I Wander Less Lonely

I Wander Less Lonely

(“May he be pleased with my song, for my gladness comes from him.” Psalm 104:34)

With open arms I master the song that pools through my mind.
Every breath is full of the divine,
every step so much closer to his abode within.
I throw off the apprehension that keeps me a child of fear.
I create unedited psalms for the king who occupies my ways.
The words from my mouth, the lyrics I write are
meant to be
full of gladness and running over with praise.

It is the little things, after all, isn’t it? A grandson
who wants to play tag with his Papa, who wants to sit in
his lap to read the same story three times in a row.
All this, and more, directs my heart toward the Creator
of my song. Children occupy the altars of my mind,
the spaces left open for celestial celebrations of joy.
Every playful invitation to play is seen as God’s invitation.
Every giggle another reason to breathe fully the depth of creation.
Wouldn’t it be right to take the funny language of toddlers
as the holy voice of God? Wouldn’t it be healing to believe
every unequaled squeal as the instigation of faith?
And when he insists I share his popsicle,
how can I seen it as anything other than the generosity of God?

And so I search the atmosphere for more clues of
the ways of God in the universe. So I take each birdsong as
an invitation to sing like I belong to the continuing creation
and nature’s own symphony.

Taken together, the songs and the words, the play and the giggles,
the unending repetition of his favorite things, I wander less lonely,
I carry my burdens more lightly. And I send words toward heaven
like the flight of the swallows over the fields.

Before my Memory

Before my Memory

(“Let my whole being bless the Lord and never forget all his good deeds:” Psalm 103:2)

Renew my remembrance, let your righteous deeds shine
through the clouds. Tap me on the shoulder and I’ll
turn around to see the face that has called me child from
before my memory, from before your kindness entered my dreams
and flooded my mornings with sunny reminders of love.
I must confess,
I remember less your benefits than I feel yellow jackets
bumping across my brain renaming every panic I ever
felt from yes and no. There was a day when everything felt
like dancing. And the next day I fell exhausted onto the floor.

If I could put my finger on it, if I could wrap my brain around it,
if I could memorize the words that set me free and included
every possibility of wholeness, If I could refrain from the
ennui that settles like fog before the sun burns it away.

My soul has felt weightless only to fall to earth again
smashed against the gorges by gravity. Time set me up
like an unconscious answer to questions that were never asked.

Why can’t I say I’m just not feeling it without
guilt flooding the spaces around me? Where are the words
I pledged to you just moments ago?
Something strums my heartstrings and threatens to send
vibrations deeper inside the thoughts that belong to you.

But you have melted my anxiety before, turned my cavern days
into fields of grain. It still seems out of balance, it still feels untrue,
to spout words of expectancy when my heart is colored so blue.
I’ll live through these days with my imperfections on display;
I’ll look for you behind every shadow and skip the cliches.
I’ll listen long enough for clouds to scatter and to help me remember
the moments you’ve met me unexpectedly.

A New Version

A New Version

(“These words I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. For in the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.” John 16:33)

I have drafted a new version of our agreement and
may send it over to have you read it through. It is dense,
and for that I apologize, but I needed for us both to
banish doubts about simply following the day from the night. Emerging
from my thoughts I reunite with the self I left behind,
worried it would wound me deeper than just keeping the rules.

That is why I am sending this short word and might bury it
in the back yard for fear someone will read and consider me mad,
think of me as too far gone. Reality is,
I am closer today than I have ever been.

Once upon a moment I could generate the laughter that would
ravel my day. I could smile at nothing and feel it warm me
inside out. But the years have been cruel, the years have been
wasted, the years pasted without relief. So, I steal another’s smile
and wonder how long it will take for that smile to fade.
Shine sometimes, and I’ll look around the corner to see
the shadows that testify I have made a difference on the
red siding on the barn.

And yet, in the middle of a brightening day I feel my
sadness heightened without reason. So, I’m writing this tome
and casting it to the wind. A world decorated with
seasons of joy, and fear, and sadness, and hubris
has left me wondering if the multiplied days really
matter at all. Put the pieces together, if you will,
and recite who I am to me
carefully.

