Like Leaden Headbands

Like Leaden Headbands

(“And her Son was taken up to God and to his seat.” Revelation 12:5b)

When the pain imprisons like leaden headbands,
when the darkness terminates the journey just begun,
the rainbows flee,
the sun hides like a child in trouble,
and the thoughts in your mind have nowhere
to escape.

Rains may clear it,
winds steer the day to a neighbor’s flower bed.
Or your body, empty as the tin man,
listens to the echoes of the jail keeper alone
on your bed.

Friends do what they can do and send
a sentence or two. But from their mouth to
my mind
the context is scrambled and I can never decide
when the seasons may steal the inchoate words away.
Steal away to Jesus.

I have no doubt Christ is alive. I have no doubt about the
Spirit who imbues my lockdown soul. And why
I
should exist with the thumb screws tightened around my brain
escapes my reasoning.
I have no answers,
though some tell me I do. More to the point,
some tell me they have the answer. I only wish their answer
included donuts and coffee,
or soup and wine,
or a rollicking good time playing folk songs again.

I am glad for prayer. I am thankful. But you cannot lay
hands on
someone from behind a computer.

I know one day the locks will be opened,
and I shall wait as I have. On second thought,
could you please,
send someone,
to open,
them,
now.

I Made a Pilgrimage

I Made a Pilgrimage

(“He led them with a cloud by day. And he led them at night by the light of a fire.” Psalm 78:14)

I made a pilgrimage to find god or
some other unfunction the world had begotten.
I climbed the sand dunes, I separated the leaves of every book,
I listened to the radio, I evaluated every halo and hook.
I scanned space past the asteroids, I peered into DNA,
I learned the bark of the neighborhood dogs, I learned their names as well.
I drove by a few churches, I read their signs advertising spiritual delights,
I noticed some were under new management, I noticed some made no boasts.
I drove round the river bends, I stopped to watch the salmon climb,
I watched the horizon burning, I breathed the ashes from distant fires.
I called a friend, they did not answer. I left a message, they did not call.
I sent thank-you cards, I sent flowers by mail.
I sent photos of my children, I sent selfies as well.
And I waited for the light to explode,
I waited for the cloud to overflow.
I waited for the sun to move across the sky,
I waited for the rain to blow under my tent and tell me why

I need wait at all.

I went to the doctor to test my blood,
I went to the preacher to fall under sudden conviction,
I went to the teacher to learn my lessons,
I went to the hillside and hoped heaven would be in view.
I lay down in the grass, I was weary at last,
I needed another reliable silence to finally fasten
the springs and winters of my past to
the present where my heart beat too fast.
The hideaway was tucked between a dive bar
and a craft store
and so I decided

To find God there.

Cavernous Mouths

 Cavernous Mouths

(“Their eyes bulge out from eating so well; their hearts overflow with delusions.” Psalm 73:3)

And so the evening crashed upon the heads of those
sitting in the sun. The horses were weary,
the helicopters queried the air like locusts sawing
the late autumn corn.
Everything was torn by cavernous mouths opened
to consume the meals set for the upper crust. Wine flowed
even after the rusted plumbing creaked in pain.
The aristocracy lived on cream and strawberry liqueur.

It was all too common to watch the working class
buy barley desert at a day’s wages a pound.

And so the walls of the palaces, stone-washed and
monolithic, rose like steeples, soared like crossbows,
imitated fighter jets and
stood like armament. Outside the gardeners sweat to
keep the imported shrubs shorn;
inside nothing was gained, nothing was created, nothing
was born.
Only richer recipes to keep the opulence pop-eyed,
the dining hall stocked with exotic past-times. But the

Future prophecies reversal. The
magnificat sings of leveling. The meek inherit
what the mansion dwellers only rented.

And then, in one final display of grace,
the playful poor will invite the rich
to dine with them,

Once they have checked their waistcoats at the door.

How Well Do You Hear?

 How Well Do You Hear?

(“For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own who are in bonds.” Psalm 69:33)

Stand on the hills that rise steeply
above the river.
Listen to the silence of its wide and winding traverse.
There is a universe you cannot see when you
stand so high above everybody.
Descend, take your time, end at sea level where

The bridge

Shelters a dozen and a half humans shivering
under its girders and steel.

