The Steam May Rise

The Steam May Rise

(“Peace in place of bitterness! You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction; behind your back you cast all my sins.” Isaiah 38:17)

Tonight, the steam may rise from
wet pavement warmed by tropical sun.
Tonight ice may form on heated roofs
to melt away near noon.
Tonight pipes might freeze, children shiver,
moms wonder how soon someone will deliver
the next cord of wood to heat her leaky home.

I might put on a movie tonight.
I might think of calling someone too late who
is my age
and lives three time zones away. They used to live
in my neighborhood. We have become elongated,
whisked like dancing pellets of sleet.

Tonight, someone may dream and wake in peace
who dreads the pillow every night. Knives and
sharpened tongues
have kept her away for years. When her eyelids close
the haunting begins. She would be rid of them. But
dreams are slow and deep. She needs something fierce
to open tomorrow, something strong to lock the past.

I might have shrimp tonight.
I might write, I might wish the ocean was nearer
and I could hear how waves buzz no matter the time of year.

Tonight may narrow my options,
tomorrow may open them wide.
Yesterday I composed a new song,
today I forgot it all.
Tomorrow may offer me a self-portrait
I painted once to remember who I am.

Or perhaps
we can all arise again.

Thinking About Dancing

Thinking About Dancing

(“Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” Isaiah 35:6)

I’ve been thinking about dancing,
late evening to dark under the lights where
someone got married just an hour ago.
I’ve been thinking about music,
a couple of guitars and a beer, singing
what we used to write 50 years ago.
We invented everything back then.
We pretended life was different back then.

So many times, thirst showed up in ways
that only melodies could quench.
Friends showed up and brought laughter
like
disco.
The rhythm ran up and down our spines,
tickling us to find the floor with sunshine
underneath. We never were alone for long.
We never were left waiting while the rains
had their way with us.

(I should pause here and explain that
though the refrain sounds like joy uncontained,
it actually hides beneath layers of pain so noisy
they I rarely know how to keep time.)

But
you

Speak one word and everything comes back to mind.

You

Knock on my door with sage tea or cabernet sauvignon,
my choice,
and I look at your feet to see if

You might like to dance with me.

Triangles on the Prairie

Triangles on the Prairie

(“My people will live safely and quietly in their homes. They will not be afraid of trouble.” Isaiah 32:18)

The desk took up a quarter of the office,
the phones rang downstairs and up. I answered
on the second ring and heard a voice I knew who
did not recognize mine.

So, I cultivated some extra space,
slid the papers and requests-for-quotes aside,
and listened closer hoping to find the texture
that mingled my memory with hues to remind
us both of the rhythms that conversation left behind.

My recollection my be spotty, hers may be crystal-clear,
yet I hear the cadence that puts me (place and time)
inside a world not my own.
There were triangles on the prairie,
hoop-skirts on twirl,
drum-songs pitched low and high,
and
distant campfires curling toward the west,
curling slow upon the sky.

If only we could digitize,
sanctify with frybread and wine;
if only we could replace our insistence with
newborn reminiscence where
each day is a
new day. And each voice is
a giggle until its final breath.

I fear my cognitive decline,
I fear the antipoems in me.
So I dream to recall the voices,
I muse to let the smoke of a thousand
incense conversations float and land
wherever they will.

The Foghorn Rumbled

The Foghorn Rumbled

(“You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith, for they trust in you.” Isaiah 26:3)

The foghorn rumbled through the mist
like a rumor, a hint of memories carried above
the river months ago. It was the safest song
to hear
on a day like this.

Too many days alone turn silence into a
jumbled abacus;
nothing adds up. Houses of old friends,
now occupied by strangers,
repainted; the same moss tempers the driveway.

Some trails never change;
season to season, the view remains the same.
Some sounds pierce the day and sweep the mind away
to imperfect visions that
draw us toward the yearnings we feel
are more touchable than the boulders we lean on
watching for an opening in the sky.

And today, punctuated by foghorn bellows
and occasional doves, rust and white on the wing,
may be the place we rest after
all

The longing is done.

Like Cows in the Fog

Like Cows in the Fog

(“’My brothers,’ he said. ‘I have conducted myself before God in a completely good conscience all my life up to this day.’” Acts 23:1)

Like cows in the fog,
black specters on the savannah,
we looked like strangers, but we belonged there.

It got to the point where we always said,
“I’m fine”
when people asked who never made up their mind
to come closer,
to see better,
to hear the bellows of creatures left out in the cold.

We are all looking for a better love,
a higher sun that looks deeper than the droplets that
mask our view. We are all hoping for better apologies,
higher comedies that laugh
only at our own misperceptions.

