Staring at Crimson Skies

Staring at Crimson Skies

(“But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” Matthew 5:39)

Why did they leave you there fainting by the side of the road,
staring at the crimson skies,
listening for the voices that would tell you why
we pay to watch cage fights and celebrate winners with
their bibles dripping on blood?
You were the brave one, weren’t you?
You were the vision we wish for
but hardly ever cheer for.

The dust encrusts your face where
anonymous fists tried to put you in your place.
The fading sun may soothe your wounds,
the mouths of clinical experts recite chapter
and
verse,
but few matter these days. And yet,
I believe next to you,
I pray my time along with you,
I recognize your wounds, the same as many before
who
wandered closer to the Human One
than big-haired pulpit bumpers who
fight the tide every Sunday like they have control
over moon, and ocean, and rivers, and flood.

They would speak in tongues over you,
curse the person who laid you down in the mud.
But would they wonder why
their fighting words, their demon takedowns,
their back-alley fistfights with powers and principalities
only stoke the fires of rage and lock the cage matches
so no one gets out alive?

I know you. I recognize your face, though the blood has
dried,
and the burns from their fiery words still sizzle.
You are, perhaps more than anyone I’ve observed,
the unread gospel,
the unheard proclamation,
that somewhere we may find the way to
follow
the Prince of peace
once again.

Family Tree

Family Tree

(“Make friends with your opponent quickly…” Matthew 5:25a)

I am your family tree.
I am roots with your branches,
I am wind to your clouds.
Every chance has passed us by,
and I’ll take this one again to
ask about your anger, to inquire about our pain.

You hold it in, but artlessly;
there is no question the burn you feel.
I may have started it, it may have preceded me,
but all the same,
we should walk ancient paths together,
carry our mutual sorrows without blame.

You begin. I will listen. You’ve carried it
a decade. I’ve heard your complaint. Talk now
where only the trees can overhear; the forest is
safe with trails trod by dozens who backtracked
to conversations
began in the heat but never
subjected to the cool of the day.

You begin. I will not answer. State your case,
but remember, we are the same vine. Sun in sun.
Rain by rain. Seasons when the dew is dormant.
Seasons when the fruit reclaims its sweet-tongued
joy of summer. We are joined, twig to twig,
and the days are getting shorter to speak the
same language again.

You are my family tree,
and so walk with me before the night
puts everything to rest, deletes the words but
leaves the pesty narrative inflicting our hearts.
You begin. And we will share the apples the
orchard provides, sweet as sweet on both of
our tongues.

Carry Me

Carry Me

(“Blessed be the Lord—day after day he carries us along.” Psalm 68:19 [The Message]) 

Spared the paper illusions, I moved on with the day.
The sky fell upon us like a dust devil bringing the
clouds’ perfume to inches from our reach. Though it
had never happened this way
since time began,
we were not frightened. We knew the universe is chunkier
than thin papyrus or tomato soup.
On the average every day opens like an unwrapped gift
left inside the living room window.
But the box is heavier than I’m willing to admit.
The corners are taped so carefully it takes until
well in the afternoon to
open it. By that time, I’ve used up my portion and
retire to wonder why some promises have a half-life
of hello and goodbye. Lately I simply wander
the same path up the hill toward the woods and
back home to the empty doorway. This is not a
complaint.
Just the words of uninvited pain and wordless days.

So

Carry me.

By the way,
I don’t blame anyone. I’ve been paper-thin in
my day too. I’ve lost my favorite hat to the desert wind.
I’ve sighed too many names. I’ve left too many guessing
what my words would be. And so I hear you say

Carry me.

I’ve always taken friendships too seriously. And
duties have frightened me away from extended afternoons
in simple laziness. We should have shared more beers.
Watched more baseball. Laughed at how silly all our
doctrine became
once people decided they were experts
about God.

We all just need a day or two to be
carried away.

So Many Miles from Home

So Many Miles from Home

(“From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me up onto the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2)

The horizon kept falling away the closer I came to
a new habitation. There were thoughts like mosquitos,
telephone wires draped across my existence,
curio shoppes boarded up since the 60s,
various buttes and razorbacks and gorges
and gray rivers knifing through the red clay
that left everything on hold. I had been here before.
But I could not place the name.
It seemed so far from where I had begun,
and farther still to my destination. I was
not
unlucky. I was not lost.
I was only miles from the end of the earth where
ships used to fall off.
I imagined the night filled with coyote howling,
I felt the warmth the earth still carried. The grass was
cool on my feet,
the dirt was warmer. There is no language here,
no signs to mark the way. I had heard there were
devils
along the road
but no one asked me for directions.
They may have climbed behind the rocks for the night,
they may have set me up for failure.
I don’t believe that, though;
I know my own behavior. Although I may have
welcome an imp or two
just for the conversation.