Now choose what you view.

Do you breathe the mildewed air,
do you leave your boots strung from a tree limb
and hope they will dry by morning?
Do you hide when the flashlights intrude on
your children without warning?
Do you eat slowly to make it last,
or quickly before it is gone?

Sometimes the sirens sound for one who wandered
too close to the edge. Sometimes we want to exchange them
like batteries on their last legs. Sometimes they live forgotten
just beyond the reach of our consciousness.

And yet

They huddle closer on the slippery rocks under

The bridge.

While we tear down their tents and cities and hope they will
vagabond elsewhere.

How well do you hear, o follower of the One
who had no place to lay his head? How well
do you sleep while they smoke nervous cigarettes
because the night, the rain, the hunger, the pain
keep them up dreamless. One of them

Found a discarded couch, yellow and old,
and claimed it for a day.

When the Reservoirs Run Dry

 When the Reservoirs Run Dry

(“You let our enemies trample us; we went through fire and flood, but now you have brought us to a place of safety.” Psalm 66:12)

What to do when the reservoirs run dry?
What to see when the sky has pulled away like
a yoyo on a string?
What to say when pressed for faith?
What to sing when the melodies fade?

We shall wait.
And we shall set our tables with bread
in our narrow alley.
And we shall shower rain on the scrub brush
and the listless.
And we shall not be asleep in our though the
heat lulls us.
And we shall listen to the rhythm of seeds and
seedlings.

What to do when fear is a language
adopted by masqueraded sheep?
What to feel when cattle are thin and
blame is the only offer?
What to see when seeing has been discarded
for shades of lies? Why walk the streets of
gaslighting or original sin?

I will begin again. I will sing this verse instrumentally.
I will wail. I will whisper. I will let the shorter days pass
like chaff. I will sit with you, if you ask,
as long as all I am.

Our bread will be for both and our wine
shall be for laugh or crying. When the reservoirs
run dry
we will fill our cisterns with the rains from beyond the
sky.

The Tunes Still Haunt Me

 The Tunes Still Haunt Me

(“I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.” Revelation 3:5b)

The tunes still haunt me like dreams of waking to visions
that escape me later in the day. But the words, I cannot abide them,
at least not many. Why would I want to sing about how much
of
a wretch I am?
And, salute my nation’s flag right after reciting the Lord’s Prayer?
Never again!

My robes have not always stayed white,
I am often clothed with a wardrobe of misbegotten
grains of sand that I never shook out of my soul after a day
of hearing of hell so much and
wanting to talk of heaven. And the way they say
they can pray the gay away
has turned me inside out. How proud so many must be
to be on the right side of eternity.

You know the unerased names, I am sure you do.
You can think of every moment in the presence of those
who only drew you closer, who only saw you purer,
who only sang of beauty even while rocks were thrown through
the rainbow windows
where worshipers sang of peace like a river.

I will never join missionary trips called Conquest
that take the message to Native Americans. How tone deaf
do we have to be? Don’t ever tell me again that you could
feel the oppression
once you crossed the boundaries of the reservation.

I felt it
walking down Wall Street.

And please don’t sing, “Brethren We have Met to Worship”,
and clap with glee while immigrants are flown a thousand miles
away from your state. How much square footage, o Texas, o Florida,
in your mega churches?

It’s not for me to say whose name is still legible in the book of life,
it’s not for me to critique whether your robes are clean or not.
All I know is, I’ve met Jesus.

And I cannot remember, for the life of me, him ever turning away
the needy or oppressed. How confused do you have to be

Church

To have your ears tickled by pretty music for an hour and
not feel a thing for those with dirty faces and fearful eyes;
you know, we’ve seen it before;
Jesus in disguise.

Wipe the Mist from the Mirror

 Wipe the Mist from the Mirror

(“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10)

Fingerless, I might play the piano with my nose.
Noiseless, I might write music by ear.
Sightless, I might learn the codes of braille.
Senseless, I might miss the first note of the rest of the song.

Painless, I would dream forever.

Imagine a room, maybe 10x10, in which everything you own,
everything you are, has been collected. There is room

For nothing more.

