The Clouds Obscured the Sun

The Clouds Obscured the Sun

(“Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival.” James 5:7 [The Message])

It had been ages since he had seen the sun. Huddled
behind windows covered in gauze and duct tape,
he wondered how the world had turned while
he hid hoping for safety.
Occasionally peeking through the cracks in
the casements
he knew it was near noon. He knew-later than soon-
that lunch would resume around the kitchen table.
He opened the fridge for another beer and a second
boiled egg. The air conditioning purred while summer
lasted longer than expected.
The postman walked past his house again. It had been
weeks since he opened an envelope at all.

No one knew him, no one knew him at all.
They had met him leaving for the grocery store,
they had seen him mowing his lawn. Hellos were
exchanged,
but the exact nature of his arrangement with life
never came up. Conversations ended with nods and
a dozen steps beyond his front yard. No one knew
if he lived alone, although most people suspected it.

He wanted to know if the clouds had obscured the sun,
if the heat of the day had been sifted through the colander of
mist from off the coast. He wanted to see the waves
he waded in as a child one more time.

The teenager next door practiced jazz on the saxophone.
He listened like a robin pacing the ground.
The notes were embodied raindrops, they were
wordless like his soul. He knew the songs,
they were the standards: Ellington, Basie, and
Brubeck. He opened the window for the first time
in years
to hear the way the music made him feel like
the mornings he spent with the sun on his back
and the magic of a girl who took his hand one time
waiting in line after recess.

The Appropriate Fashion

The Appropriate Fashion

(“What good is there in your saying to them, ‘God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!’—if you don't give them the necessities of life?” James 2:1
6)

If only you would wear the appropriate fashions,
if only you had proof of your labor,
we might hear what you are saying,
we might ride that wave with you.
But first impressions have caught us in the undertow.

Here is some macaroni and cheese from our potluck,
oh, and an old shirt used as a rag I found in the storage closet.
We have five acres and three thousand square feet but,
not a single place to lay your head, not a single place
for a temporary home.

We must be responsible. What if you steal everything.
And God know, if our insurance caught wind,
we would pay through the nose to treat you well.
We don’t know your background, but we are pretty sure,
from the way you smell, you’ve been smoking that weed again.
You can’t fool us,
we are not children.

I must hurry back upstairs, the worship team is starting to play.
There is a seat near the back I think, right behind the sound booth.
(All he wants to hear is something that sounds like truth.)
All we want to give are tickets to heaven,
all we donate goes into the plate to keep the lights on and
inflate the pastor’s pocket. (Although all he wants is to help
people like you.)

“People like me? What do you mean? I did not schedule this visit.
Someone told me I would be welcomed today.”

Yes, but you need to leave the same time everyone else is dismissed.
We have a long list of ways our charity has been enlisted once a
month
on the third Wednesday of the month.

Stay warm until, and here is some cornbread to take wherever
you lay your head. We’re sorry, but we simply have no accommodations

Here.

Like Angelic Clocks

Like Angelic Clocks

(“I will always look to you, as you stand beside me and protect me from fear.” Psalm 16:8)

I’d sit here forever if it could last
one more minute like angelic clocks counting down
the crevasse between dinner and lunch.
Those empty afternoon hours fill more than
straight-line pages of poetry jotted down to
cross the impasse between being and July.
Summer is a luxury;
noon is a magician’s wand;
dusk is a certain measure;
midnight the loon call with moonbeams
setting the backyard cedars on fire like
origami crepe paper. I wouldn’t blame you
if you scratched your head while I cut
a whole sentence out of fabric I found at
the Goodwill.

I’d invite you over for a beer;
I’ve wondered if you are aware that
your breath has moved me closer to shore
than I have been in twenty years.
I don’t mind the ocean, but the salt
has blocked my pores. I need a second
sunrise before we embark on this second act.
I don’t mind if the curtains fall,
I don’t remember the marks. I was cast before
first call. I knew what sparkle was;
I knew how daydreams swore. I wore
every word you unwrapped for me like a
t-shirt with an unknown logo pointing us back
to illumined mornings. We could hire a boat
to take us further from shore.

I’m in the mood for an adventure today.

