The Words Came Slowly

The Words Came Slowly

(“Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.” Psalm 105:19)

Perilous sounds like a good word to start a poem,
Unaccomplished might end it.
Sold like a slave and bound like a trapped rabbit,
we sometimes are fettered by our own lack of imagination.
We hope to find our future buried shallow in
our back yard.
We never expected to be at the cliff’s edge
with no way to turn back into who we once had been.

You can say what you want,
you can seek however long you will,
but my story will always stay the same.
Unaccompanied in a land I did not recognize
I stuck my claim on the lyrics hidden between
each note and time signature.
I memorized the songs of my youth and
sang them solo while I waited for a door
I could not open
to allow me entrance into the next level of
my dreams.

Affectations may be the words you find snuggly
tucked away mid-poem,
lingering may be the jump-off point to the final
verses. There were strange sounds that sifted between
the cracks of my catalytic walls. There were unfamiliar
songs teasing me to spend my spare time learning them
like they were my own.

Renovation began the moment I entered the
dimly lit room.
Patterns emerged like dust dancing in the sun.
The words came slowly and I learned them well;
the tempo was off, but I sang them sound.
Completed sounds like a good word to end a poem,
Unharmed might begin it.

A Blank Slate

A Blank Slate

(“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20)

I’d like to believe I am a blank slate.
I’d like to think I’m ready for the writing on the wall.
I’d enjoy the chance to talk in private the ways
I preside over public speech.
I’m ready for the old instructions to be rewritten
on my heart.

You were lying by the side of the road, a
castoff
of better times. Nothing in your pockets and
nowhere to go, you canceled your subscription to
unhelpful words of painted pain.

I’d like to believe I’d give you a chance.
I’d like to believe I’ve read the situation well.
I’d enjoy the chance to enjoy an open door
before I closed it for the afternoon.
I’m ready for the completion of the courses
I signed up for free.

You were worn out, a castaway who once
believed
in basic rhymes. Your mind was crawling with
nowhere to go, so you sat on the side of the road
and waited for--and waited for--the mail to arrive.
Words on paper might transform the vagaries
of time.

I’d like to write on the whiteboard of your heart.
I’d like to think you could read me like an open book.
I’d enjoy the chance to show you something
more than recited dogma, to serve you something
more than leftovers and crumbs.
I’m ready to accompany you through the shadows
others had left behind.

As You Started Your Descent

As You Started Your Descent

(“If I say, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your faithful love will support me, Lord.” Psalm 94:18)

Was the path too steep for you,
Or too slippery like a
snake on the ice?
Were the days laden with thunderstorms
and rain? You had been walking such a long time
that fatigue caught you unawares and
captured you in its claws. The day plodded on.

You had started a run,
jogging before the heat set in.
You waved everyone on that passed you
as you took to the trail. You always started it
slow
knowing your muscles and lungs needed to
warm up beginning so early in the morning.

The pathway rose above the suburbs and became
isolated at the top of the hill. The cedars and firs
lined the path and people had all gone into town.

So you quietly wondered if the mail came this far.
Your mind wandered cautiously; you thought about the
children who played outdoors in the summer sun.
You heard their laughter while you measured the
peak ahead, the point of the excursion.

But the mud from yesterday’s downpour
oozed onto the path you tried to finish. Like an
unfinished song you began to slip, one step away
from sliding down the hill.
It was not planned, it was the last thing you expected.
You reached out to nothing in particular; a tree, a weed,
a hand, a creed you could plead before you went down.

It might have taken a second; it might have lasted
the afternoon. But the hush of the moment kept you
rockily on your feet. It made you remember the times
others held the hand you offered before they reached
the ground. And a drizzle of laughter lit the
path for a moment as you started your descent.

Paper-Thin Verdicts

Paper-Thin Verdicts

(“And the anointing that you have received from him dwells in you.” 1 John 2:27a)

Things become clearer the farther I am from the
shore of my previous encampment. I was divided.
I suspected that love would win the day,
that spectacles faded away the longer they
sank into deepened ridges of belief.
We were not nearly as rigid as some,
but I shook and trembled when the
drought left me thirsty and burdened,
hardened against the living springs.