I stopped not far from where I started
and so my sojourn began. I stayed alone, though
I had not planned it that way.

Across another vast night the icy moon reminded me
that, sooner or later, I would hear a voice,
revamped, renewed,
an original version of
the first of me and the quiet divinity
that speaks to me so many miles from home.

Dear Friday

Dear Friday

Dear Friday,
I’m writing to say that if I walked into your room
and all my senses were filled,
I could swear it was the first day of summer and not the last.
I smell jasmine and orange, hear jazz and motorhomes
escaping to the lake.
Nearby someone served up strawberries in chocolate,
the boys next door are shooting hoops like they meant it,
sage reminds me of the long days with native friends
just south of Canada. I’m writing to say
that
though joy is bubbling through every sense
there remains this ache,
this loss,
this wince where time has taken its
best shot at my chest.
I want to walk to a downtown with neon signs
that have letters missing.
I want to find a bar where no one knows me and
treats me like a guest.
I’d prefer, to be honest, the company of all the
rest that are too far by geography,
too distant by time,
too removed from my simple misunderstandings of
living ahead of the clock and
behind the calendar that dates my appointments with
no one in particular.

Still, I will sit on my deck this afternoon, start in the
sun
and
end in the shade.
My playlist keeps me company, my chihuahua licks
my fingers before warning the Huskie next door about
wandering too close to her terrain. Not to worry, though,
it is all enclosed by ranch fence. She finally settles in
her favorite corner in the sun.

The Dump Truck

The Dump Truck

(“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22)

The dump truck backed up to my brain
early this morning before I noticed.
With a mind already full of
sensations and untimely fascinations
there was little room for the weighty dirt
it unloaded. No one alerted me. No one
called ahead. It was there to dig through.
It was there with no refund in sight.

Besides all that, summer hid behind the hills
and left the morning full of pre-autumn chills.
I needed to unwind the creases left inside by
a cable so tight it leashed me to tomorrow’s
unpaid bills.

But then I saw, or probably heard, that my neighbor,
my brother far away on the northern plains,
had received the same delivery this morning. The
hard earth filled his lungs nearly cracking his ribs
as the dump truck drove away.

He didn’t have the cash to hire a junkman to haul
the dirt away. I didn’t have the expertise to help him.
We both shuddered,
we both wondered,
we both cried,
we both prayed,
we both wandered into tomorrow far too
early in the day.

I do not know what will happen with our respective
piles of dirt.
But I’ve seen neighbor dogs stand on sand piles like
kings of the neighborhood. The blue jays nap on
top as well. Perhaps planting jonquils, perhaps a
playground for squirrels, perhaps we can photograph
our uninvited landscape. Didn’t we come in filthy
for dinner when we were young, our feet caked with
mud from ancestral dirt; didn’t we?

Never Any Debts

Never Any Debts

(“You shall not take vengeance, nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18)

You don’t remember the time when
pain was the only word I could define,
do you?
I could say I don’t mind, but that would be
untrue. I tossed my stones into a lake
years ago. And yet, today I can see the
reflection of scowls I carried because
I married your apologies to my mood.
I was a fool.

And because I can still see your face
doesn’t mean I haven’t tried to erase the
words that no one disguised. Coffee would
be nice. Or a two-hour lunch where either of us
cried. Losses pile up.

I don’t mean to say you owe me anything. I’m
still paying my own debts this late, too far past Spring.
I don’t mean to say anyone should have loved me more. I’ve
lengthened the timeline and still wonder that any of us
are loved at all.

So, if I call you next week, or send you a note in the mail,
I’ve settled accounts, and all the debts are on my side of the
ledger. I took too much interest in
looking for your check in the mail. I was

Whole

Before it all began. And we both were
uncertain by the time the bills came due.

All I can tell you, all I know for now,
is to love you is to love myself. To walk
in light is to see you unhindered by my own
timeline of pain. You are, to say it again,
free, my friend. There were never any debts to
begin with. 

