Your Face in the Rain

Your Face in the Rain

(“The Lord's faithful love never comes to an end. He never stops being kind to us.” Lamentations 3:22)

I don’t want to sound like him,
I don’t want to look like them.
I don’t want to dance like a thousand children,
I only want to see your face in the rain.

I want you to know me by the lines on my face,
I want you to know you will never be replaced.
If you want to find me,
if you’re looking for my soul,
come look in the puddles
on the low side of the road.

I don’t want to be like you,
I don’t want to see like us.
I don’t want to read a hundred mystery books,
I only want to see your face in the rain.

Come visit me at the hovel I know the best,
come look me up where grit and grace come to rest.
Come sit with the broken,
if you really want to know
what moves me today,
what is nourishing my soul.

I don’t want to shine like gold,
I don’t want to be that old.
I don’t want to sing another dozen songs,
I only want to see your face in the rain.

You may not enjoy the cuisine,
you may prefer to be unseen.
You may return to your home
once
you see I like being alone.

I don’t want to get a raise,
I don’t want to occupy space.
I don’t want to number my weeks and my days,
I only want to see your face in the rain.

If I Believed in Fairies

If I Believed in Fairies

(“Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” Luke 1:78)

The day was silent save for the
sleet needles tapping on my window.
They only teased of coming snow.

If I believed in fairies, I imagine they sing
just above our wavelength, carried on ice shards
from clouds to loam or heather.

But today is quiet, a whisper would be too loud.
Your voice, though, cannot disturb the empty canvas
I sit in these days.

One word, or two, and before you know it,
the sun mocks the morning blues away.
Stay. We will sing until the next morning

Or

Until another day like this one.

I can dream standing up,
I can dream step by step,
I can imagine a hand on my shoulder,
I can conjure someone whose silence
turns my reliance on solid ground completely
upside down.

Did you like the photo I sent you. I am
old now
aren’t I?
The lines mark days I no longer remember,
the gaps between my teeth
make me smile, mouth unopened.

But there are still corners of my brain where
I imagine dancing at prom,
reading out loud,
sitting or rolling down a hill until
we can’t stop laughing and remember
everything we hoped would develop with enough
time on our hands.

Today I can see it slightly, when days felt summer,
when nights felt like love. Today I remember and
fill the empty spaces with your portrait

And finish the painting with words.

Ode for Nex Benedict

Ode for Nex Benedict

(“He has done mighty deeds by his power. He has scattered the people who are proud and think great things about themselves.” Luke 1:51)

The teenager had a cat,
a pet with a name fit for Olympus. Cats
grow well in
Oklahoma.
Sometimes people do not.
They were a teenager walking through
ancestral ways, navigating high school hallways.
There was beauty in their handsome face,
there was grace in their chocolate eyes,
there was sadness in their beautiful soul.

How could anyone erase a life just beginning?
How could fists land on the body of one finding their way?
Why would anyone pound that weary head against a cold
bathroom floor?

How do you smile, you self-satisfied governor;
how do you sleep at all? A restroom was all they asked,
a place safe from the onslaught of peers,
a place their own to prep for art class or
US government.

One teacher, one ally, one friend who listened well.
One teacher speaking out for their uncertain path,
one teacher harassed for speaking on their behalf.
One teacher threatened and resigned. One teacher gone
who saw only a child of love.

While you argue over they/them, he/him, she/her,
compassion is lost in your arrogance.
They are a single syllable, uttered in one breath.
They can be the difference between life and death.

And so, they, Nex Benedict,
were battered in the bathroom where students
sometimes sneak a smoke before class.
And so, they, Nex Benedict,
were shattered with fists full of glass.
And so, we, somehow, must mourn in ways
that twist us bloody.
And so we must grieve until the last raging idiot
discovers the silence that lasts.

Today I am angry. Today do not call me.
Today it could have been my child. Today
my rage is uncontained.

Nex Benedict, a child worth loving,
we wish they had known you. We hate
the religion that berated you,
the bile that poisoned adults and translated your
humanity
into a mangled target of their certainty.

Holy Creator, may they, Nex Bendict, live long
in our memories to
help up become so much better than we

Have been.