Nothing Remains the Same

Nothing Remains the Same

(“The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord has clothed and encircled Himself with strength. Indeed, the world is firmly established; it will not be moved.” Psalm 93:1)

I’ve walked the pavement, I’ve breathed the morning summer air,
I’ve watched the ravens circle the field, I’ve felt the mist of fogs.
I remember the words that used to bring solace to my soul,
I meander on this earth like a vibrating guitar string.
I’ve on the edge of the highway just to see if anyone knows my name.
I’ve tossed my certainty into the silver water,
I’ve abandoned the language that once bound me to speak
in faith without wondering.
I stayed inside today, though the sun was bright.
I napped inside today, and wondered why.

My thoughts had become pinwheels, blown by the wind in
concentric spasms. My heart was smitten by the way
light played with shadows in the air.
My soul had always been saved. My bridges unraveled
above the abyss as I walked across them. I did not fear
the falling, only the words that made the echo like the
cry of a rabbit in distress.

I would tell you what I think now, I would recite my beliefs,
but I need a new language, I need reupholstered words. I will
not simply replace them,
without defining where they have been. They are all linked,
they are all combined. They fit together with infinite space
between them, they dance like electrons crossing the sea.
God does not care that I have circled back,
God does not require my faith or confession.
God clothes me when I’m unexpecting and encircles
me beyond the sight lines of my horizon.
I do not believe in prayer though I practice it.
I do not believe in healing, though I have been mended.
I do not believe in sunrise, I know the earth revolves in space..
I do not believe in new moons, I know how long it has circled us.

I awake to changes and nothing remains the same.

The Edges of Satisfaction

The Edges of Satisfaction

(“All those registered in Judah’s camp…will set out first.” Numbers 2:6”)

Who knew the highway would land me on the land;
who knew that my way might be confused and misunderstood.
The earth, flat against my feet, urged me to walk without shoes;
the sky, wandering without competing, welcomed my eyes to
echolocate the vast gardens of the day. Who knew
the byways would lead me with fewer opportunities
but full of possibilities this side of town.
Who knew my arms could reach out that far.

I might make it home from here, I’m almost
halfway there. The signs register the mileage,
the restaurants are magnets luring my soul.
The apple tree, its fruit still green,
invites the neighborhood child
to reach for the branches and snap a sour
fruit down. They knock on the door to show me
while their pet dog grabs one on the roll, playing
with it like a tennis ball.

I wondered who might have merged on my rugged road,
who knew, less than more, that destiny was a mixture
with air and arms lifted out until there was someone
to embrace.
I waited to watch, no matter how I started or ended,
that I was coaxed silently by those on the sidelines
who wondered
if my walk my just be a hoax.

as alone as I live
there is no shortage of signs along the way
that I could find evidence of life anywhere I looked,
a highway passable and pleasant, full-limbed and
extended to touch the edges of satisfaction and
the darkness of discontent.

We Keep an Eye Out

We Keep an Eye Out

"In every direction, in every conceivable merciful convergence,
the heart pounds like someone waiting for the alarm to go off,
whetting our appetite for the congregation, the happy twirling
like the spinning of a yarn.
Memory is the gift you get for living.
Dreams are the seeds you plant, saving the future
like a first grade concert in the park.

How many breaths scatter across the hills,
how many landslides shortly after noon?
Can we hear the forgotten refrain,
can we see the genesis of creation imbued
with atomic fondness for the divine?
We talk while our joy is unescapable,
our song is an opening along the horizon of
everything, including moonlight, sunshine,
and stars late in the deep night. We can
name a few, along with the planets too.
We thought the lyrics were only English
with a smattering of Spanish. We thought the
words were enough to get us through the day.

We count the background; we gaze toward the sky.
We watch the sanity of uncertainty land like a dove
upon the boughs of cherry trees adorned by
fruit this late in the summer. We cannot wait to
carry them full-handed into the pail we have
used for a decade now and offered at least half
to the children who live next door.
We share it, also, with the deer that amble
through the inhabited cedars shortly after the
sun goes down.

We keep an eye out for the next doe and maybe a fawn;
we keep ourselves busy awaiting the next whistle the
sparrows sing. They are sonnets that surround the day.

Come Out of the Shadow

Come Out of the Shadow

(“I’m giving you a new commandment, and it’s this: love one another! Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:33)

Come out of the shadow, into the light
that bathes the corner shining like an unmined diamond.
Once more you will see, if you drink it slowly,
that the darkness has no hold on you.
The darkness is so untrue that only the
brightness can show you the truth.
Peace has been chasing you; hope, it’s instinctive double.