The Cassock-Robed Crow

The Cassock-Robed Crow

(“God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.” Psalm 46:1 [The Message])

The cassock-robed crow presided from the fencepost
surveying the field as I drew near. I inched closer and
it barely noticed my feet on the asphalt periphery.
Could I get the shot? Would it stay still for a photo,
a close up, one I would not have to digitally zoom?
10 feet, then 8, then 6 and 5,
I stopped and aimed my camera. Before I could
blink, he was away. The sky was a better refuge
than an exposed piece of wood.

Do you remember days of comfort? Do you imagine
sanity in the sun with
no one
to interrupt your mediations after an overrun of hours?
You never heard the footsteps, did you, never sensed
the sightseer who would try to steal your soul.
You thought there was safety out in the open. You
dreamed this place was better than
all previous somewheres. You were caught unaware.
And your heart wanted to fly like the crow to a
flock
unreachable in the sky.

We would rather stand in the open with the sun on our face.
We would rather smile at the sound of whistling behind us.
We would rather slow the pace, erase the distress that makes
our pulse race when the song we forgot keeps circling our head.

Hide for a second, peek your head inside my window. I’ll
put away my
camera.
I’ll turn off the music. I’ll ask you your favorite wine.
I’ll ask you to tell me the time when you wanted to run
(like I’ve wanted to run).
I’ll empty the moment of everything except
the aroma of old books that makes you think of home.

The Rest of the Messy

The Rest of the Messy

(“Think of the bright future waiting for all the families of honest, innocent, and peace-loving people.” Psalm 37:37)

Have you seen the rainbow colors when
the rain leaves thin layers on the messy mud
on the side of the road?
Have you looked behind you, a car slowing down,
and an old friend sharing a word or two?

This day broke for me, and I broke with it.
Bound and tied until afternoon by the
the brain I wish I could exchange. Pain
breaks

Me

When I would rather walk on the beach.
Find a conversation in the wind.
Open my heart complete.
Plant a garden, share a beer,
laugh until the ache exits the
next morning,
or the morning after that.

I would have you know all of me. But most of
me is unknowable. I would be the last rose of the
summer, still red as blood in the center with the outer
petals browning into autumn.
I would dismantle the walls. I would smash the glass.
I would raise the roof higher than the sun if only it
meant
my shaking self never had to fear shivering eyes,
the fear of surprise at what you might find in me.

This is not to apologize.

But I speak only 3 words of a thousand that enter
my mind.

I’m not that innocent. That’s why my walls still stand.

At once, though, one face or two can coax the bluest
truth from me. And once or twice, I’ve admitted it all.
And once I fell after I turned the lights on for someone to see
more clearly.

And once, maybe twice, I have spoken the scary part
out loud. And someone’s eyes did not blink at my confession.
And all I want, all I know
is that
I fear letting you, or anyone see,
the rest of the messy, the mud,
the unknowing of me.

Sweetly Chastened

Sweetly Chastened

(“Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt!” John 12:15)

The breeze snuck up on me like the girl in
third grade who kissed my cheek and then
ran away.
I don’t remember her name. But I remember the
spot on my face where I blushed. I remember the
coolness on my forehead where the breeze stopped
me for just a moment.

I used to dream of kings. I used to dream of answers
that would solve household dilemmas. I used to dream
of days sitting on Crow Flies High Butte where you could see
upriver all the way to Montana and
hope I would see God.

And now I live on another river. I am Washington on one side,
you are Oregon on the other.

I used to speak like spirit was algebra, I used to write
like God was like the boulder the river erupted around as
it bent its way to the sea. I used to sing like the
answer could be found in
a secret chord and a name that, mentioned just once,
would bring all the horrors of nightmares to their knees.
I could cast the demons out of everyone else but
me.

I lusted for authority.

In Sacramento they trim the palms two weeks before Easter.
Five years in a row I gathered them so children and grandparents
could shout “Hosanna”. And then go vote for Republicans a few
months later.

In Minneapolis the pulpit thundered and a thousand people
were berated for
not being more like the donkey that Jesus rode upon, not being
willing to be his beast of burden.

Today I sit sweetly chastened. I am ready to meet the king
who drives a vw van. I am ready to meet the prince who walks
on the sand. I am ready to meet the lamb who subdues the lions
that undo the work of the Spirit. I am ready to be, more or less,
unknown so that

The king may be known in me.

You Deserve More

You Deserve More

(“Make Your face to shine on Your servant; save me by Your lovingkindness.” Psalm 31:16)

Have you always thought you deserve more than
blizzard skies and hardpan scraps? Have you wondered
why
the earth wraps you from
outside, from farm to town?
Have you looked for smiles on a day
that crashes like thunder?
Have you dashed around the corner and
startled a toddler holding his mother’s
hand?

