Of Coats and Loaves

Of Coats and Loaves

(“The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise.” Luke 3:11)

I like thrift shop finds—the forty dollar suit, black and
wavy white threads, was perfect for a wedding the next day.
It left me two hundred dollars to spend on a tie.
But Sacramento was too hot to shop
in used bins for my next chapter in a North Dakota winter.
Long-johns and parkas bulged my budgetary allowances.

I always think of you, friend, when I shovel the snow here now.
I can sweat at even 30 below.
You gave me your only military thermal outerwear. Quilted
and camo green
I pulled the pants on over my jeans
and the jacket kept the cold away long enough to
clear the driveway for the next round of blown snow
or blizzard slush. For 30 years I
wore them and I wonder where you had been stationed
that you had this pair to spare.

I love coffee shop bakes—the chocolate croissant you can find
nowhere else. The lobby is coffee perfume the moment you
pass through the door. But stand for a second, and like a wine
taster
breathing through his teeth,
inhale slowly. The bread is calling just behind the hiss of
the espresso machines. Like a farmhouse Sunday afternoon
the baking bread fills every corner with friendship and
anticipation.

I always think of you, friend, when I remember the homemade
loaf you brought to me the day I pined for familiar eyes.
You could not stay, but the glance and package of grace was
enough.
I thanked you and watched you drive away.
I cut a slice and toasted it. It warmed as the
toaster glowed, the aroma slowly filled the kitchen like
new-bake, and I put some coffee on. I opened the butter and
waited for the toast to golden. As the knife spread
I heard the alto crunch and could see the lines of your smile.
I slide the bread between my teeth, the butter plays on my tongue.
I think about the dough you rolled, the sound like taffy being pulled.
I see the flour on your apron, a little on your nose. And as I chew I
know
the coffee will be silky.

And the clothes keep me warm,
and the loaf revived more than
my hunger for homemade days.
And the way you gave
always brought your face to my mind.

Not Yet 10 in Nashville

Not Yet 10 in Nashville

(“All I want is to know Christ and the power of his rising from death. I want to share in Christ’s sufferings and become like him in his death.” Philippians 3:10)

Christ, far too many have taken lives with
your name on their lips. They say your name,
they invoke your power, they quote from a book where they find
a sword here and
a war here and
walls falling here and
sulfur consuming the cities on the plain.

Why do we forget, what the hell is wrong with our
broken memory,
that you told us we have no idea what spirit we are when
we want to rain fire upon our own enemies?

We give weapons that rip through flesh and incinerate
organs and aortas, and blame the crazy ones who pull the triggers.
I have to say, my Jesus, my brother,
the crazy are the ones who let anyone possess those guns
meant to tear a human to shreds.

Christ, they did the worst to you. Christ, they mocked and
cursed and sneered for you to leap from the nails and save yourself.
Meanwhile a legion of angels waited for your word. And you never
whispered
a single command.

Today three children, not yet 10, were obliterated by a shooter with
an AR-15 (three legislators sport them as tie clips and lapel pins)
and they pray for the parents and go home
to shoot another family photo armed with semi-automatic weapons
legal and celebrated,
worshiped and idolized,
over the lives of third graders who never saw it coming.

Christ, why do we never learn the cross? Jesus, why do we never trust
the way
of Peace
that surpasses every strategy conceived by
men who only hope for red to fill the streets when you
return again.

All
i
want

Is to know you.
more
so
much
more.

To know the power the gentleness wields,
to know the subversion that turns us away from
the killing fields,
the halls where bullets whine louder and louder
since the last time only weeks ago.

We are sick and broken. We are full of cowardly unspoken
love that
would save our babies, comfort their daddies and mommies,
and protect them like we say we protect
those that are yet unborn.

Christ, we do not know you.
Turn us. Teach us the power of
melting every weapon into crosses,
hoes and rakes for community gardens,
and let us never
study the weapons of war
again.

The Melody Fell Like Rain

The Melody Fell Like Rain

(“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people.’” Luke 2:10)

You sitting in limbo between dusk and dawn,
you’ve drawn your boundaries in the dark,
built your fortresses by dimming firelight.
You couldn’t see, which forced you to emit
certainties to keep away the cold and fright.
Even when the wind turned
you insisted the world was ending.
(I should say, for clarity,
all would be destroyed except your indoctrinated
minority.)

But on the edge of your eyeliners, arrowheads and
atomic defenses, there is a riff floating down from
unheeded clouds. The stars were obscured, so you
observed nothing but pre-quake jitters. You thought
the end was near.

Acid jazz sounds so ominous in the middle of the night.