Imported Air

Imported Air

(“God has set everything right for us. Come! Let’s tell the good news…” Jeremiah 51:10a)

He was just a victim of transportation and
found himself walking on imported air.
The rain had finally polished
the stones along the riverbank and so
he sat outside the first sunny day of the year.
A burger for him and some
fries for his pup, they watched for seals
who had gone home for the day.
The smelt, not fit to eat, mostly, had nearly
finished their run.
He was just a well-dressed wanderer and
found himself wishing for christening.

Sounding Like Tablas

Sounding Like Tablas

(“So then, no one should brag about human beings. Everything belongs to you.” 1 Corinthians 3:21)

And I heard a voice sounding like tablas against
a sweating sky. I never second-guess the sounds anymore.
And I saw angels flying,
though I saw nothing at all.
And I knew the world was filled with thoughts that had
wandered behind me
from the day something died within until
the moment I wrote this

WORD.

And I cannot describe, to even my own satisfaction,
why the sun should smile as it does.
I could not explain the way roosters crow,
doves cry,
and the earth dances, the earth whirls,
the earth prances, the earth twirls on its path
to who
knows
where.

My fists are unbent. My fingers are swollen from
years of piano notes,
from decades of fretting the chords to form
someone else’s songs.

I still hurry, hoping I’ll hear another pronouncement
that all is well, and all manner of things shall be well.
But the proclamations do not go before me;
they capture me,
they unwrap me before
I ever hear them coming.

I can see it on your face. No, I can imagine it.
The wrinkles around your eyes as you squint at my
imprecision.

I would explain. I would elucidate. I would hand out
an outline. I would project a PowerPoint. But

Some things

Are more felt that explained. And Spring beckons me
from this weary winter. Spring caught be by the heel with
the first sight of daffodils in my neighbor’s garden.

Our Choreography Renewed

Our Choreography Renewed

(“The curtain in the Temple was torn into two pieces, from the top to the bottom.” Mark 15:38)

Once the illusions are scattered,
once the veil is removed,
once the hardened arteries are cleared,
once the implanted devices that replace the
original design are removed,
we might see the sun the same again.

Why is everything so small,
why are the stars any different here?
Why do imprisoned thoughts
sit enthroned behind halls draped with
crosses?

Though a thousand flags wave,
though banners catch the wind like cannonballs,
though lavender is turned to dust,
though our sculptures rust in the rain,

We can learn to trust the love within
the center. We can drop the disguises we
thought defended the shores from foes we
never had.

Our beds are unmade,
our pillows are stone,
our vision is dilated,
our view is myopic.
We see what we have been taught,
we teach what is written,
we do not read it beforehand.
We underline words that
close the doors to
the expanse that existed before we had

A single second to think.

The illusions can lift like fog, the rifts can fill with
the cooing of doves. The fields can be spotted
with does standing in the snow.
Our breath can come slowly,
our choreography renewed.
The chances are good if we sit in

Someone’s kitchen, smell the bread baking
against the uncommon rain,
that we will see the length between us is
only the same as the space between angels,
as the rays of light between droplets of dew.
We will learn to dance unrehearsed and put
our distinctions away while we savor the sunlight
that drenched the vine, savor the moments like
early wine.
And learn, without trying, that veils only obscure
the truest nature of things.

The Sky Drips Like Honeycomb

The Sky Drips Like Honeycomb

(“But God now unveils these profound realities to us by the Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 2:10)

There are arms you cannot see,
ideas that seem like nonsense,
handy jargon always out of context.

I once imagined everything and then
was hemmed in by corners higher than
sight for me.
But the walls, now translucent,
become clearer when words are replaced by
unexpected dreams
of universal dances like a day in August,
like old friends limping while the music laughs
like angels.

The sky drips like honeycomb for those who will see it.
The leaves shade us from recently honed blades that
try to explain the dangers of passive resistance.

Just once (I am lying, just all the time) would you please
join us
on the picnic grounds where children play,
where peaceful dragons give rides to anyone who
will believe?
Fainter than day we can leave our insistence behind
and roll down the grassy hills, tumble down the
embarcaderos to watch the seals do the backstroke.

I still find it difficult to
to write lyrics about imminent events.
Once I knew I foresaw them, or at least a prophet had.
Now it is merely the stream that cools my feet this moment,
this day, this space between parentheses.

The steamroller has been garaged in the shed;
it is the day of gathering, the day of feasting instead.

