Two Cheese Enchiladas

Two Cheese Enchiladas

(“And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’” Luke 24:41)

So much depends on the weather (I hate
to admit that.) Too much depends on the
barometric pressure. I would have walked miles
to meet you but, forgive me, some days are like
graves my body digs to disguise the scenic route.

Did I disappoint you? I wanted to show up.
No. I wanted you to show up.
Sometimes I’m buried so deep I probably did not
hear you knocking. Or other times I can’t face meeting
another face that sees my pain and does not cry. My
apologies.
I am not strong. People lie about that. I just don’t wave
my doubt loudly in the sky. When I do hoist it on the flagpole
it is half-mast, not nearly as agonizing as I let on.
And here I go again, running letters together like they
mean something fascinating. All I’m saying is
I need something more than old songs on the radio.

Days like these, mangled up between joy and disbelief,
I would surely answer the door if you showed up with
two cheese enchiladas and a beer.

The Dust We Kick Up

The Dust We Kick Up

(“Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Luke 24:46)

Silence sits like a smiling seraph
watching the fog dispelled as the afternoon grows long.
We sprint like we have no time,
and hope the dust we kick up will settle by night.
All the while the divine movement,
a sun outpoured, an avant-garde line in an
unread poem,
invites us to linger. It entices us to wait until
winning is the last thing on our mind.

Despondent, though the breeze tried to revive our
deflation,
we still walked home. We still journeyed. We share our
fruit and fish with others on the road.

Who knew? The question never entered our minds. That
the story was not over. We still had miles to go. We still had
callouses from planting, bleary eyes from wanting it to
be easy. We knew the enemy well. We knew we followed
lamely. We knew something more than bedtime stories had
to be our benediction.

But we never counted on a universe that groaned with love like
a mother birthing a firstborn. We never counted on suffering to
be the picture i.d. of the power that moves through kingdoms and
ages, villages and sages, crosses and aching; we never counted on
god squeezing through such a dirty knothole to find us

On the other side.

Sunshine Perches

Sunshine Perches

(“You belong to God. He has done this for you so you can tell others how God has called you out of darkness into His great light. 1 Peter 2:9b)

Sunshine perches on 25 fenceposts along the road,
beside the field.
Laughter encircles the pines above the meadow,
below the clouds.
Grapes ripen on the vine on
days like these, blue jays define the sky.
Terriers and poodles, at least a decade old,
cross the double yellow lines to greet old men
who walk early in the afternoon.
Everything happens sooner or later.
Everything is soaked, everything dries on the line.

I thought a neighbor’s dog walked by the corner
of my office window,
but it was a young buck nodding at the apple leaves.
I thought a kitten was sitting in my driveway,
gray as the gravel,
but it was a rabbit scattering into the rhododendrons.

I knew I saw my grandson smile,
and take my finger,
and laugh at papa jokes so heartily the
whole neighborhood shook.
I knew he knew
what I know today:
There are surprise while we wait for

Everything to happen.

Barely a week into life, and he knows my name.
That is what I tell people when I pick up a coffee
to take to his mom and dad,
so weary, so beaming, so bright they make the
stars sit up and wonder. Conquered by love,
they cradle him next to the sunshine

That perches on their railing; the deck where stellar jays play.

The World Swings Open

The World Swings Open

(“Jesus prayed, ‘Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.’” Luke 23:34 [The Message])

Awash with mercy, the world swings open, the
oceans laugh, the air is wider than long.
But the oceans moan sometimes
at the eyes that will not see. The breath is
too narrow
to glide on the afternoon air. The
same
spirit
that chained the novelist to
a forsaken desk between miscreants,
still insists the ending is reserved for
an elite few.
Who knew
that love would ever be defined by
those who never taste the new vintage
that spilled from a body so maligned?

That day. This afternoon. A century from now
when the moon is overhead. One second before
the big bang. Five minutes after the baby cried.
Thirty-five years since my mother died. The
thru-line
runs from pierced hands and feet
to my backyard,
to the desert heat,
weaving castles, incomplete confessions and
the mercy seat.

Oh Wounded Love, oh Child of divine habitations,
oh Human gunned down in the ghetto, shut down by
 emboldened halos,
oh Glory that fills more than all existence,

We rethink our mass differentials and
line up, tiny as we are, to light up
the old executioner’s road with

Tales of mercy that refuses to die.

A Whisper Shattering Everything

A Whisper Shattering Everything

(“But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” Luke 22:69)

That’s the point, and still is.
That’s the point of view that has changed all that is.
The next sound is a whisper shattering everything.
The next question raises eyebrows.
The prisoner was cross-examined and
never backed down. They dragged their
chains across his forehead, their lightning was pale.