Imagine that room shrinking by dimension, by degree,
by minutes, with no guarantee which possessions you will keep,
and which will be inaccessible for days at a time.
What dreams can fill the shrinking hopes you
once wrote on vision boards of the mind.

Maybe a walk will expand the walls,
maybe a kiss will ignite another passion fit for smallness,
maybe another drink will cancel the claustrophobia,
maybe another vacation, a trip around the globe, will
force the rusted doors open,
maybe you can begin again.

Blind, I could sing. Deaf, I could read.
Dumb, I could hear the music of love and play it loud.

But Pain is a thief, Pain is a headband of steel,
Pain is unrelenting, Pain rarely gives my spirit relief.

If only my heart could be clearer, if only an unknown hand
would wipe the mist from the mirror. If only I could remember
the chord patterns of expansive youth. If only less time
was burgled by the black-robed pain.

Sometimes kings take advantage.
Sometimes dreams are recanted.
Sometimes second lives never make it to the fair.

Pain has deferred the dreams. Create, O God, a world fit for
these smaller dimensions of my lately visions.

No, I Would Rather See

 No, I Would Rather See

(“Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, including those who pierced Him.” Revelation 1:7a)

If you look with the back of your eye
you will see the solid tree that has stood
for decades in your yard
is full of atoms and space. What we see
depends on
eyes and brain
and everything else we have been taught
about how the world should be.

Can clouds be the medium where the divine
paints the beginning and end of all things? Or
is that only for our marbled vantage point?
Visions are written over midnight musings,
dreams keep the isolated company when banished
to islands full of caverns.

Lately I’ve wondered how our thoughts become
so concrete that
the must be jackhammered to be
broken. While the clouds shift like ocean foam,
opinions become dehydrated remains of something that
once was joy in new wineskins. What shall we see if
all we have to offer is the dregs?

We have become religious wrestlers, pay-per-view
tournaments of cage match philosophies. I’d rather
be laughing at a potluck picnic with
agnostics, heretics, sous chefs, and preachers
than be confined to the corners of cinder block orthodoxy.

But who am I to talk (I would rather see),
who am I to make my thoughts the new mastery
with syllabi and mystical syllogisms
proving the points that may be debunked tomorrow.

No, I would rather see. And know, although language
would escape me, that beauty is better than definitions
and love is fuller than solidified catechisms.

Quite Unconventionally

 Quite Unconventionally

(“To my dear friend Gaius, whom I truly love.” 3 John 1:1b)

My dearest Andrew,
You asked me recently if I thought you were a true friend and
if people considered you
ugly.
I cannot read minds, I can barely read my own,
but this much is sure,
you have captured my heart like
a wood-burning stove on an autumn evening.
You are the one who takes my weeping heart for
drives in the hills when you know I am trapped
between walls and fences. And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there was cabernet in glasses and a couch to cry on.
You are better looking than most dare to be;
our hearts are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

My dearest Sandra,
You told me recently that you thought you were not pretty.
And, why, I wonder, would you consider such a harsh opinion?
You say you have a voice that no one wants to hear,
and yet I cannot wait for each time we get to chat.
You have captured my heart like a walk in the woods,
like a field of wheat waving in the breeze while we
unpeel layers of trauma without fear. You are the one
who takes my fearful heart and, with the voice of a child,
gives me more space, more grace, than most would dare.
And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there were the silences that filled the moment fully,
and I sat on your swing remembering everything good.
You are more beautiful than most dare to be,
our voices are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

Leftovers From the Fridge

 Leftovers From the Fridge

(“Notice the innocent person, and look at the decent person, because the peacemaker has a future.” Psalm 37:37)

Bought and sold at the outdoor markets,
a price is paid for counterfeit. A price is paid
for every elongated elocution that batters the air
and supercharges constant fear.

Offered in unkempt homes,
a loaf of bread is as good as a
prospector finding gold. The children
are noisy, the neighbors are often mowing their
lawns at dinner time,
and the hosts apologize for only offering water
to drink.

Judged and juried, injured by those who know how
everyone else
should behave,
the best and simplest are barred from front row seats.
Sometimes they are locked out. Sometimes others walk out.
And the decent heart, sans deodorant, sans decorum,
dries out and shrivels where it should had shined.