Tides of Geese

Tides of Geese

(“But I, the Lord, will protect you, and you will not be handed over to the people you are afraid of.” Jeremiah 39:17)

I am afraid my tears have been misquoted,
my silence has been soaked in
new translations before the ink runs.
But no matter, I cannot interpret the
chaos that wanders in and out of me.

Because we do not comprehend the
quarter tones that descend from Tibetan hills
they pass like granite beyond our ears and into the
western fields where
flocks of geese land to lunch. We walk by
and do not notice the way they occupy the open space
as if they own it.

They were like the seafoam-on-sand that displaced
my toes,
then fills the depressions left behind.
I step toward them, they turn and move as one,
safely several feet from me, then, as I pass,
turn and take their positions again.
They are the tide, and I am the anti-moon.

Their feet and mine are glued to the same earth.
The heavy air coats us all, dew-like just outside of
the winter’s grasp.

When I said I was afraid, I did not mean I shiver.
But to explain my tears is like spinning tales of
Greek tragedy so dense you would yawn and look for
an exit from my meander. You would tip your hat,
take your leave, and wander to see if the geese have
yet mounted the winds.
And I am left with untold stories. I would strip them
bare,
though,
unwinding the embellishments and leaving nothing but
a storyline so familiar that the denouement is discerned from the
first staccato vowel.

Christ is all around me.
He is around you too.
I am not the middle.
And neither are you.

Christ is all around us,
In the tears, songs and dust.
We are not the ending.
The beginning is trust.

The View of the River

The View of the River From Here

(“For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy upon them.” Jeremiah 33:26b)

I’ve heard the excuses that sentence a man to
eternal consequences for a single mortal life.
I’ve seen your silly dramas you
tag
as Heaven’s Gates
and
Hell’s Flames.
I am weary.

Believe me,
I have sinned with the best.
I have hidden it even better.
I have wished my follow was better than my
swallowing every temptation that insisted that
sundown was the best time for finding the one thing
that would slow down my mind.

I packed my suitcase for heaven
but
could never tell whether the vacancy sign
was designed to invite me to a dinner by the pool.
I will not be consigned to hell
no matter
how loud your fist-pounding pronouncements.
I have seen the other side of the sunset
and the day follows plain as the love that
explains it all in oil paintings on the wall.

Fashion another runway, leave your granite slates
outside the gates and
greet the canvas that was painted on a day when
everything had melted, a day when
we were all shocked about
the grace of it all.

The same day you scared the children half-mad
with your fiery hell,
the people on the periphery were starving for
breakfast. But the children gathered at the
front of the stage
nonetheless,
frightened about the heaven they might miss.

As soon as the morning peeks through the window
I will show you
the view of the river from the top of the hill.

If You Decide to Dig in My Earth

If You Decide to Dig in My Earth

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

If you decide to dig in my earth I
hope you find something
worth your time. I know where the bones are buried.

My daughter prayed that her hamster would live
one night on New Year’s Eve. I don’t remember the little
rodent’s name, but when we looked the next morning
he was dead. I never could explain why Power
and Love
could not keep him alive.

I don’t blame you for wondering how
certain flowers grow in the soil of my heart.
I see the all of it, you only see the part.
I have piled layer upon layer to hide what
I hoped would never be seen. I figured I would wait
until I was
80
to dig to the bottom again.

We buried the hamster in the back yard between
bulbs for tulips and daffodils. The ground, nearly frozen,
broke beneath our trowel. We laid him in his grave,
hoped the earth would welcome him. We bought her
another hamster weeks later. He escaped one day,
never to be found and maybe still haunts the house
running around the rafters 20 years hence.

If you want to know what is unseen in me,
I am ready for you to ask. If you want to hold me
hostage to my past,
I don’t mind. There is truth in all of it.

Spring warmed the bed where yellow and red
popped from the earth toward the warming sun.
And my daughter wanted to exhume the tiny body
planted a season ago. The same trowel that prepared
his final place
poked beneath his grave. Unearthed, the plastic
sandwich bag which was his coffin
contained only tiny bones, a skull as small as
popcorn. Her curious eyes and curious hands
silently greeted the remains.

It is no lie that my garden hides relics
I wish you did not know. But I will reveal them if,
after seeing their whiteness and death,
you stay for coffee and see me the same
as you have from the first.

