We Might Learn a Language

We Might Learn a Language

(“The goal of this command is love that comes from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5)

Let me share a secret most preachers will never tell you.
Let me unshroud a mystery that only poets and prophets see.
Take a seat, hold on tight;
I won’t ask you to repeat anything too gritty for your grain.
I’ve got 20 minutes of your time,
I’ve got 300 words and not a rhyme.

When it comes to the end of days
the earth
will breathe a sigh of relief again.
Why do you nearly beg for blood,
for battles, for generals, for warhorses
apocalyptically advancing?
Do you want the world to blaze?
Do you think hell is reserved for the latecomers
who forgot to charge their batteries? Did you make your
wifi
free
for the teen who is homeless (or so it seems).

If you look in the back of my coat closet,
under the luggage and bath towels
you will find a dozen journals. Some with
cardboard binding, one with leather and
a silvery pen, another made out in verses
about the girls I loved in high school; another about
the one who stole me away from them all.

Read them slowly. They are my heart: fear and wildly.

Now, if you can decipher them,
analyze them and untangle them,
you are well on your way to renewed words
out of their usual order.
If you can make out the scratched vowels and consonants,
and remember my name when you are done,
we might be friends. We might learn a language
that holds the heavens in its words, that releases us
from the bromide and potions we sopped up from
study after study of biblical proportions.

For me, the secret must be a mystery until
you can read me without redacting a thing.
If it helps, we can walk by the lake at the end of days
and celebrate the blues and greens and geese and grays,
and leave our sharpened wit buried behind us.