Have you had your words
dissected from your mouth;
have the tunes you knew from
tooth to grin
made you wish for long summers of
touch football again?
Have you shared a beer with
a widow and watched the tears begin?
Have you paid for another friend’s lunch
while he wasn’t looking? Have you
talked too much because you rarely talk
at all?

Wave, even if no one is watching. The air that
is stirred by the hummingbirds’ wings
brings the morning songs out to play. The
couple remodeling their house saw you
walk by, and giggled.

Each day is camouflage, each night is subversive,
each moon is a grin, each star a wink,
each breath a ripple that
revolves around thoughts uncontrolled.

Have you understood that tears still fall when
there is no one to see them?

A Perfumed Existence

A Perfumed Existence

(“Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live.” Psalm 23:6)

You don’t know it, but you should,
you have no apologies to make, you have
nothing to improve. Have you noticed who
has been following you?
There is only warmth within, only beauty,
there is only a perfumed existence from
beginning to last. Come out and play,
it is time,
it is time;
find the rain like ballet,
feel the grass, smell the clover,
let the wind, let the spirit turn you like
you used to. Let the music answer the
cry that
you mistook for smallness. Let the tunes
spin you playfully, you are more than the
angels. You are more,
you are more.

There are streams of words left
everywhere you go, there are unspoken flowers
that hover in the air everywhere you breathe.
You don’t know it, and I wish you could,
see the eyes that see you, see the delights
you bring to heaven and earth. You are
undiminished,
you are brighter than starlight.
You are a wanderer, but you are found;
you are a stranger, but you are a lover.
You are created by wonder, you are
enchantment.
Believe it by noticing who has been
following you…
…and who follows you still.

There Is No Stopping the Rain

There Is No Stopping the Rain

(“Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in Your eyes, O Lord, my Rock and the One Who saves me.” Psalm 19:14)

There is no stopping the rain, not by iron walls or
massive defense. It crawls over the peaks of the mountains
and lands just outside my window. I am so
hollow
I wish it would fill me, gauge me, let the substance
fill the hole shaped like the world in me.

I looked at your yard yesterday, with your flags raised like
Babel’s tower. I looked at your lawn and the stakes you’ve driven
into the ground. And the rain did not stop. And the rain filled
the gauges on your fenceposts, and the rain filled the field
next to you, and the rain filled the water dishes for
cats and dogs,
and the rain spilled from higher ground to lower life,
and the rain would not be stopped.

I would move to the desert if only for an excuse to remain
so empty. The rains come a quarter inch a month.

There is no hurrying the waiting, not by text or phone,
not by anguished obsession with killing time. I would
call you now
if I knew your number.
I would drive for half a week to see your face at the door.

I admit I saw a rainbow. You sent me the picture, remember?
I admit I heard the thunder. My dog hid underneath the bed.
I admit I could do more to sweeten my tone,
I admit, after a life of acing tests in school,
I have broken every rule and suffered the consequences.
You can check my expense account. I’ve shoveled the
muck
that accumulated when the rain overran my intentions.

Can the rain reshape me? Can it rise to a level in me--
that living spring in me--and stop the anxiety that has

Hollowed me whole?

Like an Autoharp

Like an Autoharp

(“My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27)

It never occurred to me, but I’m sure it happened,
someone recognized the riffs I had written so long ago.
So I recorded an alternate version. Disguised my voice.
Detuned my guitar. Hammered the piano strings like an
autoharp. I dreamed
I was Bob Dylan. I thought I could compose something
like pinball percussion. I tamper with the tempo too often.
I staged a guitar circle like it was 1973.

My lyrics stood the test of time, but rhyming was not my thing.
I sat down to write and rose up to play. And nothing new was
created. My mind runs on synthesized loops, my mind runs
in circles. My mind collects bracelets and trinkets and
turns them into idols.

I hear another voice, in the sky, in the earth, in my flesh,
in cricket clicks and blue jay calls-and-response. If I
ever find a way,
I’ll repay those anonymous composers with a cover
of the song
the Shepherd sings.
I’ll recognize the patterns I have heard all along.

My verses swerve from angel-hair skies to red
eyed
monsters in the night. My themes were never good
enough
for jazz. My fingers swell with age and forget
fretboard playfulness. I’ll try again,
listening to the wind,
remembering the way we used to change keys
in the middle of a measure.