These days the silence has been playing tricks on you,
the hum of nothing makes you beg for bricks to build
another level over the brackish air beneath.
Conversation made you nervous,
performance left you shaking outside the stage.
Dreams were cut short before the gavel came down.

It wasn’t your fault; you were forced into hiding because
no one showed up when all you needed was
a drink from the spring that everyone else bragged about.
They thought you made so much money that there was
nowhere in the universe you would feel alone.

If you feel the shadow is all you can take, I’ll
join you and we may see the sun rise if we keep
our eyes open. We found our passage slowly,
we walked out the door mostly to breathe the
reborn air. Some moments it only takes
two people breathing at the same time.

I’ll walk with you to Mars or to the moon,
I’ll steer the light with my fingers. I’ll train your
eyes if I must. I’ll help them listen behind me and
look before me and know
we’ll find the diamonds of crystal carbon that
illumine our way.

Once Creased with Pain

 Once Creased with Pain

(“As for Me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to Myself.” John 12:32)

The day was wearily moving slowly,
eerily suggesting more than we could see.
But I had awoke too early to shatter any records
or remember any dreams that directed me gravely
toward an old headstone of a friend who once
was as enigmatic as the first few moments of
the silent breeze the cleanse my mind after resting
longer than I needed to, I was happy to recall her
smile after all. Now it’s locked in my memory the
same way her husband locked me into his own.
It was good to hear her babies lived with joy
mixed with tears, gratefulness mixed with questions,
sorrow mixed with a readiness to embrace something
more eternal than exterior views of emperors dancing
on their thrones.

We are all just jesters, aren’t we, trying to find our way home?
We are fools for fools’ sake, animals sniffing around the edges of
eternity.
It was good to hear words that let sorrow settle in like
a corporeal fog, something we could touch in the distance.
It all brings back to mind the days we sat around propane fires
watching the meat boil and the people waiting together,
giving away blankets and quilts, and saying the things we
would carry for longer than we knew.

We have learned to forgive ourselves of the behaviors we
learned to save us from the trauma we could not name.
We thought it was simply a sinful self that kept us addicted
to ways we soften the pain. But now somehow,
the crucified one has taken all the damage onto a splintery
tree, made that torturous cross his throne by which he
calls us to tell him the harm we could not name until we knew,
he felt it too.

How are we daily drawn by the magnetism of unreserved love.?
How do we imagine a place that soothes every reason we have to
push to the front of a line that will take the same time for us all.?
Ending at the entrance, all together now, we see the relief on faces
that once were creased by pain.

You Wept With Us

You Wept With Us

(“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” John 11:33)

“It’s not time,” they said, “to change the way we see things.”
“It’s not time to answer the questions that plague us like parasites.”
They were right, of course. The answers whirled around the
early evening shadows that were longer than that exposed the
insane preoccupation with ignoring the obvious.
Death is death, there is no other way to explain it.
Underneath each breath, surrounding each tear like a
trapeze artist flying high, unspoken groans gave vent to
inexpressible holes left inside each heart that ever lost
the unimaginable. Now that hole in our heart weighed us down
like an iron anchor hitched to the ground.

I’m sorry we expected you so early. I apologize for pursuing
you. Our tears had not let up for the four days since he
fainted casually dead. We sat with him in his sickness but
we never imagined he would live us without a concrete goodbye.
It’s not time,” they said, “to change our awkward lives.”
It's not time to ask why we always lost the questions with
holes in our pockets.
The day began with sighs and groans and you showed up and
wept with us. You wept with us.
The pangs we felt like swords in our chest were pangs he
took upon himself. He mirrored our grief,
he reflected our heartache, he took our sorrow as his own.

We followed him to the grave as we craved his company.
The sun was setting and we wondered where his weeping
would carry us. We watched in anticipation as the tomb was
opened and his words; brief as a summer shower, invited life
to walk out of the grave like the earth giving birth.

No Time for Questions

 

No Time for Questions

(“So Mary and Martha sent someone to tell Jesus, ‘Lord, your dear friend Lazarus is sick.’” John 11:3)

I read the letter halfway to home,
and finished it arriving in the driveway. There were
requests I could not fulfill,
anxiety I could not quell. But I knew love,
the old love,
the complete love that befriends nearly everyone
with a heart wide open like the North Dakota plains.

How many friends did you have, how many did you
cover with blankets of warm summer evening comfort?