Preachers predicted a coming Armageddon,
the apocalypse was just around the bend.
But the universe kept arcing, the word kept
asking
why the world should be destroyed.
Blood up to the bridles and swords flashing
sky to sky while
the Human One
stood in the silence, filled up the vacuum
left panting like rain.
Vacant accusations suspect that God would not
mind
at all
burning up the earth to house all the
flagrant doubters locked into their cells.

Yet the grass still remains soft as baby’s skin
beneath bare feet that only want
to walk home in peace.

That’s the point, and always will be.
That’s the point of view that opened eyes can see.
The next sound is a parched cry from wooden beams
that wipes the slate clean.
The next question announces mortality,
why, o why, have you forsaken me?

And the human one, with the cry of finality
says it is done, finished, complete and needs no
annotation. Sit on the edges of

The world;
it is time gaze again, without/within,
and redefine our fiery rhetoric with
the new world started and being,
finished and headlong,
a creation where the
human one
whispers to power in ways that
shatter everything.

Love is Not Bottled

Love is Not Bottled

(“The greatest one among you must be like the youngest, and the leader must be like the servant.” Luke 22:26)

I opened the invitation as soon as it arrived in the mail;
unexpecting any change but only more delays,
I read your proclamations. They were the aroma of rubber
burning up the bridges between neighbors. They were the fire
you called down upon the masses, the enemies you cooked up in your
ghost kitchen
where you kept top secret spices, restricted recipes.
You hoped to tickle our ears with
days of fickle feasts no one attended.

You loved your calculations. You posted every poll that raved
your newest followers. You whistled for the gremlins and acted surprised
when they broke in, broke windows, crashed glass, hunted servants and
cheered between the gallows and a cross. Your flags said Jesus.
Your words said fuck.

I walked two houses down from my quiet bungalow. The
daisies smelled like bath salts; the dogs licked my hands.
I waved at a toddler riding a tiny 4-wheeler with a tiny pink helmet
as her crown. I waved again. She looked. I waved once more. She smiled.

The neighbor boy became a teenager today. He loves my feisty chihuahua.
My second grandchild was born yesterday. He already knows my name.
(Or so it should be, world without end, amen.) The mom is my daughter,
the dad her husband who can’t believe he has a new best friend the
size of a cantaloupe. Love does not decrease the more we give. Love is
not finite. Yet we store it in pickling jars and put it in vegetable basements
along with the wine we made from last year’s dandelions.
But love is not bottled. Love is not demanded. Love is never drought or
famine or threadbare or loyal to geography or sports teams. It is

Yes. It. Is.

It is the story every human has told, and every other human desires. Love is
laying down my pistol, my rifle, my cannon, my tablets with rules written in stone.
And love is a child, a 24 hour one, a 6 pound one, a hungry one, who reminds us

Why we keep begging anger and handguns to stay outside before coming to voice
their opinion at
the next board meeting.

My Pace is Slower

My Pace is Slower

(“The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.” Genesis 32:31)

I never wanted to slow down. I never wanted to lose the race.
I was the fastest in my class; well, faster than the fastest girl.
And that was saying something, she could outrun most of us.
But I was always middle of the pack with the boys, until, in
high school,
I ran a mile backwards just to prove I could do it. Track and Field
had no such event.

I did not slow my pace. Books ran through my fingers like water.
I sold snow skis and Levis, I sold office desks and stacks of invoices.

I raced across the Midwest. Gathered youth from towns in Oklahoma
to lock-ins and car washes, to altar calls and crowded basements. We
marched downtown, prayed for professors, and packed them in on
Friday nights with free popcorn and sodas. But

I was a school bus without a driver. I was grasping for something lighter
than the dark and leaden way my heart left me in the middle and at the end
of every race. But I kept up the pace. I tried to measure my winnings by
the smiles I counted everywhere I went.

And then the bus crashed. The leaden darkness broke through my
paper skin onto nearly everyone I knew. I had not wrestled with God.
I had not tried to wrestle with myself. (Or maybe someone wrestled with me.)
The stress and success were
butterflies that flew the nest upon the first falling snow.

Rest/unrest. Strong-arm/weak-mind. Smooth takeoff/crash landing.
Days of running track became decades of wanting to take it all back.

I’ve stubbed my toe trying to get up. I’ve falling on my face into the
red dust of the oval track. I’ve cut my feet running barefoot on gravel.
I’ve unraveled in the wind while everyone was watching.

My pace is slower. I limp when it is cold. Some days I feel like
I’ve climbed a mountain with no way down. Others I am grateful
to walk around the marina, near the river, smelling the fish station
and salt. I walk the same route and do not care if I ever walk like
an athlete
again.