I still see the occasional pantheon of
unfulfilled wishes for something more solid
than words on paper thin verdicts. But there
were times when people came from miles away
to spectate at the reports they heard on a
balmy Sunday afternoon.

We learned to live off the experiences we
heard described by preachers of a dozen
days too soon. I read their books and imitated
(quietly, I should add) their rhetoric and stubborn
proclamations. People were sitting on windowsills
to witness it all. But moments later they still
walked away lamely to return to their games of
mutual superiority.

Today I hear, and demand far less; today I
appear to be listening for a voice I missed
when doctrines turned into trauma, and my
mind was wired for weirdly preoccupied
judgement. Today I learn, and understand far less;
today I am happy for the messy ways that the
Spirit speaks. When people traveled for miles
to see Spirit sensations they never thought to
find her in their own hometowns.

Yes, my ways are dustier now,
my mind uncertain but happy with the
unanswered questions that do not demand
decisions for the defense. The gospel is
muddier than that. And that makes me convinced
that clarity has presently inspired itself
on the eyelids of those who find that a word
or two
can fill an entire day of believing.

Maybe It’s Because

Maybe It’s Because

(“I have given strength to a warrior; I have raised up a young man from my people.” Psalm 89:19b)

Maybe it’s because time is catching up with me;
maybe it’s because I remember my youth only yesterday;
maybe it’s time to admit that memory is sometimes a thief.

Because I’d be there in a moment if you called;
because we were coated with primes and pastels;
because we left the door open to let in the rain.

I can reach further back than my first named love.
I can sing raggedly of my first bottle of wine.
I can see beyond a young man’s strength and spend
the afternoon wondering why it lingered so long.

Maybe the images are murky, falling so far behind me;
maybe it’s only the fragrances I’ve forgotten;
maybe we paced down main street after midnight.

Because I once could run a relay backwards;
because I once could play football in the mud;
because the summers were hot while the A/C whined.

I can rarely see the difference between love and loss.
I can cancel plans without giving it a moment’s thought.
I can playfully suggest we get together for drinks
and act like every day is a portal to something new.

I never worried about getting the last laugh;
I usually found the humor hidden beneath our words.
I would call and invite you over if only you did not live
two time zones away.

I might stick my neck out and suggest that when
we were young
we were holding our
options open. And now we are old and wondering
if our life insurance is paid.

But all that matters, all that shatters our illusions of
grandeur
is a gentle whisp of a wind that reminds us of summers
easily passing into autumn.

 When My Day Will Come

(“The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness. But He is patient with us, because He does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9)

 

anger and wrath of a warrior god will swipe away the remainder of the
uninitiated from the gravity of earth. They will be judged most righteously;
you expect them to be taken silently in the middle of the night.
You try to scare people into faith, but faith that warns of all-consuming
heat
simply will not last past the end of summer.

in the end times. Every storm is not judgement from an angry god.
Every traffic accident you survive but leaves someone else dead
is not worth your words telling everyone how God saved you.

eons to God.
We do not control time, we barley know how to respond to it.
If we clean our house faster, we have more time by the end of the day,
but what do we do next? And here I am, 71, and I can remember
a girlfriend from 50 years ago, and most of her phone number. I can
remember baptizing a friend in a duck pond and 5 am and can circle
back to that memory almost any time I want. But the future comes
more slowly and with less options as I age. Fondness and regret are
the twins of the past. The future moves me to weariness and anxiety.
But God, our patient God, dwells in every microsecond, all at the same time.
Even the dreams I have take me to a short workable future or to a past
where shit was given in place of truth.

and another one, looking out the window and wondering when my day will come.