Piercing the Thickening Blue

Piercing the Thickening Blue

(“He will judge the world with justice and rule the nations with fairness.” Psalm 9:8)

I heard the drumbeat calling the warriors of peace
to the front steps of the palace, to the courtrooms of the mighty.
I heard the trumpets announce liberty to the captives,
from the back alleys of the cities to the wheat fields basking.
I saw the lights shine piercing the thickening blue,
I heard the voice of thunder that never slandered, for a day,
the convictions that love was still the way.
I’ve known how words can stain the most
beautiful visage, the prettiest panorama, and I hoped
like hope does when darkness threatens, that the
morning would bring a change of venue, a renewing
of the mind.

If we could repaint the stenciled rules, black on white stone;
if we could rehearse the lines taught by the truest mime,
maybe we will hear the call to think it all out again.
Maybe we will motion the people in back to come up higher,
to take a seat where their splendor shines.
If we sat with the refugee,
if we ate with the immigrant,
if we walked with the exiles,
if we sang with the prisoners until every chain
was broken,
we could parade past the courthouse and fly the flags of
freedom

Higher than any national banner upon a stainless steel
mast.

A Better Vocabulary

A Better Vocabulary

(“Now no discipline seems to be joyful at the time, but grievous. Yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness in those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11)

I hear from somewhere beyond the hills,
there is revolution in the air. There is movement
that turns the breeze away from nascent factories
to cedars spreading their aroma across the valley.

I found myself hiding behind the window
wondering if anyone
could see me at all.

I hear there is a renovation on the beach,
a multi-level casino, or maybe a resort. It
could bring in millions and employ locals for
a few years.

I don’t know if it is true; I find myself doubting
my purest thoughts. Sandy oceans sometimes pull
me out to sea. I’ll swim parallel to the shore to
find my way home.

I hear there is repeat performance in the park,
a group of friends who learned a few songs together.
They hadn’t spoken to each other in years until one asked
“Do you know this tune?”

I think it is true. They invited me to play, though
I had to learn the music for the first time. I had to
play the lead guitar on my keyboard sounding like a
Hammond B3.

I fear from somewhere in my past,
there is a reunion planned like rain. The last time we
met the words were hot, the words were iron, the words were
hidden beneath un-sunny dispositions. I don’t know why
it needs to be this way.

But I would attend. I can constrain the polyrhythms
for a day. I can coat the syllables with intentional goodness,
I can refrain from rehearsing our old ambitions.
You’ve hit the rocks, I’ve hit bottom. We both know
a better vocabulary by now.

The Date is Wider Today

The Date is Wider Today

(“You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.” Hebrews 10:6)

The date is wider today; do you feel it.?
The air is fuller just now; can you know it?
We could have ridden all afternoon on the offshore
breezes the cooled the summer sun.
We could have spoken all evening of the
ways of children who haven’t learned our foolish
myths and rituals.
The magical sound of water on rocks reaches us here
above the river a quarter mile away. The playful sound
of children’s voices freeze-tagging each other in the
front yard makes the evening open up like the entrance
of a princess who giggles.
The boys play H.O.R.S.E. sending the basketball through
the summer air for hours at a time.
And not once did any of us stop to ask
why we deserve these unicorn moments. We live in
so many dimensions at once it is impossible to discount
a simple encounter with someone,
battling cancer,
humbled in body,
and a voice lower than he once possessed. It is simply
a question without an answer. And so, we hug,
and hope,
and pray the days will stay wider as the road
winds before him unknown.

I’d rearrange so many things if I could convince anyone
to give me a chance. But time moves on like a runaway
train
while we, curious, wonder how to begin again.
Tonight the aroma from neighborhood grills will fill
the dinner hour. We will stop, if we could, and give thanks
for air so full of summer incense and children’s games of pretend.

Like Blindfolded Children

Like Blindfolded Children

(“I was like eyes for the blind, like feet for the crippled.” Job 29:15)

I saw your face and the only thing I could think
was to ask if it was okay for me to say
that I miss you?
You weren’t the first to limp for me
when I had pretended to walk upright for years.
Studying the early morning light
was just another way to disguise my blindness.
It was no fault of my own,
and you saw none to begin with,
but I always depended on your description of
the day to remind me where love began and
rejection ended. I remember you did cartwheels
on my front lawn.