Perhaps If We Paused

Perhaps If We Paused

(“If any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. He will give it to you. God gives freely to everyone and doesn’t find fault.” James 1:5)

I appreciate your visit, at least I know where I stand.
You brought your talking points, numbered and outlined,
scrawled in your own hand. Some were new, but one was
a decade old.
Hadn’t we beat that one into the ground? Wasn’t it dust
sent on the wind ages ago?

But since then, you have never visited again. Did the
storms blow, knocking down the hedgerow we planted?
Did the crows steal the seeds of peace?

The seasons still turn, though, 16 since then. The pictures
move
in memory like a flickering silent film. The words hide,
buried beneath grains of sand, beyond a million stars,
outside the radius of our reach. We send flares in the night,
but the colors were wrong. We wave at trucks and cars,
hoping someone notices our pace has slowed, our smile
is frozen in place, and our feet have worn paths into the
grass between the road and the river.

What was our baptism if the water never washed
our misdirections out to sea? Did the showers rain on
you and not on
me?

But we are fathoms, we are not phantoms. We are universes,
we are mites. We are not airless, but we are children of the wind.

Did we pass each other yesterday? Did our globes rotate to
coordinates that stopped us, same place, for a moment in time?
Did we both see the face that wondered how friendship was
so fragile,
how two men of billions walked a path together,
and then lost sight of the north star?

Perhaps if we paused before unwashed words settled in the
air
like smoke from a distant fire. Perhaps if we learned that
laughter is as good as wisdom, campfires are as good as
generosity, and freedom is cultivated by the light of
a myriad of wicks lit before dawn.

She Crossed the Street Slowly

She Crossed the Street Slowly

(“Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it.” Hebrews 13:2)

I thought I recognized her face as she crossed the
street against the stoplight. Her gaze was elsewhere,
maybe her
shoes,
maybe her lost hunger,
maybe her words that once
were summer bouquets set upon
the tables of the unknowing.

I think she was a singer. A songwriter.
A minstrel. Maybe she used to be the
darling of the worship scene where every word
is scrutinized, every miscue recorded in
reporter’s notebooks for posterity. Maybe she
was tired of the same four chords. Maybe she was
weary of factories of uplifted faces. I think she
was still a poet. But her audience wrote her a
resignation letter before
she ever got started.

I think she liked women. I think she wanted to fly.
I think she crossed the street slowly because every
eye had always been upon her. I think she was ready
to cry as soon as she reached the other side.

She had drunk the vintage of diluted wine.
She had held it all in. She had lied for too long.
And to honor her truth

She was ushered to the alley. She wore a “no vacancy” sign.
She was put on probation. She was given two years, or more,
time to outgrow her fanciful follies and stand
in the back of the line.

As she approached the curb I wondered, where would she
turn
from here? Her eyes were steely and blazing. Her hair
was limp. Her lips moved in ways only she could hear.
Her arms were tattoos of every promise she had kept.

She stepped up and waited, though the light had turned green.
She sat on the corner, picked up a cardboard sign. She pulled a
sandwich from her backpack, tore it in half and shared it with
the man whose words were scribbled like prayer.
And she gave him half. And she sang the words that
had bubbled from her pain. And she explained nothing.
She made motions with her hands. She hummed the
lilting melody that only the rejected can sing.

And she stayed the day with the man who did not ask her
for a thing.

Instead, I Sat on Porches

Instead, I Sat on Porches

(“The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What will I do now? I will send my son whom I love. Maybe they will respect him.’” Luke 20:13)

We are marvelous manufacturers
turning poison into water and water into poison.
We mistake dust for gold, and gold for panna cotta
eaten by the masses.
When someone lies, we don’t care as long as it fits the
story we’ve told. We want to be owners of the fields,
the proclamations, the minds and fascinations others must
never conceive.
How could anyone believe such insanity as
the silent discovery that our encased brains do not hold
the libraries of the world. They do not contain the languages
of ages. They are not filled with altruism. And if the peg does
not fit in the hole
we will whittle it into shape and call it our own.

I was waiting for the train to take me around the world,
to carry me backwards to where my soul first lived, where
my legs moved effortlessly, and my eyes were clear. I waited
on the platform to circle the earth, to slalom between the clouds,
to fall like rain on the manicured roses and wild daisies below.
The ticket was free.
It was given to me. And I could think of no other journey I
wanted to make that day. Though I envisioned heaven, we began
in Nashville, north to Cincinnati, and on to the Bronx where
I still waited for cirrus and cumulus to take me in. Instead, I
sat on porches. I heard about the rationing of rubber, the lines
for bread, the unsaid memories that were time machines for the asking.