It’s My Turn to Pay

It’s My Turn to Pay

(“Defend weak people and orphans. Protect the rights of the oppressed and the poor.” Psalm 82:3)

Once the day began with thought it would be better
to stop ignoring the troubles of our neighbors up the road.
We should have surrendered long ago and
stood with them in the rain while they waited in line
for untimely help. We covered them in
random songs we learned along the way.

I’ll meet you for breakfast; I’ll drive by and
pick you up by 8. It’s on me, by the way. It’s
my turn
to pay. I’ve heard what people say about your
downward turn of luck and then they walk away
like they are best buddies with God. They spew
undeserved cantons of excuses on the ground.

We hoped to persuade the unequal ground that
your pain deserved protection and your lack deserved
more than a presumptive hearing.
We surely would serve you something more substantial
than the soup we poured into casual tureens. Maybe we
could stand outside in antiseptic sunshine and convince
the onlookers of your full humanity. We would squarely
with you as we ascended the pyramids of eminence.
We would write the epitome of verses that covered the
curses that excused puffed-up rhetoric that left you living
behind the ghost town facades.

We left our assumptions behind this time. We warmed
up your coffee, we shared our hashbrowns, we picked up the
bill
and left a hefty tip for the server who called you by name.

I Think I Understand

 

I Think I Understand

([Jesus said] “Do you love me?” Peter said, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” John 21:17b)

I can’t help but wonder what you might
ask of me.
I’ve finally figured it out, though, that you
do not want to shame me. You meet me here in this moment,
ask me a question about where I live now. Not how I lost it
back then. Not how guilt forced me to forge my way to the one
thing I found comforting before you ever tapped me on the shoulder.

I barely understand you most of the time.
And when I do understand something inside starts off
dreamily
but ends up, quite frankly, wishing I had not heard.
What do you call a casual friend who knows every move
you’re about to make before you have even given a moment’s
thought?

One: I wasn’t ready for the question.

Two: I acted like I had no clue.

Three: I needed to warm my hands by the fire. I swore with
            the maiden who insisted she knew.

And then you had to walk by and look at me. I did not have
time to hide. You were already beaten to an inch of your life
but, that look, that gaze that was a blade to my heart, was a wavelength
that caught me unawares.

You have no reason to think I love you. But you knew my answer
buried deep under the rubble of my shame. You deftly pulled the words
from my tongue like
1,2,3,.
And I felt ready to cry again upon my confessions of love for you.

I turned away when you needed amity; I damned myself the moment
you saw my reddening face. But you never insisted,
never elicited an apology from me. I think you could see it
in how I shrunk back quietly to the previous comforts I practiced
before I knew you.

You told me to feed your sheep, and I felt I had nothing to give.
But I will care for them as if they are mine. Do you trust me so,
given all my stumbles in the dark?

You won’t let me wallow in the past,
you never held it against me at all. I think I
understand
this part.
Why heap shame on a man whose entire face
shows such deep wrinkles of self-administered guilt?
I think I understand.

Undiluted Beauty

Undiluted Beauty

(“Do not be so certain you have won. Do not speak with your head held so high.” Psalm 75:5)

Do you know what I do not;
Is your power so great you have brought it to the battle?
Do you take counsel or do you put your head inside a
soundproof booth to keep your personal plans alive?

I used to need to be certain. I figured I was truly right.
I met every argument with a counter more wise,
I heard every disagreement as a disguise keeping
people from candor. I was the conveyer of truth,
my arguments were leakproof as they left my mouth.

But my soul hungered for more. My soul left me to
wonder why the surer arguments started to leave me empty.
I could hold my answers in a single hand but the truth
was numerous as all the grains of sand. How could I
be that foolish;
how could my doctrine be so brutish?

Are you still grasping dearly to parchment paper
copied hundreds of years ago? Do you remain sure of
the single verses you have plastered across your walls?
Has your mind ever changed? Has your fight ever ceased its
battles?