But the melody fell like rain on the other side of the hill,
the riff that began like Voodoo Chile woke a cohort whose
campfire was all the light they needed. They had told stories
all night,
they had watched the lambs asleep
and played harps and pipes, sung highland and
baritone, mostly out of tune.

Even as the wind turned they remained undisturbed,
caught up in ancient tales, sagas passed down for centuries.
As the drops of heaven floated above their heads, one,
then another,
then each, then all,
laid down their voices and muted their lyres to hear
the song that had no beginning, the song that would never end.

It was sung backwards, as far as they could tell, but the
meaning was clear,
the words and tempo, 120 bbm, matched their own pulse
as they stood in wonder.
This was new and not a traditional fable; it was familiar,
but felt ageless, lyrics sifting through the layers of dust
that had settled like wrinkles on human faces.

Joy was a comma. Now it was exclaimed. Joy was a
rest stop. Now it was uncontained. Joy was a possession.
Now it was unrestrained.

His Favorite People are Pilgrims

His Favorite People are Pilgrims

His favorite people are pilgrims,
some solitary, others in twos and threes.
His favorite roads are dusty, just outside
Jerusalem or
Oklahoma City.
He knows they have been plundered,
he has seen their limps and empty pockets.
But he would walk with no one else,
hold his tongue with no one else,
unveil the shadows with no one else,
than those
who journey five or ten or a hundred miles
in a day.
Rocks are their pillows,
stray dogs and cats their fellows,
and they shop for food at farmstands along the way.

Sometimes the rain feels like sloppy snowflakes,
sometimes it quenches like a cold draught of beer.
Sometimes the rain nourishes the roses and onions,
sometimes the rain is steam rising from an asphalt highway.

They talk slowly, their numbers are in flux.
Companions at heart, but known for only hours,
some dance like puppies, some shrink like soldiers
who still cannot hear the symphony’s percussion without
holding their ears.

One (or maybe all) find their inner chamber filled with
specters, unruly guests of the past. The same one (or maybe
everyone) fears what lies behind the
locked door at the farthest reaches of their heart. They
know what abides there,
they fear it is still alive there,
and tremble to think of turning the key.

Are we locked outside? Or imprisoned within?
Can it open from in and out? Does the combination work
on both sides of the door?

His favorite people are pilgrims,
some lonely, others solitary and free.
Their feet stir up the same dust, their journeys
wind between street signs and churches,
up to caverns of quiet, down to valleys where rivers
sing with question marks left open.

Sometimes the conversation is revealing,
sometimes it is more human than healing.
Sometimes the silence nourishes the love and vision,
sometimes the trek is a memory

And shame is finally
a place to unlock hidden closets emptied
long ago.

I Would Wear Paisley

I Would Wear Paisley

(“I will tend My flock and let them lie down.” Ezekiel 34:15a)

I have always like paisley,
beginning my teens in the 60s and
ending them in the 70s.
I could always rest for minutes on the
vinyl couch the color of early evening
forest green.

I am weary, not just today,
but annually.
I failed you, you failed me.
You fooled me, I was a fool.
I fooled them, other stood silent, the
words stolen from their mouths.
I still understand what I stained, decades of
carrying a burden and a mask.

There was energy in the backstage conversations,
the lead-up to the construction of
stories we only had begun to understand. We held
hands, sometimes kissed,
were always shy,
and never caught the caution that age and weariness
would bring.

Did I mention I am fatigued, did I rehearse the weight
I carried but could not name? I have declared my guilt,
I have fastened my shame to every bit of interest I have paid
trudging through wounds that shoved me like gravity
into late night drives that let the ghosts breathe for a while.

I always thought they would leave. Tears were my exorcism,
while I left the specifics open to interpretation.

Every time I speak now,
every time I wish for those eyes that saw through my disguise,
I feel the weight all over again. I deserve nothing more than
 days on end befriended by silence that breeds only more
weeping at my unreliable resolve.

I would lie down, I would find the sweat rolling from my back
on the old couch on a summer day. I would open the book
and let you read every word anonymously.

I would go to the party and now, so lately,
I would wear paisley.

Erect No Statues Here

Erect No Statues Here

(“He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him.” Mark 16:6b)

The empty is thick with silence,
the vacancy less than we expected. How far
can a dead man get on foot?

The morning is obscured with weeping,
the rising sun paints sharp shadows in the garden.
How far can we go before
our intentions are detected?

The tomb is cold with absence,
the man in white only added to our questions.
How high can we believe when we cannot touch
the one we came to love?

Erect no statues here,
do not write songs, either praise or dirge,
do not gather a chapel here,
do not preach or record a podcast from the
only place on earth where
he does not abide.