I know you are not fine. I know you juggle
tears and eggshells on the floor everywhere you walk.
I know you hide it well,
but not from me,
not from me.
I know you seek a cavern deep inside yourself,
a pattern that turns the years inside out,
a hand that takes you outside yourself
for one day or two.
I know you long for,
cannot believe, but hope for,
a light through the fog that sees you
more clearly than you see yourself.

We looked like strangers. But
we hoped to be arranged in a way
that left us leaning together,
unafraid to say,
I’m not as fine as I let on.”
And trust the honesty will pierce the haze
we always believed would hide us from the
worst of days. We need something fiercer than
words that push the best gifts away. We need to
simply

Stay.

If I Had Not Fallen

If I Had Not Fallen

(“In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it—one from the house of David—one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.” Isaiah 16:5)

If I had not fallen, you may never have found me.
But here we are both lying on the ground.
I don’t have long to stay; I may leave tomorrow.
My hold on life’s meaning keeps slipping somewhere
out of mind.

But still, here on the ground, I can hide
beneath your shade if only, if only, you will
stay around.

These last days the numbers on the calendar blend
former loves and
never-to-be dreams I gave up on long ago.

Take a chance on me, but, with my track record
you will likely lose.

You could be my roaring fire on the days
when everything has
gone up in smoke.

We haven’t spoken about it, but I can see
the end of days from here. The horizon
is only steps away; I need to know you will stay far longer
than the first or second verse.

I do not fear the uncertain veil, only, the way
my kinship has thinned,
I wonder if I may take that final step alone.

If I had not fallen, you would not have found me here.
I could have flown above it all, solved it all like a
Rubik’s cube.

But if I had winged my way in an upward arc, soaring high
above it all,
all my failures would have looked like jewels in the
distant refractions of sun and light.

If I had not fallen, (and I sense you know how far was my
descent), I would not be content to behold the eyes of
another groundling like me.

I can see the last horizon from here, though the journey
may be longer than I expect. It took me days to get here,
with days standing in for years.
It took me years to stop looking for angels
and look instead in your eyes, earthling,
and find every reason to sing.

If I had not fallen, I could not have shared with you this song.

A Cantata of Peace

A Cantata of Peace

(“A child will be born for us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. He will be named: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

After further review and looking everywhere,
high and low,
center and none,
in ballads and marches,
in wooden crosses and iron wills,
I honestly
find more question marks than before.

Today I sat without wind or dizzying propositions,
definitions of cause and effect,
and hoped (an explosive hope)
for better ears. A friend hides underground
while missiles whistle overhead.

And what is this song that moves the ground beneath our feet,
that pierces the stars until angels cannot restrain the chorale
that wraps the waiting world
face-to-face,
with an overture too resplendent to miss?

But we do miss it. We do continue staking our claim.
We do see the fault lines drawn between this
and
that,
and are blind where that and this
contain the first atoms of breath, contain the
alpha and omega. We do miss the
restoration of things.

With a mighty hand extended through
infant arms,
I cannot ignore the cantata of peace.

Handwritten Bombs

Handwritten Bombs

(“Their land also is full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.” Isaiah 2:8)

I would share my air with you,
I would bring tankers of water,
I would shield you from the handwritten bombs
sent in the name of the Lord.
I would take down the flag that flies
like a demon in the skies.
I would share the ground with you that
has been denied
by neighbors near to you.

Come, let us break bread together
in the middle of the rubble,
while the missiles whine like spoiled children
looking for a place to dig craters between
the playgrounds and hospitals.

The stones were here before we were,
the rivers too.
The continents once connected,
the chaos burned and froze and
and thawed
and we think we own it all.

I would share my spare with you,
I would bring my last bottle of wine,
I would throw my last arrow at the fiery beasts
sent in the name of the Lord.
I would dig, I would hyperventilate,
I would exchange my blood for yours;
my time, my place, my kitchen, my bed.
I would learn to play your songs,
the same songs
that haunt every refugee, every ghetto,
every sliver of land owned by no one.

I would wait by the shore where you once
played with three cousins
before the missiles flew. Now two of you
walk in circles underground.

I would enwrap you with sand warmed
in summer. And we would stand, slightly and darkly,
while soldiers and gods keep the census, but we,
we remember the names.

A Member of the Other Team

A Member of the Other Team

(“He asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’” Acts 19:2)

I do not know if I was kneeling to pray,
or if it was a hit to my blindside that drove me to my knees.
Either way I had been disarmed and
my fears turned to tears turned to sweat
on the turf beneath me.

Shoved down or sunk down,
the game was over,
the jig was up,
the tide was lost.

Some had fallen around me,
some with their faces in the ground.
Some had fallen near me,
some with their eyes to the clouds.
Some stumbled over the noise until
everyone left.  The roar was over, the
music piped
away toward the east, and we picked up
the pieces
of a day when the pieces did not fit.