Under this sapphire sky are seashell eyes waiting for
freedom and unshackled fire within their soul. They long
to see
a day turning to night as the pastels of evening paint
the horizon.
They long to hear undiluted beauty and see the symphonies
of love from an orchestra of joy.

What shall we feed them this time? What recipes will we use?
Have we chosen saran-wrapped sandwiches from the deli counter?
Or are we willing to freestyle some bread and fixings, humble
ingredients, and water springing from underground. Shall we
admit we don’t always know what to do with so much fresh
produce. But we will feed you just the same.

Carpet Swatches and Paint Chips

Carpet Swatches and Paint Chips

(“You must turn away from evil and do good; you must strive for peace with all your heart.” 1 Peter 3:11)

I heard the thunder in the late afternoon which is
unusual
for us in the Pacific Northwest. It just rains but
rarely sends lightning across the sky.

I guess I wouldn’t argue with someone whose
experience is different than mine. Not worth it of course.

I heard the arguments that went late after the
board
meeting about a net result of nothing. It is just a
few minds thinking they know it best and the best must
be implemented soon and perfect.

Evil approaches to darken the beauty that comes out
of the light.
Evil tries to erase the artistic soul full of words,
or colors, or shapes, or falling waters. We spend
so little time
letting even a single petal from a rose make our
breathing hurried in awe and reverence.

We would rather have our way pushed through like
a bulldozer building a dollhouse. We decide that
carpet samples
and color swatches
are chosen by majority vote. Which is what happened,
because a quorum had showed up. But one of those
who stayed home
kicked over the five-gallon pails of pain on the unvarnished
floor the next. A tantrum over a shade too soon.

We could not call for a new meeting; the walls were half-painted
before he
decided to throw his weight around. Peace was
interrupted like
an improvised explosive device. Invisible shrapnel
struck everyone gathered and nothing was ever quite
the same.

It seemed insane for a scrimmage to balloon for such
a simple tune. But we agreed, after piercing words had
already met their marks, to wait for the moon to cover
the night
and the sun
to dry the mud and then
we would look at the paint on the walls again.

With empty paint cans strewn across the long floor,
we saw the walls and their adobe pigment in a brand new
light.
Even the naysayers, heads hanging down, agreed the hue
was perfect and said nothing else.

We prayed the dissolution would not linger. But
sometimes you cannot head off the storm. Sometimes
evil breaks down the artistic impulse and insists
an exact pigment exists, a perfect reflection of hue and
light.

But some phone calls just never did sit right.

My Practice Session

My Practice Session

(“God wants you to silence stupid and ignorant people by doing right.” 1 Peter 2:15)

I must admit my practice session did not go well.
Right notes
in the
wrong locations.
Rests where they did not exist and a
panic I would miss the next measure of
quarter notes on the upbeat. I would try
to catch up with the voices by the next
turn of phrase.

But they brag on me just the same,
and I feel the shame of someone who receives
what they do not deserve. If only I spent more time
on the difficult passages,
taught my fingers to move in ways they were not accustomed to.

I am my own worst critic, but I know they can hear the patches
where I fumble, where the time is broken into shards on
the ambient air. I would rather show up to rehearsal with
every bar perfected like the vineyard’s best wine.

I suppose I can hide my fumbling fingers beneath the
beats of the snare that fills the voids where I forget
where I was headed. Maybe by the end we will be an
ad hoc wedding of the drum kit, bass, and my tentative
tempo. The staccato notes run away from me sometimes and
the drummer only stares. We laugh when it is over and
start again to see if we can keep the time.

I say all this only because I feel the need to let you know
I am much better about making it up in my head than I am
about transferring it to my fingers. My handwriting is
nearly illegible. I hope my beats will be readable.

Of Prayer and Song

Of Prayer and Song

(“Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing.” James 5:13 [The Message])

How long the day when the sun refuses to shine
on the dark pain you carry like a bag of sand.
I know the weeks are molasses crying in the night,
and the months struggle by as time strangles your
every word.