How long will you stay, how long astounded,
there is more life ahead, more mercy outside the garden.
The earth is heavy now with a doula’s work,
the sky is written, the birth announcements sent,
the ears are ready for new-song,
the eyes for dove-pairs and geese-flocks
that split the open air. The have known all along,
they have sung, they have felt the pregnant age
already begun.

It’s a shock to the senses to awaken, ennui
settles on our souls before we know it. It’s the rocks
that keep on playing the stream’s bluegrass, and
the meadows are the womb where deer and racoons
begin.

I tell you know what I know by heart,
you cannot kill love, you cannot destroy the art
of creation when the Divine is the maestro,
and the Spirit the song.

It’s the Hype I Hate

It’s the Hype I Hate

I don’t mind your flaws,
never have.
It’s the hype I hate.
It’s the bean-counting, the
enrollment of thousands like
awards worn on your chest.
It's the thousands more left behind
by the bus you drove to get there.
Did you ever stop? Did you find the
pulse of the ones lying in the road?

I don’t mind your opinions,
I have my own.
It’s the hate that escapes me.
It’s the veins in your head popping like
gunfire
ready to use your words to paint the living
as already dead.
It's the hundreds who hear you and
nod
like they have heard from god.

I once pastored a church that sits on
five acres of land. Yet it sits vacant,
taking up space,
ninety percent of the week. I don’t mind
the buildings and asphalt, I don’t even know
whose fault it is. It’s the certainty I hate
that replaces mystery with a litany of by-laws
of invisible scaffolding. Some stay away,
some flock like geese,
but all should be welcome, all should find nothing
so sweet as a place to sleep when all their
bridges have been burned.

The principalities and powers will fall when their
thrones are deconstructed to build
shelters for the known and the unknown.

Like a Night Uncovered

Like a Night Uncovered

(“But Jesus still did not reply. Pilate was amazed.” Mark 15:5)

There is a silence where weariness can
find its rest,
a confidence that envelops everything the
mind cannot digest.
The words are too heavy to lift,
the incense replaces trials and tests
like classical guitar, like a night uncovered,
like a celebrity sitting in the corner with
a shoebox covering his head.

Would it change if we were recognized,
or would conversation disguise our fears,
would answers come too quickly, would our
quick defense give us away?

I cannot see them between their paragraphs,
their citations and accusations tipped their hand
long ago.
They thought persuasion was what made me speechless.
It was their hubris instead.

There is an island where everyone can
breathe again,
A place in the sun that shines between
molecules of green and coconut palms.
A dozen sit on the golden sand telling
their stories unabandoned. There are no
juries or clinical trials, only beautiful eyes that
weep at joyful chapters as well as sad.

Let me rest my soul in your silence,
let my face finally relax.
I would memorize this moment forever,
I would pray you help it last. Let me
memorize the unworded countenance,
captivate me with the rhythm of your heartbeat
and steps.

Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

(“You may drink from the brook. And I have commanded ravens to bring you food there.” 1 Kings 17:4)

I used to sit right up front,
I didn’t want to miss a thing. The way the sound passed
through the throat of the poetess I loved. I didn’t want
a single note to drop on the darkwood floor. I used to
write whatever came to mind.

There were rooms like water, the saxophone streamed over
the casement in background sounds of summer meadows.
We liked jazz, we loved Brubeck,
we danced if another would dance first.
There were lazy brooks
that smoothed stones for us to put in our pockets
and display on our shelves at home.

I used to hear the espresso hiss, black as ravens served in
ceramic thimbles. The troubadour never missed the chance
to soar between sad eyes and aspirations. We breathed the
same air, heavy like upholstery, waiting for the piece of bread
we would pass from table to unknowable. We never cared
for
the first cut or the upper crust,
we saw visions in the cups of wine set between us.

But some venues close and become
parking lots or clothing stores or memories lost
in youthful ideals. We thought we might find it again.
Maps are sometime edited, locations pressed flat
and forgotten.

Now I sit near the back,
if I go anywhere at all. Though today I did invite
a bald eagle whose white face and plume
seemed to take in everything. The sun broke the
field where cattle grazed
into perforated patches, an opportunity hatched
between land and sky. Looking past the clouds I
returned, still unsatisfied.

There are streams that never evaporate, if only
in mind.
There are birds that sing the songs you once heard
from poets, jazz bands and campfires in a simple
Kum Ba Yah.

Covered with Bricks

Covered with Bricks

(“Jesus replied, ‘This very night before a rooster crows twice, you will say three times that you don't know me.’” Mark 14:30)

Fixed in time, the prophecy announces the dawn nearer
midnight than most. I did not recognize him in the
firelight
once the opposition seemed to have the upper hand.

Storm

The

Temple,

I wanted to say. I could not comprehend the ways of
bloody stripes and shame. I knew his name
but I had not seen these shadows before, nor
had expected them.