It was my fear that disarmed me. It was a
shiver I had felt the first time I found I could
not color within the lines. It was the flush I
hated that burned my forehead every time a referee
called my name in front of everyone. It was the
blood that drained from my face when the
public announcer
pointed me out, still wet and prone on the ground.

And then I dreamed. Or so it seemed. There was an opponent,
a member of the other team,
been in the league more years than most and carried
his weight in violence on the field.

I had not moved, my knees ached. And I felt a shadow come
over me from feet, to back, to neck, to arms. I felt a shadow
hover. And then the weight, the sweat of another body mixing
with mine.
He wrapped me like a tent. He covered me. I could move,
but I stayed, confused, dismayed and

Red in the face. But he would not let me loose. He only
shielded me. He did not know, but I wanted to refuse. This
refuge, this covering was far too masculine, and would wound
me
if I moved to escape.

But I was not wounded. I did not break. The muscles in the back of my neck
melted. For a moment this was the universe. For a second,
the lectures disappeared into the abyss. After minutes
I crawled
through the tree-trunk arms and saw the empty field.
We walked the circumference and did not say a word.
For once the wrestling was done.

When Winter Calls

When Winter Calls

(“How fair you are, my love. How fair you are! Your eyes are doves.” Song of Solomon 1:15)

When the rain falls, when winter calls so quietly
we do not hear it at all,
then let us find the songs behind the water-logged
skies.
Let us imagine days before the river freezes,
let us allow the magic of unhindered sight
weave the threads of words
to shine as brightly as Christmas lights strung
late in the season.
And let us wait for the laughter that begins
when children
see puddles as simply

New ways to play.

But then there are days when
the seams come loose and we
are no longer waterproof.
How shall we leave the house,
how shall we present ourselves drenched
and cold?

Do you recall how we laughed while our
frozen fingers thawed?
Let us, ice or storm,
ignore the lectures that ignite our fears and
simply learn

New ways to play.

Watching the Dinghy

Watching the Dinghy

(“The philosophers said these things because Paul was telling the Good News about Jesus and saying that people would come back to life.” Acts 17:18b)

They gathered in thinly drawn lines along the
banks of the sea,
watching the dinghy. The prophets had predicted
its demise. Now all that was left was
to watch it capsize.

The clouds grasped its hull with gray fingers,
the winds mocked its path through the rocky waves,
as if to say,
“We already know how this will end.”

It was December and ice pierced the surface tension
like scorpion darts, like a fire so cold it froze everything
in place.

Bundled in overcoats from London Fog, the dragon-speakers
paced the beach, telling tales of death so dark that no one
could remember how
the summer ever began. They stuck hope through the heart with
unholy fear and called it the will of the universe.

Everyone checked their calendars, they circled the day and the hour,
everyone knew the gods do not meander. They expected the faltering,
the great apostasy, the permanent ink on hands and foreheads,
the devil stinging sinners. The Anti-All was there to
draw the dinghy deeper than Hades’ pit. The people clapped
when they heard:
Armageddon.

Across the lake, above the shore, behind the clouds, underneath the
uproar,
a single flare flew from the dinghy towards the dawn. A few looked up,
but most brushed the sand from off their feet. It was time for
the earth to split;
the elect forever, and the damned severed.

Ah, but why,
a few surmised,
would the little boat be saved
only to boil the waters and burn the waves
until destruction was all anyone remembered from that day.

Some still look up, see the sky, see the redemption, hear the cry that
announces
the way that all things
become new
once the rising sun burns the fog
and opens the mirror lake like
a tomb finally emptied. Like a world
finally free.

Meet Me at the Bridge

Meet Me at the Bridge

(“As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came.” Ecclesiastes 5:14a)

There must be a refuge where I can say the things
that drill holes in my waiting, the same things
that trouble the kites chained down by twine. There
must be
a door I can knock on,
a pair of eyes behind it,
a shaking narrative just like mine
that won’t hold my words any longer than
it takes for me to say them.
Then they won’t be surprised when
I say them again on the front porch leaning
into the wind.

Meet me on the bridge,
the one where the ducks wait for bread.
Listen to my naked soul. I’m tired of clothing
every song behind familiar melodies,
molding every word so there can be no
misinterpretation. Or being obtuse enough that
I hide
the meaning behind images of blue mountains,
black seas, fireplace visions, or hyper-spirituality.

I want to want less, like everyone I seem to know.
But the ache expresses more, and I wonder if we all
are holding back because
we fear the eyes that would dice us roughly into
pellets scattered across the floor.

Meet me at the bar, the one that closes early.
Meet me there after last call; I know the owner.
Wear what you would have worn when you were
alone and performed for no one.
I’ll wear a hat because my hair has retreated long ago.

I’m not sure I know who I am
apart from another heart who reflects my darkest moments
and shares the same with me. Days go by without words,
weeks without the one exhale to
wrap it under a breezy sky.