And now we pray. Will relief come? Set the weight
down on the ground
and see what answer comes. The Father is fond of you.
The Mother creates comfort for you. The Son soothes the
disquieted heart that runs apace of your mind. And now we pray.
Quiet. We wait for the word that empowers us for later in the day.
The day passes and we turn to face distress with renewed promises.
And now we pray. Within. The Spirit within takes our embers
and turns them to incense; an aroma of good things to come.

How light the day when the sun peeks from behind the clouds
and the flowers seem to wave to greet you as you bend over them.
I know the weeks fly fast, laughing until sunbreak,
and the months are filled with coffee with friends and a
few songs we’ve known since we were kids.

And now we sing. Will we remember the words? We pick up
the first note
of our earliest songs. The Father dances to our music.
The Mother harmonizes to set the song ablaze. The Son improvises
to prove he is still human just to remind us. And so we sing.
Lustily. We sing the first words that enter our minds.
We whirl like tops, dancing and transforming our heart-songs into new tunes.
And now we sing. Again. The Spirit pays attention and carries
our songs like afternoon wine; a vintage better than we had ever known.

That Calls You Beloved

That Calls You Beloved

(“Look, my God will help me. My Lord will support me.” Psalm 54:4)

I’ve seen what the external voices have done to you
building a brick red barrier around your heart. I’ve seen
the locked door that sealed up the most human of your hopes.
I’ve seen how the music has changed, how it challenges your
perception of time. If only the days would end sooner;
if only the quiet would be sweeter;
if only the love captured deep inside you would win the day.

I’ve heard the same voices; you know I have. They still
show up in my dreams, don’t they? And yet you live with them
like words to your face to channel away any joy you had
accumulated over months of collecting the smallest moments
like semi-precious stones discovered along the riverbank.
You hid them away and hoped they would not be found.
You wrote about them, journaling the discoveries that
helped your chest relax, that steadied your breathing,
that allowed the tears to flow without embarrassment.
You hid your writing too; fearful it would be discovered
and cycles start all over again.

I know how you want to be alone to heal,
I know how loneliness can pierce your head like thunder
invading the middle of the night.
I know how you deserve love, I know how you wish
to be held, and pampered, and treated with everything that
love means.

Your trust is like a frayed rope. You feel ashamed that you
feel only half human, when you would rather live a heart
wide open to the ones who see you truly.

Instead, you are not allowed to speak your mind or it
will disintegrate into screaming. You wish you could
stand outside and let out all that has been stored within so long.

I see you. I love you. I want to hold you. I want to tell you
the truth that lies deep within you. I want to whisper you are worthy,
I want to sing that you are more precious than anything I could find.
I want to kiss away the tears when they come and let them drop from
your eyes to my fingertips.

I want to be your new voice that you hear until you hear your
own voice again. I want to tell you, even as I write this, that you
are a diamond for me, as rare a jewel I could ever find.

I want you to know that, besides me, God is especially
fond of you. Fond like a mother’s cuddle, fond like a father’s
laughing eyes. Fond like a light that guides you to the
end of the trail, hand in hand.

Write to me and send it like a letter to the sky.
Write everything you cannot say and find every word
that sticks in your throat. I’ll read every line of you,
I’d drink a case of you, I’d memorize it and repeat
it back to you.

So, I share this very quietly, my words mere sighs
beneath the noise of apprehension. I will never compromise
what I say to you, your worth, your esteem, your value
in my world.
In this wide world.
Hear the voice that calls you beloved in each breath
you take.

Their Repeated Words

Their Repeated Words

(“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!” James 3:5)

I should have noticed it before but the people I know
who have the most impassioned and bombastic prayers selcom
sought me out for coffee or lunch.
I always wondered at the lengthy prayers of the silky voiced
elder who never said much in the end.
It only took a few words to
sting me in the heart. It only took the smallest spark
to burn what was left of my dignity.