Some sit in the round, faces to faces, less hidden
and invited to speak of god without interruption. Glow
ascends from the back row toward the center where,
all together,
the sacred meal is served.

Well, yes, I suppose sometimes it is fish and chips,
sometimes tortillas and guacamole, sometimes the
leftovers from the fridge. But the sacrament is the same
when all look with blameless eyes at the neighbor who,
barred from better doors,
shows up to partake. Shows up to
celebrate.

Love Does Not Float

 

Love Does Not Float

(“Beloveds, let us love one another. For love comes of God. And every one who loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7)

Love does not float.
It digs.
Love sometimes smells like sweat and dung,
coming from the last one you expect and
going to the hot fields to lift bales for the
neighbor who lost everything when the fires came.

Loves does not tiptoe.
It stomps.
It is earthquakes with baskets for the falling.
Love often lives among the ruins,
coming from the survivors you missed and
going to the shattered concrete remains of
houses where only the poor could afford
a building that tumbles with the slightest wind or
shaking.

Love does not fly.
It crawls.
It is smaller than kings and ruffians.
Love always seeks the silent ones,
coming from invisible wounds still healing and
going to the fading echoes whose voices have lost
their song. Their names are scrawled on the pavement.
Impermanent chalk.

Love does not speak.
It holds.
It is spacious as the saddest tear that needs a circle of existence.
Love will stay until the void is filled,
coming from the song of the fields and
going to the decayed kitchen where a widow
wonders how the dishes will ever be done. Her
name, though unknown, is present for everyone.

I Will Always Stay

 I Will Always Stay

(“O Lord, by your favor you have made my mountain stand firm. When you hid your face, I was terrified.” Psalm 30:7)

If your best friend likes butter cream,
then, by all means, head to the grocery store
and pick up the cake. Birthdays are meant to be
be sticky and sweet.

Sometimes the gaze of love comes late,
sometimes we do not feel it at all,
if only we could see, behind the silence,
the heart that carries us forever. We miss
so much when the quietness is louder than
simple hope, lazy days on the lake and
pizza shared on a table with laughter we have
waited for so long.

We walk to the mountains and hope to find God,
we sit in worship and dream of beaches,
we ache for a glance from the one friend who
never walks away,
we find the air so lively we swear
we have been here more years than we have been born.

We listen for the voice, the one that always is
happy we called,
and sunbursts of confetti become the next verse of
our psalm.

But we go days on end, don’t we, wondering how
valuable we are.
We sweat and cry, or close the door just
hoping
someone will ring the bell.

We listen to music, as long as it will last, but
it never replaces the presence of the sloppy bows
tied around familiar arms,
the dazzling ancient eyes we have known so long.
We fear one day,
someday,
the eyes may turn away.

And where will that leave us?

Mercy. We cry. Mercy.
And someone, a voice so familiar we would
know it anywhere, echoes so simply,

I will always stay.

To See Invisibility

 To See Invisibility

(“The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.” 1 John 2:9)

When I was a child I thought
invisibility was the greatest super
power.

I could egg friends’ houses unseen,
tickle the girl on the playground,
tackle the guy with the ball out of nowhere.
Shenanigans would abound without
having to sneak around.

But today I would rather
see
the invisible. I would see your
song long before I heard the melody.
I could see the scars on your soul
that you never show
and see the truth in them,
the truth only you know.
And I would sit with you in silence; we would
see each other’s words.

I would watch the sky
and see every ray of sunlight;
waves dancing in unnamed colors,
particles spinning under and over
every wonder. A leaf, a tree, a cloud, a mountain,
a butterfly, a bunny, would
all be
one
in the spectrum of invisibility.

I would look at the footprints of my
ancestors and see
their muscled pain, left there unsigned,
a cairn,
a guide, to bind all yesterday-tomorrow
in a single unseeable point of time.

I could see the brain waves of the hummingbird;
metallic red,
and three.
Dancing above and beyond the trees and me.
Like the Aurora Borealis their instinctive thoughts would
light up my eyes.

I would not be surprised to see
that you, so distant in time and geography,
have wished the same thing too;
to see the unseeable soul and
love it like your own.