnerve me.
Would you unbreak my heart if I
helped unbreak yours?

Dreams are thin as spider silk,
left alone they disappear like water
in the sun.
Some we write down over again,
some we forget and weep formless.
Everybody knows but no one asks
which dreams might be redeemed,
and which cling like cobwebs and dust.

We were pretty once. We were undeterred.
We were starlight and moonbeams,
we were more than we seemed and less
than our egos allowed. We dipped our
toes
in every stream.

We were unafraid to dream.

The Stirring of Spun Clouds

 The Stirring of Spun Clouds

(“Let’s learn about the Lord. Let’s get to know the Lord. He will come to us as sure as the morning comes. He will come to us like the autumn rains and the spring rains that water the ground.” Hosea 6:3)

And just today, barely an inch ago,
the Japanese camelias carpet the gravel
leading to my home.
Like teacup shards, like cotton candy fog,
like rain that loosened the blooms from their
mid-spring branches,
the pink is silky between the pebbly gray.

And just now, barely a jete ago,
a glimmer blanketed the retinas of the
unspoken glow. What was dark cold was
now
a warm you could hear all the way
across the river-shaped room. What was cold haze
gave way to warm blue waterfalls and
lagoons where ballerinas came to play.

Whether we mind or not,
whether shoes chewed by asphalt or
toes singing sand,
the day lives within us,
the dance sculpts us,
the stirring of spun clouds
(classical rain)
lifts us outside and
into ourselves.

Like an Astounded Sunrise

 Like an Astounded Sunrise

(Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky…” Daniel 12:3a)

They are hanging on to air for dear life,
grasping the shadows that have hidden their humanity.
What we cannot see, what we dare not compare,
are the forces that buried them there.
Promised rooms at
Hotel Manna,
they wish time had cleaner lines.
They wish for music in their voice,
in their key,
in joyous solemnity.

Did you think the only light are
pinholes in a purple sky?
Did you pause to collect enough
for orphans, mothers,
breadlines and the living
who are breathing
full-size?

They are speaking, their throats are not closed;
we only hear the syllables we have chosen to be
correct and decent,
arise and descent,
descants for hymns in grandstand buildings.
In sight of the shore they paddle;
we sit on the hill and tell them to move upriver
farther from the privilege we have inherited.

Insight sounds like tremors underground,
justice looks like an astounded sunrise leaking
over the hills.

I’m sorry you were sent away,
I’m grieving you must hide away,
I’m standing still and looking where your
tears have spilled
while power preachers tighten the circles
on raised platform ascended by only the chosen.

Come drink my wine, sing our song,
face the eternal sun,

Let us share the feast of the forgotten
while orange sky envelops us all.

I’ve Thought of Fire

 I’ve Thought of Fire

(“No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29)

I’ve thought of fire,
I’ve conjured smoke,
I’ve conferred with wind,
I’ve bought a home
for doves outside my window.

I’ve heard the sun,
I’ve written rain,
I’ve painted with snow,
I’ve lured the song
like sirens across the silence.

I’ve wrestled pain,
I’ve conquered fear,
I’ve compared the view,
I’ve sought the grass
for days to rest in summer.

But I’m still erasing,
I’ve awoken slow,
I’m still rehearsing,
I’ve run too fast,
I’ve brushed the golden hair
of a toddling daughter.

I’ve spoken low,
I’ve daydreamed sage,
I’ve deferred my soul,
I’ve smudged my words
for days like this. For
love.

Up By the Roots

 

Up By the Roots

(“Daniel…knelt down in prayer three times a day, giving thanks to God.” Daniel 6:10)

Would you pull me up by the roots
if I need replanting?
With every tick of the clock I
know
time is oozing by like a mudslide
tearing up the hillside.
Would you still sit beside me
in silence and solitary confinement?
Would you see what no one else sees
and still love me the same?
Would you believe (how can I deceive you)
that my love is deeper than ever before?
And yet I will not bow to the images;
I

Will

Not.