The wrinkled faces broke my agendas. The thinning golden-brown skin
worn by sun and smiles stirred me like the lake just before the rains come in.
I did meet one University President, a nice enough fellow. But he was ready
to refute my position before he knew what my position might be.
And I shared sandwiches with a hermit convinced he knew the weather on
each day for the past millennium.

We, with untethered minds, assumed we were the gravity that pulled all
the truth of the universe so
carefully toward us that no one could disagree. And the
clouds still gathered. The hungry still waited. And the handful watched
to greet love in whatever form it arrived.

Some Stay on the Same Square

Some Stay on the Same Square

(“Abraham was waiting for the city that has real foundations—the city planned and built by God.” Hebrews 11:10)

Some stay on the same square, never moving high or low,
never exploring diagonals that crossed their fence lines like
afternoon sunlight. They find silence one way to cope.
They think they are home. There is dirt between their toes,
but their souls are mere mirrors of every marionette face
that has nodded in approval.

I’m not sure where I fit. Some days the only speech I hear
is the buzzing of wings filling the air. Others the moments are
silent as snow.

Some wander like dandelion fluff, alighting on fence posts,
on the ears of lazy dogs in the sun, on the forehead of an old man
wishing he was young. Some never settle but are carried beyond
the sun. Behind the star where no one can prove they exist at all.

I have not wandered that far. But my feet are worn from red
Oklahoma clay, from black adolescent asphalt, from North Country
needles of ice, from imitating the fancy dancers on the summer plains.

The summer before high school, late for an evening walk,
two girls walked toward me who I had not met. They were eating
grapes
in the waning summer warmth. The told me their names, threw
the grapes on the street and told me they were making wine.
And one, I am happy to say, is still a friend of mine.

Some clamp down and never let go. Some hide inside the
doctrines that lied to them about the length and love and
shape and movement of things. Though they would thrive with
a single moment of brave contemplation, their diet is complete.
The healer they long for will never appear until their
lego towers crumble, random and underfoot.

I have built monoliths; I have worshiped granite. I have
longed for magical upheaval; I have written stone monuments
upon my walls.

My bones have become rigid while my heart melts beneath
the warmth that makes every turn of the earth my home.

Blueberry Days of Summer

Blueberry Days of Summer

(“The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.” Luke 19:10)

There was nothing stacked against me,
I knew the odds all along. There were no
enemies
out to get me,
I knew that I could belong to another club if
there were.
But the days huffed dryly, the nights wrung the
life out of me. I looked up for rescue, out for a
dollar in the sky. I looked down in the graying light
of morning, wandered the town while the laundry dried
back home.

They laid hands on my head; they told me Christmas
was coming. They hinted it was better ahead but
the past kept me succumbing to production lines;
machines that squeezed gears between the fibers of my soul.

I could pray a minute longer, maybe two, than the last people
to go home. I could sing a little. I could sing. I ate
ice cream cones and
made no eye contact with those who promised atonement.
I was determined to be a casualty of my own indiscretions.

I pulled my weight. I pushed some down the road. I watched
the autumn pull the sun below my point of view. My truth
came in packets like sugar. My hands worked hard and
were bored. I loved and I did not know how. Even now
I’m a beat behind what I had hoped to find in this
cross-country excursion. I would face it like a man (or
that was the plan), but I never got the chance. Once the
incriminating documents were found
I shivered. I hid. I shut down. And hoped I could still
love a little, sing a little, define the movements of dissatisfaction.

There is no happy turn, no resolution that makes it clear. There
is still this muddy journey, there is still the dissertation run over
in the middle of the road. I wanted hills and oceans of dance.
I wanted to finally believe in circumstance. But the evidence piled
up
while I ran circles around myself.

But today (did you hear the pause?) the
blueberry days of summer woke me like a
daydreaming boy who still remembers how
to play. And though my senses, my clarity, my
sincerity depart, I find the rising warmth from lawns of
June to be
the sweetest calculation.

Watching From a Distance

 

Watching From a Distance

If you have been watching from a distance,
you would notice little difference from these days
after the
before.
But if you have walked tandem, I hope you suppose,
for the roundabout of years,
that my vistas have changed. That I have found hills
I frequent more often than the barren evaporation of all
that is human. You would hear the frequencies have changed,
the soundwaves are variegated between semi-tones of
pine needles on the forest floor. I soar now without
thinking.

And where I left off yesterday is woven through the
loom of dreams. I don’t expect a savior anymore, a godlike
motion
from the stratosphere.
Instead I breathe, I walk, I pain, I paint, I play melodies
in my mind
to harmonize with the wheat waving like the ocean.
I know so little

And embrace so much.

The world is more with me,
the sounds that wriggle past my pain into
the air of friends who left too early. And I learn lessons
from the final few words of those who loved me before they
knew who I was.