It goes without saying, though, that I have dropped words
like bombs
unaware myself. Did I really tell that poor mother to
try to give a little bit more than she had? Did I really tell
that single father that families are a mom, a dad, and kids?
And all I knew to do was apologize for something that hit him
right between the eyes. My words were lobbed thoughtlessly
and were received as heavenly proclamations.

I’ve learned that silence is the best choice when struggling
with what to say. I’ve recruited the unspoken to speak for me.
And yet, letter by letter, I compose these words on the page and
wonder
whether I should restrain my forays into streams of consciousness.

More than once people laid their hands on my head and tried to
drive away spirits and demons that caused my depression. But
no one imagined the harm of constantly leaving the impression
that I should just get over myself and submit to their graduation
of spirituality. They had answers for everything and nothing changed.
They had words to describe every eventuality but no time to
spend in exploring the world right outside their doors.
Our bubbles, our echo chambers, brought more shame than
healing. Our words were swifter than wasps and landed
with their stingers between our eyes. No one modified their
language. They only excused it as an attempt to make me
feel better.

I’ve sprinted far away from the run-on sentences that tried
to enforce voices that could not hear the damage their repeated
words had done.

To Share Your Wounds

To Share Your Wounds

(“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22)

I’m surprised at how late I’ve shown up to some
of the appointments I’ve had for days. I should have
been there earlier; I should have greeted you distinctly.
It had been on my calendar; I transferred it from the same
date last year. How did I almost miss it this time;
how did it nearly escape my notice?

Some days my thoughts are spattered through a sieve,
they are scattered like dust in a storm. I think I have been
protecting the damaged corners; I think I am hiding
where words cannot find me.

I used to visit the hidden hearts who carried more pain
than I knew. I used to capture everyone I knew by name
and carry them to brighter fields in the sun.

These days I sit and listen; I do not have much to say.
Sometimes the words flow right past me and I turn to
see them fly away. I could not catch them with the
whirling motors of my mind.

But I’ll give you the few lucid moments I have saved.
I’ll make room for you within the dusty remains of the day.
I’ll buy you a beer and turn my ear to hear the words you
long for someone to remember. I know you’ve told the tale
a dozen times or more
and that merely says the story is not yet complete. But
will it ever be?

I have so many unfinished rhymes, so many leftover notes
for songs I never wrote. But we can dig together, can’t we,
to the bottom of the proverbs that have sunk beneath our
unknown perceptions of time. Today I will find a way,
if a way is presented to me,
to share your wounds if you’ll share mine, and we may laugh
before our time is over.

Afternoons Slip By

Afternoons Slip By

(“Lord, make me aware of my end and the number of my days so that I will know how short-lived I am.” Psalm 39:4)

I looked behind me to see how crooked
the line had become. I think I waited for
perfection
to creep up on me.
I may have let the days pass too innocently,
and the words I spoke so incoherently
as I tried to explain the reason I would not
walk in the rain.
I don’t regret a single conversation I had that
led to no conclusions at all. I would have more if
I could find someone to talk to.
We incubated words and hoped they would hatch
into new ideas about how to spend the day.

I might open my eyes underwater, I might
reach for the sky and capture a cloud. But I wish
I had called you more often, that I had made a list
of all the silly jokes we would tell over the years.
I might try the phone number I’ve known since childhood
but I’m convinced that number has grown extinct.

Afternoons alone slip by so slowly while
the years I remember zoom by like supersonic spies.
Time draws lines like fences broken by the rain.
I bring to mind underfunded misfortune and laugh
under my breath
at the thought of it all.

Will you meet me for a beer before it becomes so
late that I’ve forgotten your name?

Angels Can Appear

Angels Can Appear

(“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2)

Something seared my heart so severely it had
shut down. It caused me to never think twice about
closing the door. I’ve stopped the bleeding but
the pain remains. My heart is cramped and crammed with
uneasy expectations of strangers sojourning with me.

I listen to the same songs and watch the same channels on TV.
I’m enclosed in the circles of my routines. To ask me to share that
with anyone is to ask me uncomfortably. It’s hard to believe
that I once housed teenagers and grandmas with open arms.

