No Soft Landing

No Soft Landing

(“Falling to his knees, he shouted, ‘Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!’ Then he died.” Acts 7:60)

There was no soft landing,
the turbulence spun the day with black rope and chains.
With dirt underneath his fingernails
he worked around the obstacles,
he waited for the stones to fall.
Their anger was a cyclone,
their noses flared like a flashflood,
their eyes red as blood,
their syllables sharp as swords.

He had not planned to lay down his life
outside the city walls. He had not
written the lyrics to incite their rage.
He was a bread sharer,
he was a server with sustenance to
lay upon the tables of the pardoned.

They forgot their history.
They thought they were the favorites divine;
they stooped to find the sharpest angles,
they stood to let the coarser stones fly.
They had been invited and turned it
down without an RSVP. They forgot
idolatry is not just a Roman song.
And the rocks landed, head and chest;
and the sneers sounded, catapulted.

He looked above their heads,
he heard beyond their years,
he breathed the prayer the Son
of Man
prayed and saw Him standing beyond
the crowd, once curious, now aroused.
He fell upon perforated knees and gasped
the breath of the Son
of God. And inhaled the dust of the day,
and pled their forgiveness with the last words
of the day.

An Unvarnished Sky

An Unvarnished Sky

I didn’t expect to go out again today,
the rain reminded me to sit with a pillow under my back and
a quilt around my lets. The call of a friend woke me from
the scratches I was reading in the book and my malaise,
and I took her to pick up her vehicle being fixed 9 miles
up the road.

I have all the time I want. No one wakes me up early,
no one demands my time mid-morning until late afternoon.
The rain spoke most of the day, but I had trouble interpreting
it’s call. Weeks ago, I wrote further ahead in time.

The sky was unvarnished and paintless,
the pencil mast of a sailboat etched the horizon.
I thought of warm waves, countless days
when the warm sun and wet sand were all I desired.

All my days have regressed to mediocrity;
happy hours meet sad sandstone head on.
Like a stream whistling from the hills I
sometimes wish alone felt more like sanity.

I didn’t expect to go out again tonight,
I spent the day centered on myself. Not
selfish,
but sifting every emotion through a sieve of
old beliefs and common words that
leave me mimetic. I can lose myself in the
music for an hour
and be back to brooding by the next
wink of morning. The sky is just a canvass
for my unpublished masterpieces.

A Day Without the Sun

A Day Without the Sun

(“In days filled with trouble, I search for you. And at night I tirelessly lift my hands in prayer, refusing comfort.” Psalm 77:2)

There is no way to explain why the hole I dug
is so empty today. I meant to fill it with artifacts
for the next generation to unearth. But all they will find
is a pamphlet full of words signifying less than a bursting
shovel of dirt.
Don’t misunderstand,
I wanted to be handed truth in a dozen handbags,
but had trouble finding what I insisted existed in
heartfelt utterances of pain.
They laid hands on me to cast out the final vestiges
of insanity. It was instantly regarded as a complete
waste of time.
I can’t forget about the heat I felt when
healing spiraled around my catastrophes. I refuse
to give up on deity in all its idiosyncrasies. I’m
under the thunder of a dozen shovels of earth.
I waited for a new sentence that would outline the
reasons
everything feels empty today. I spoke the words that
I thought I believed and was left
flat on my face underneath a day without the sun.
I love you, that is all that remains of every
statement of faith I’ve ever believed. I hoped to
bring you better news; I hoped I could read a letter
sent in a scented envelope that convinced me to
believe anew the through-line from heaven to earth.
Sandwiched between serious and hilarious
I’ve come to believe all that matters
is the love that comes through the door unbidden,
like a caisson containing the weapons
we swore we would destroy once we followed the
Prince of Peace. But they still are guarded
in our gun cabinets like gold. I wish I could speak
one hundred words to melt the ammunition hoarded by
songs of unbelief.
Today I wished god was a genii who waves a wand
and restores the days I have lost by my misbehavior.
Today it has cost me a little more sanity and my
brain is numb because the words have come to mean nothing
but now grow like poppies in the field.

My Head Couched on a Hymnal

My Head Couched on a Hymnal

(“Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:18)

 

The fires I once warmed my hands beside
have gone out; the embers have died. The
magic words
that supplied my point of reference have all
be redefined.
These recipes, these ingredients,
these passages of time no longer taste the same.

I sat on the beach often enough to feel when
the wind shifts and the spray spatters across
my forehead. I sat well into the evening as the
sand crabs scampered out of sight.
There has always been a longing for
nights like that: a bonfire on the beach,
the sound of foghorns rolling,
stories told and often repeated,
guitars strummed while we meet for
the first time like it was the last time
we would see each other.