The Age of the Earth

The Age of the Earth

(“Don’t pay people back with evil for the evil they do to you. Focus your thoughts on those things that are considered noble.” Romans 12:17)

That was a rainbow you saw hiding
behind the backside of the barn. Those were
bended rays
that moved around the boulders in the way.
The barn, red slat siding, tilting toward the river,
had stood straight as time when the neighbors first
raised it.

The boulder, worn with age, hid eons and eons of
abrasion inside. A golden salamander had sunned
upon the edges that the waters eroded. A boy
and
a girl
had jumped from its gray table-top
laughing into the river.

That was before the borders were drawn,
that was before English was the only acceptable language.
That was before the fences were erected,
that was before feet were inspected for where they
had come from.

Stay put. Stay out. Turn around. Go back.
Pay here. Stay there. Hit the ground. Flashback.

Churches grew on ground next to sweat lodges.
God gave the white man firearms,
the native only had axes.
It was clear whose right it was to
occupy the dirt. Bullets were the proof,
power was the religion that turned moccasins
to boots.

Let us keep our stories straight, let us rehearse
the communal memory so
rocks and barns and sands and stones
remind us of our atonal ways of composing our songs.

The same sun that dried the buffalo hides
burns the skin of children too long playing on the shore.
The same atoms that began eons and eons ago
build the hearts and lungs and feet and hands
of each of us,
now, and ever shall be.

When I shake your hand, I shake the molecules of
both our distant ancestors and the fires they built to
keep themselves warm.

The Spelling is Correct

The Spelling is Correct

(“For from him, through him and to him are all things. Glory to him forever! Amen.” Romans 11:36)

What to say to someone who has
never known green,
or to describe the invisible spectrum that
makes the grape leaves grow?

I’ve seen less than I know,
I know less than it seems,
I walk slower when dreams
slip through the curtain between
perception and the beginnings of things.

Waiting for the day to speak out loud so
I can send a message. Words have left me
at such a loss
and my dreams disturb and
entice me. They play around the edges.
They resurrect the error of judgement.
They offer make-believe lovers.
The leave the day smelling of vinegar.
They are my only connection

To

A few of you.

If I would not spend the day inside my head
I might get around to sending a letter.
But then I think of all the things I’ve said that
--in their context--
should have been invisible. Instead

I place my fingers on the black keys,
count the alphabet out loud and make sure
the spelling is correct.

At least that is something I can rearrange if
it is pointed out to me.

What to say when
your heart feels larger than the world.
What to say when it feels constricted
at the end of the day.

These thin membranes that separate
thought from thought
still feel connected in wireless wonder
to something I am not.

Remember when we sat on the hills,
looked at the sun
and wondered why we were here?
Remember when every conversation was
epic until

Your brother or my sister,
or camp counselor or a dad
cracked a joke that...

Remember how
we forgot what we were
talking about?

Their Faces

Their Faces

(“Do not mistreat or oppress aliens, orphans, or widows…” Jeremiah 22:3b)

Have you seen their faces?
Or do you merely repeat the phrases you’ve read
that crawl across your screen?
Have you seen the shredded clothing hanging
from razor wire
in the river?
Have you listened to the babies cry,
do you understand the language that
drives the numbers through drought and desert
just to live without dying?

She wasn’t yet fifteen years old
and knew the streets far too well.
She was marked for resale,
she was a loss leader priced by
a shadow manager
and paraded at night on concrete.
She still had friends, high school girls
still wishing for prom. They knew her face
better
than the bargain hunters who bought her,
than the wheeler dealers who sold her.
They found her, midnight blue, hiding under
a dark gray hoodie. They invited her, childhood friend,
to a house with husband and wife, and two wide-eyed
preschool brothers. It was

Impossible.

Until someone dropped off a mattress,
another shopped for new clothes. A judge gave
emergency custody to a family that had no idea
what they were doing. But they did it, and so did
dozens of benefactors who surrounded that home
that housed a teenage prostitute for a fortnight.
Fourteen days, phone calls every hour, a family
one hundred
miles away took her in. She was no longer an
emergency, no longer a hidden face at night.

Have you listened to the babies who
have no voice but
your own? Have you touched the mud stretched faces
of crackling tears? Have you believed that, though you
are only one,
and they may be a thousand,
that fish and loaves can still be multiplied.
Can you open your hands to touch the faces that once
were only phrases on the news?