Even now there are loved ones whose breath is shortened
by the unwelcome infections of dis/ease. Even now,
at the end of the letter, are the pleas for presence
and the possibility of miracles. Anything can happen,
any time the pressure can ease around the bed of the
frail and beloved friend.

Even now the street lights beckon, leading me home.
Even then the questions spun like uncertain diagnoses
and breakfast bringing up the last part of the morning.
No one ate that day, no one could. Everyone cried,
everyone revived their hope that this would not be the ending.

We pulled up next to the house, we heard the crying
over the lumbering engine. We cried too, how could we refuse;
there were tears from the front door to the kitchen and turning sharply
to the dimmed room halfway down the hall.

We opened the door, and we knew the sickness together.
We left extra late and arrived slightly early. We sat with
the illness speaking between us. It was certain that death
had filled the room and smirched our hopes. Taking his hand
we implored mightily, joined our voices with the others crying
for your vitality. But your breath faded, slow, one or two
lungfuls left. Your heart listened until the final groggy beat.

Where was he, the miracle worker? How did I get there before
he arrived? What would come of tomorrow with our friend
all but dead? What faith could we borrow once he was entombed?
His sisters had sat with him the whole long day. And now they
exhaled a breath they had held for nearly four days long. The
tomb was ready. The time was now. And I offered to wrap him
in strips of linen for the friends to carry him to the grave.

We cried because he could have been saved. We had seen the
chosen
one
cure even worse maladies and late. Why wasn’t he here,
why did he delay. We had no time for questions. It was time
to lay him on the bier and try to sleep the night away.

It’s Easy to Dream

It’s Easy to Dream

It’s easy to dream once your eyelids close;
it’s harder to dream what you want like a set
of your favorite clothes.
I tried to direct the choir, now I just play the piano.
I tried to feel the fire that had burned in my heart
all afternoon.
I hoped to live within the ropes that tied me to you.
I remember how ICE dressed like masked gang members
to confiscate some human’s feet from the concrete.
I’ve seen the gulag where they keep them like
cattle waiting slaughter. I’ve heard the mumbles
about the bible, I’ve seen their inchoate references
to excuse their handgun executed arrests.

I threw my hands up hoping you would see that
I cannot excuse or stomach the worship that parades
itself like confetti on the front rows of avenues.
There are no demons to attack, there is not warfare
to extinguish,
there is only love, love only love, left for us from the
One who forgave every notion of adversity from the pain
that would have driven sanity from the best of us.

I saw your attitude inside the congressional halls, the
room of the people. I saw your faux prayers that you prayed
to push through the bill that removes hope from millions. I’ve
heard your prayers on the corner in direct defiance of Jesus’
direction to pray alone in our own room.

I threw my hopes down the tunnel created by hidden boys
thinking they could hide inside the dark trees and foliage.
I dreamed the American flag was removed, finally and for all,
from every church’s stage. I dreamed we learned that empire
is the enemy of following the Lamb.

It's easy to dream when you sleep so late. It’s lately
uneasy, but I’ll keep speaking and trust the words will
end up carving a new way in my mind overnight.

The Pockmarks of War

The Pockmarks of War

(“He brings an end to wars throughout the earth. He shatters the bow and breaks the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” Psalm 46:9)

I don’t need to think about it,
I don’t need to start again. I’ve heard the cry
of victory that savors peace like an early supper.
I’ve heard the mothers begging for skirmishes
to cease. I’ve seen the pain melting from the faces
who swore to study war no more.

Throw the spears into the forge, remake them into
garden rakes. Throw the guns into the furnace, remake
them into gazebos where the only invasion is music
on summer evenings.

Heed the voices who are crying. Heed the babies
who have been dying because you had to avenge
everything that ever pained your land.

The refugees hover inside whitewashed tents,
they take cover when they hear the missiles whistle
overhead. The children know the drills too well.
I’ve watched them huddle, leaving behind every
vestige of nationality. Sadly, the vileness of violence
followed them to nowhere home.

Why do we use words like love and caress our bombs?
Why do we mutter syllables of peace and prime the fuses?
Why do we pray and send away for more munitions?
Why do we hug it out and then paint targets on people’s backs?

Do you see creation? Do you see the children’s songs?
Do you hear the sound of tomorrow? Do you hear the robin’s song?
Can you feel the beauty of lands where pockmarks of warfare
have ceased? Can you feel the daylight that opens the door
a self truer than military salutes and slogans?