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.