Nor to the graceless claws of
embattled rhetoric.

So, though I appear a fool,
though the days pass faster than
whitewater tumbling over the narrow
rock-strewn rapids,

I’ll grow if you plant me. And mis

Understood

By many, I’ll take my chances
that love still nourishes every prayer
I cannot say.

I Might Mend My Boat

I Might Mend My Boat

(“We are God’s creation. He created us to belong to Christ Jesus. Now we can do good works. Long ago God prepared these works for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10)

I never expected smooth sailing,
but this felt like a peaceful place to land.
The shore wasn’t far from dreams and visions
and the waves lapped gently most of the time.
Yet today, when all the universe rattled like a grain elevator,
I wanted to hear a fellow sailor say
they knew what it was like

When the swells were ferocious,
when they hit at acute angles,
when they propelled you higher than
the houses that hugged the narrow shore.

Those were the days that the box where I lock my troubles away
creaked at its hinges and threatened to unleash a bigger storm
than the river’s wild crashing.

But these days everyone’s boxes are full,
everyone’s docks are splintered,
everyone’s words are a slice of white bread
parading as pie.
Every person I’ve told about my journey
is far too polite,
(at least the ones who knew me when I embarked)
which I know is the nice way of saying
they wish I could just work things out,
could see the storm would pass,
would agree that everything happens for a reason,
(when I ask about the ones who died in the shipwreck
they tell me about the one that was saved)

They tell me to have friends I should be one;
but I have been one from the day I arrived.
I hear some say I’ve gone off the deep end,
but they have no idea how deep and which end.

If I had the strength, or the time, or the help,
or the tools, or the sunshine, or the courage,
or the health (oh mental health that wraps the
brain in cavernous sludge), I might mend my boat.
But my body would not allow me to enjoy it again.

No one likes lament,
no one like shipwreck stories without
survivors.
No one likes the brains that
capture darkness at noon and
silence in cafes full of burgers and
retired men.

And, if I am created, if I am

Art

Then, let me be the art that I am.

Like I said,
no one likes lament. We want
broth of carbonated shallows,
we want to wade in frothy waters.
We would rather tie up the loose ends
than admit walking barefoot sometimes hurts.

But, if I am art,
and am made of mud,
let my artwork be earthy and
my tears salty and loud. Let my heartache
in quarter time
be the one song that someone needs

Who has forgotten their own.

I Remember Boarding a Train

 I Remember Boarding a Train

“Daniel went to…his friends…so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this secret.” Daniel 2:18)

I remember boarding a train to nowhere but
it still headed straight north.
The steel spun and clattered on the rails like
Ezekiel’s angels with faces and chariot wheels.
I had embarked on a journey
hoping to change the world.
The scenery was foreign to me,
the night descended like a dragon’s cave
and we wondered where the mood would take us
that had begun with such enthusiasm.

Riding it for three years (or so it seems)
I lost a traveling companion for each one.

A friend who knew laughter and told the
same stories over and over again. And still
I listened.

My sister, frail but stony, it had been ages since
we rode the country together. And days before
Christmas
she finally sighed. I left the train behind and flew
to her family, my family, three nephews, one niece,
and a great-great nephew with a smile like hers.

My classmate, my beloved Hermia. A friend who
made the sunrise giggle and could make an entire room quiet
as she spun her tales. 50 years ago we were teenage
super friends
and 50 years later the same. She suffered and
she suffered well. To the last her eyes inhaled every
friendship she ever had.

I remember boarding a train to San Francisco but
stayed on it for two round trips. What could we find
on the streets and hills but steep houses and leftover
frills in Haight Ashbury? Our stories filled the silver car
until we finally disembarked to watch

Street-performing mimes and grab some pizza.

We were not sure we knew the answer, we are not sure
now
if we changed the world.
But none of us are the same, riding and going
nowhere
together.