I sat on the back pew and wondered,
(I used to call it praying)
if the words were still any good this far down the road.
The divine spark feels like wintergreen,
the inspiration another long winter’s day.
I crave, I cry, wait like I’ve never
waited before,
for someone to tell me all my past
has been forgotten.
Or for them to say they have never
gotten over the way certain words made
them feel. I laid on the back pew,
my head couched upon a hymnal,
while the ache ate its way to my consciousness.

The fires can be relit, I know. But I long
for more than memorized words. The food
tastes better when shared with you.

Between the Hills

Between the Hills

(“But as for me, my prayer is to You, Lord, at an acceptable time; God, in the greatness of Your mercy, Answer me with Your saving truth.”  Psalm 69:13)

I’ve given up just a moment before I
grasped the boiling point of water. So high on
Everest
the water bubbled nearly on its own.
Sometimes I wonder if timing counts at all,
sometimes I beg beyond belief for an answer we
all can appreciate.
I wrote down every request and believed it until
I was too old for it ever to happen. My vision
might be blurry looking so far ahead. I thought it
was faith, but it was probably just a
figment of my imagination.

I wrote it in the flyleaf of my Bible,
I wrote it full of belief. I wrote it when
I had nothing to show for
myself but a few notes on the piano.

God did not answer, and I felt unworthy.
His servants ignored me or took me to lunch
and lauded me with their uncomfortable questions.
No, I did not finish my meal.

So here I am, a thousand miles and a half
divorced from the soil that germinated me.
My soul is sore with sorrow. My memories have
not changed
even though the landscape points to a hidden place
between the hills on the river shore. Now I
don’t want to be remembered; I want to
walk the boards on the stage, write the blocking
in the margins of a newly minted play, and wonder
if the troupe will be at rehearsals on time. I want a
festival artfully filled with folk tunes under an Autumn moon.

God is not my debtor; God owes me nothing at all.
The rain this morning turned to sunshine by the afternoon.

This Late in the Afternoon

This Late in the Afternoon

(“You are praised with silence in Zion, O God.” Psalm 65:1a)

Are the shadows similar to silence,
can I hear the shapes they imitate?
They intimate there is more here than
I first thought. Can silence be the same;
can it be a space that speaks of something else,
though it goes without a name?

There are three, maybe four people I know
whose silence is not awkward. We have not
run out of things to say;
we are simply digesting them, ruminating
to find the truth hidden inside
everyday conversations.

I found a snapshot of my father,
his father,
and me,
and my son. He was not yet one
and we stood on the lawn for a picture
of four generations. My son does not remember it,
so I think I will send him a copy, without comment.
Silence never insists on a particular point of view.

The shadows grow longer this deep into August,
I must find the sunny spots earlier than a month ago.
Clouds swim overhead and the sun ducks behind one
for a few moments. My fruit trees blink when it
peeks back out. Silence is stiller this late
in the afternoon.

The Shortest Sentence

The Shortest Sentence

(“I will boast in the Lord; let the oppressed hear and rejoice.” Psalm 34:2)

There are days meant for reflection when we wait
to meet you at the station. The ground is long between us,
the air is stretched thin. The longing for absolution,
the craving of love with the proper inflection.
There are days when the rain brings pain,
the atmosphere has shifted again and the pressure
pushes the blood around in my brain. I have no one
to blame but the creator of it all.
But then I see you, eyes that have seen deeper within
my soul
than anyone I know. You make me feel the way I’ve always longed
to feel, the way I think we all deserve to feel.
And you do it all with your own pain front and center,
you do it all as sweet as summer grass after the rain.
I’ve confessed more to you than anyone I know.
I’ve admitted my prayers seem useless.

We might sit on upholstered armchairs in a room
in the bookstore where all the children’s books are
shelved. We might choose a dozen and leaf through them.
We might discover some things that
are just meant to be, like the touch of a hand,
hopes intertwined that say; I share the love so
the pain will not win. I share the affection that
keeps the anxiety at bay. And we would smile that night
at the secrets we know, the secrets we never share with
anyone else.

The only time we ever lie is when we say, “I’m fine”
when asked. I’ll tell you the truth next time if you will too.
Sometimes we say it with rounded sounds to make us believe
there isn’t much wrong. But the pain is the same, whether
we tell it or not.

We would know, sitting there among the stacks,
the inflection really said, “I need you” (we fear to
admit it.) We would see the truth in each other’s eyes.
Softly I would stand and give the simplest wink to the shortest
sentence of sadness: “I’m fine.”

Oh Home That I Knew

Oh Home That I Knew

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

Oh home that I knew;
Oh yard with weeds higher than my waist;
Oh sunshine that kept us California tan;
Oh days so old, I will never get them back;
I would lie in the sun forever back then.
I would answer the phone never knowing who called.
I would walk barefoot on the asphalt
by summer’s end. I would write reams of
poetry about unrequited love.