Hanging by your knees from the parallel bars
you saw me inverted; my feet had been burned from
walking on asphalt all summer. But your laugh
was July’s tune, your play like a kitten showing
how long it could hang on the living room drapes
in the sun.

We began the way that all children do;
hide-and-go-seek until it was too dark to
see the secret place in the grove of trees just
between the public park and the old tool shed
we swore was haunted. You would have carried
me on your back, but you were smaller than I was.
So you slowed your pace, and with childlike grace
that displaces adult apprehensions, you showed me
the dance floor, the gazebo, where teenagers pretended to be
married
by the neighbor next door.

Do I know your face? How can you ask? Though years
have stubbornly kept us apart like continental drift,
your laugh is as young as the last day of summer
50 years ago.

There is a grandmother here in town (we are both now
grands, can you believe it?) There is a grandmother in town
who entertains every visitor that sits on her couch and
every baby placed upon her lap.

How old shall we be before we can play again
like blindfolded children swinging at a pinata?
How far we have come, how near do I believe you to be,
(though my thoughts often deceive me.) How long until
we walk a dusky evening with nothing more than
a bunch of grapes and roll down the hill until
our jeans are grass-stained with the imprints of impossibility?
I could see more easily when you were there to guide me.

I Am No Longer Parallel

I Am No Longer Parallel

(“This is why he can completely save those who are approaching God through him, because he always lives to speak with God for them.” Hebrews 7:25)

I’ll outwait the heat wave,
I’ll watch for the message that comes straight from your hand.
I’ll hear little that makes me understand these days,
the way the world teeters and totters these days.
I’ll send you my words on the page so there can
be no mistake about what I am trying to say.
I’ll circle the wagons,
I’ll circle the tags and pricelists until we come
to an agreement. All answers will be in the
range of the standard deviation.

I use my poetry to hide my intent.
I write these verses to disguise the signals I sent.
I read your messages and have to fill in the blanks.
My words are the words between your sentences, even
though
we both lose a little meaning this way.
I’ve uncovered my heart, please let me see yours.
I’m missing a few crucial ingredients to finish the
recipe I hoped would satisfy me completely. I’m not entirely sure
what it is I am hungry for.

I used to know how to pray, or at least the words to say
kneeling under a pew that would include tears I held in
before mere mortals. I used to know the escape routes,
the roads that took me insanely close to the edges of my mind.

Now I want to say it all without metaphor. I want to say
I think I never knew anything I once believed. Will that
still save me? Will that make the dying delayed? I do not
mean to frighten you with my words. That is why I use
simile and parable. But here it is: I am no longer parallel,
I’m at odds with myself and I have no idea the destination
at the end of the day. Perhaps I’ll keep on writing until I
run out of words to say.

I Never Wanted to Be Singled Out

I Never Wanted to Be Singled Out

(“And having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,” Hebrews 5:9)

I never wanted to be singled out,
put on a pedestal,
busily talked about. I never wanted
a plaque to hang on the wall.
I get by with paintings by my friends:
surrealistic dolphins, purple frozen lake scenes,
and a floral still life that rings with the artist’s voice.

I’ve never sought perfection,
though I’ve asked permission more often than I’d want.
I’ve just wanted to pass inspection,
though I stubbed my toe on the un-expectations that were
never explained to me.

I love you no matter what your spoken language,
I’ll meet with you if you’ll eat with me the simple fare
at the concession stand. I don’t like pretention,
I’d rather meet you in a t-shirt and jeans.
Can I buy you a drink? Tell me your favorite brew?
Can I impress you with answers now that you have finally
asked the one question I understand? Honesty demands
that I be able
to ask you questions too.

But I fear you’ll only approach me with your
contingent of well-tailored men. They won’t give me the
chance
to ask my question. They look for ways to
cut our session short. You know I feared your
questions, not out of dishonesty, but because of the
implications that plastic leather seats squeaked like
geese imitating truth.

Here it is, my address. Do not share it with anyone else.
Meet me at the back yard, in the sun, on the deck. And
let us talk of sweet tea while the grandkids play in the water.
Children’s laughter will warm the afternoon.