Deliver

Us

Now,

I wanted to cry. Instead I stood by, my mind dull, my
body paralyzed, and my tongue thick in my mouth. I don’t
know.

I

Don’t

Know

Is all I said. How had the tables turned? Had we not earned
a seat at the table, a place in the kingdom, a world where we
finally won?

We do not know him because we only see him
in thunderclouds and brimstone, in conflagrations and
bloodstones filling the valleys up to the bridles of the horses.

We

Don’t

Know

A thing. We only deny him because we never see him
in the eyes of the lynched. We are unhinged, doorways to
the peaceable kingdom covered with bricks.

And the roosters crow again and again
until we are ready to see the dove descend upon
the Son of Man and the eagle bow before the
shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

Less Important Than the Melody

Less Important Than the Melody

(“Help each other in your troubles. In that way you obey Christ's law.” Galatians 6:2)

There is no reason to wait. Take the
sunrise to someone who
is still aching halfway through their day.
There is no reason to hesitate. Bring the
table with you and set it with
in the yard, gingham tablecloths and
fried chicken to tempt the neighbors
and their dogs. Enter the lonely space that
extends from the first tear of morning to the
half-shut eyes of midnight.
Why do you pray for miracles when
the old man up the road would be so happy
to hear a voice from the past, an anchor to reality
more heavenly
than a hundred verses of hymns.
And don’t forget the children who smile
so easily
at one twinkle of attention. Learn the choreography
that sets the burdened ones free.
Teach yourself the lessons you learned the last time
you returned from enforced silence to
hear native songs sung back to you again.
The words are less important than the melody
that lifts the eyes, lightens the shoulders, and brightens
the hills once shrouded in gloom.
Walk the dusty hills with the Teacher who
has no place to lay her head. Attend the weddings
of lovers
whose siblings stayed away. Dance with the groom,
twirl the bride, celebrate with cake on your face
and
invite the parson too. Be the presence in the
echoes, be the praises in the silence,
be the persona who frequent both
meadows and wilderness to discover the magic
and carry it to hovels waiting for time to begin.

No One Left to Blame

 No One Left to Blame

(“Christ made us free. Stay that way. Do not get chained all over again in the Law and its kind of religious worship.” Galatians 5:1)

Now that there is no one left to blame because
they left the machine running and
took an extended vacation
I can finally tell you I never wanted to be a puppet.
The puppet-master insisted he never kept me on a short
leash. But I was not after
a leash at all.
I needed relief,
a wink that opened the world when I shivered
at the 16mm film that got caught in the gears.
The reels had turned true just an hour before.

But when the car has been running so long and
you get used to the fumes,
you learn to presume that the mistakes are all yours.
So I loaded my breath into shipping crates and
buried them beneath the patio in my back yard.
I missed too many birthdays while I shook.
I shoved craters of love into lock-boxes
while I rated my success by numbers, or money,
or morality, or memories and counted to 10.

I cut the strings long ago, but they stay like strands
of spider webs
wrapped around my arms and legs. They try to
make me perform in my dreams. Perhaps if someone
different had been
pulling the strings.

I should puzzle happier words,
I should make you smile,
but the one who told me that was
weaving tourniquets without apology.

Here I confess that control can never be possessed,
but I craved it, to make up for the mess I made while
finally performing on my own. Who knew that freedom
will not be leashed or tied? Might as well try to
lasso the clouds.

Fascinate me once again, with the baby’s cry and
the nuance of candles left flickering in tiny chapels
overnight.

Like Snow in the Desert

Like Snow in the Desert

(“May the Lord be praised! He has given rest to His people…” 1 Kings 8:56a)

Places arise from consciousness, buried below
beliefs and farmland. Who hears the seeds shouting?
Who cuts down trees with birds in their limbs?
Healing arrives on unexpected days like
snow in the desert, like the pastels the peek through
the side hills and mesas.
I can’t explain it,
but silence is my medicine,
slow is the pace of my reanimation.
In the hollows of our minds there are snapshots
reminiscent of times we laughed without reserve.
The canyons opened on either end to rivers so
lazy
they barely spoke a thing.
If I was young again I would
take more naps in the sun.
I would unwind the yards of
insistent lanyards that kept me painfully
straining to submit to the instructions
left behind by my captors.
After so many miles there are curio shops
with silver and turquoise awaiting my slow meanders
between aisles of beadwork and sage.
After so many years there are drum songs I wish
I could hear one more time again. There are
friends
whose smile (even those who think I’ve
lost my way) would light my soul like
campfires that smell of mesquite. We
would tell our stories without critique,
laugh or cry, we would walk the winding way
with songs still incomplete. And our faces
in the fiery glow
would tell us everything we ever needed to know.