Oh young man goodbye;
Oh brain full of ideas that transposed;
Oh songs full of borrowed chords and melodies;
Oh front yard laughs, I will never get them back;
I can still hear the hesitant teenage angst.
I would walk by your house and hope to see you there.
I would ride 10 miles on my 10-speed
to see you smile. I would even name poems
with your name in the second line.

I carried a hundred pounds on my back,
I waited a hundred years for your glance,
I wanted some kind of freedom, some brand of freshening air
straight off the bay. I wanted to ride
on the sailboats the rich folks owned.
I wanted to tell you why I was so shy.

Oh burden I bear,
Oh heavy words that weight me like sand;
Oh moonlight that deceived me on the front porch;
Oh fancy dancers how memorized the songs;
I would unload this accumulation of grief,
I would call on the phone to ease your awkward mind.
I would drive the two miles to your house
by the end of the day. I would write it like
a letter and leave it to lighten your day.

The Heart Grasps the Sky

The Heart Grasps the Sky

(“Hear my prayer, O God; listen to my words!” Psalm 54:2)

I turned the corner without ever thinking I might meet
my neighbor on the walking path.
We exchanged cherry “hellos”
and traded a little silly talk.
I walked further, toward the cemetery,
and could not find the site where I thought they
laid someone to rest yesterday. I have so many
friends there,
resting there,
that I feel the weight of grief their loved ones feel.
Didn’t they pray for their child,
didn’t they cry out for their wife,
didn’t they name the names of the dying
to the Name of all names?

And didn’t God hear that
I need a friend stronger than death.
And didn’t God listen to
the tears that stained the faces of the beloved.
And didn’t we wish (another word for pray,
though you might disagree) that we could take
their place?

I’ve seen a hundred replacements,
I’ve called a thousand phone numbers,
I’ve listened for the knock on the door,
I’ve waited for a voice to explain it all.

Sandwiched between belief and doubt,
my prayers are not for human ears.
But I would welcome yours, silent as
the first spring night. The heart weeps,
the heart grasps the sky, the heart has
words
that paint a seaside where pain and
relief meet. The heart beats, ready to
write unspoken prayer.

Like Cottonwood Fluff

Like Cottonwood Fluff

(“And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

Toss it into the air and let it float back down
like dandelions or cottonwood fluff, till it surrounds
the day like childlike joy. There is more than enough
to spare. There are voices in the air that call like
church-bells
to announce a new canticle for each doubtful heart.
The starting place is clear, the finish is certain,
but our steps in between demand a lighter hand.
A mother stays home, no gas in the car, and needs
to take her daughter to the doctor. And the breeze
blows as it will
until anonymous help finds its way under the door.
A father fears he has ruined a son with words that
should have been held back. But like a bursting dam
they escaped his mouth, burning the boy’s smile that
used to, unbidden, break the monotony of the grind. He
wished he could take it back, unwind the tone he
never meant. Don’t we all give vent at the worst
possible moments? He feared he was losing his job,
losing his mind, fusing shame and guilt he unloaded
it all in an unintentional moment. He was certain the words
went deeper than all the thousands before. He would
take the fire into his own bosom if he could.
And yet, last Christmas, every family game was punctuated
with laughter, and he began to believe in forgiveness again.

We all dream until there is nothing left to dream.
We all wait until the last moment, but love should never
wait at all.
Born of love (the Parent of us all) and dying at last
(the new Jerusalem) we pave our way (Via Dolorosa)
between aches and joy. And most of us could use
at least one more friend.

And the Fog Grabbed Me

And the Fog Grabbed Me

(“You were like sheep wandering away. But now you have returned to the Shepherd. He is the one who watches over your souls.” 1 Peter 2:25)

And the fog grabbed me deep gray,
and the streetlights faded away,
and the avenues were dripping,
the roadway was slipping towards the
outside of the city.
I turned the steering wheel and
turned it again. I consulted long abandoned
side streets and could not find the
way home.

The sun had dropped hours ago,
the moon had lost all of its night-glow,
the stars had departed their places,
the fog broke my vision and filled the spaces
between the nose of my car and the
height of a man. I could not understand my
ability to be lost; I had entered the town
in daylight. Was I paying the cost for waiting
too long to journey home?

A green sign barely lit through the haze
seemed to rise from in front of me. A sign
with highway numbers, a sign pointing to the
205.
Cautiously I turned onto the ramp,
breathing heavy only frosted my windshield
and the mist hid most everything else.
I followed a semi out of the city.

I am not harmed by my meandering,
I am only a refugee here.
I had gone to meet a friend who loves music,
I had gone to meet her and busk awhile.
I would have sojourned longer but the night
caught up to me. She is a PhD in psychology,
I’m just a weary member of the clergy.
She is a meditating Buddhist,
I am just a melancholy Christian.

Home came in view after nearly two hours,
the fog grabbed the riverbanks like fingers
from an underwater creature. I still hear
our music as I pull into my drive.