I never cared about the consequences so long ago,
I rarely worried it would intrude upon my blessed habits
or peer inside my measured habitual humanity. I was too
spiritual for all of that.

I have always been broken but only shared it with a chosen few.
I have spoken of grace like it was pure medicine
and wondered about how many angels watched while I
unlocked the doors.

This time it’s harder. I thought I would receive a warm
commendation for taking the difficult road to peace.
I’ve locked my doors from the inside; I’ve canceled
my reservations in the hope that I could continue on my own.

I reserve the right to see angels show up like
the rising sun after the rain. I would watch for wings upon
the backs of those I welcomed to my home. My arid soul
longed for an apologetic that made the houseguest become
a messenger from forever and more.

Though I had grown used to my solitude I grudgingly agreed
to an attitude that disturbed my silence behind the closed windows
that suited me fine. I’ll roll the dice this time
once again
and consider the notion that angels can appear like
someone needing a home.

Laughed at the Dream

Laughed at the Dream

(“You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers.” Psalm 30:11 [The Message])

I couldn’t stand at the back; they had put me in charge
so I waited until all the singing was done to begin the
morning lecture. But I was muddled, I was muggy, I was
unprepared, I was disarrayed. I wished I had stayed home
to protect my unsteady hands.

It was five minutes before twelve and my time was almost
gone. I had not even begun. I wasted eons wrestling with
technology I had carefully tested twice and more. The microphone
went silent, the images swarmed the screen. The words would
not come. The room had been full, but some stood and
began to leave. Long-term friends were sitting in the
front row and they began to follow the exiting few.
But she, the wife, urged him to stay and I finished my
time merely a minute late. I do not remember what I said and
few of the faces that left me unrecognized.

But old friends I hadn’t seen in decades waited for me
in the lobby just to shake my hand. Most others were out
the door quickly to their appointed reservations for brunch.

I went home winded. I was surprised at my disabilities that day.
But I put on music by Dylan, then listened to some Cohen. I wished
I had more Stevie Ray Vaughn to play. But as the day counted down
to evening the drapes on my heart were hopefully opened.

It was only a dream, I said. It was nothing new. I did a quick
review and realized I was probably right. The smile I had misplaced
found my feet moving like raindrops on the sidewalk.

So, I stepped outside into the fading day and laughed
at the dream
that previously would have made me cry.

The Footsteps were Relentless

The Footsteps were Relentless

(“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6)

He awoke to the sounds of the city just beginning
and blinked the night from out of his eyes.
His sons had already left for the day and this
wife kissed him goodbye moments before his eyes were opened.

He felt like orbits had spun around him unchanging for
year after year. There was love enough for everyone in
his small house and family yet he felt unsettled, and
he was embarrassed to say, deeply lonely.

He knew the incongruity that left him well tanned on the outside,
and shuddering sad within. Face to face he had
little to say though he knew his words carried more meaning
than ages ago.

He barely remembered what it was like to shop for gifts
until the perfect one jumped off the shelf and came prewrapped.
He wished he could shop anonymously, but now he lived in
a rural village and no one was new. He felt guilty about that
too.
Why would anyone avoid the friendly glances of neighbors
and friends. He thought he had run out of things to say
and the rest got caught in his throat. He had been captured
by his words so often that he rationed them like rain.

He had to admit, in his quiet moments, that though he
was often misunderstood,
he also was asked for wisdom he was not sure he had.

He could not argue with mercy; he could not debate with goodness.
The tiniest footsteps crept up on him over time,
like a grandchild wanting to surprise Papa with their hands
over his eyes.
He could not deny the eternal home he had found;
he could not explain the melancholy that captured him
mid-sentence when he only wished he could sing better.

He got out of bed and, walking, listened for the footsteps
chasing him down, the footsteps he recognizes everywhere.
His mind clattered with unease and built fences to keep
his precious wounds out of sight. But the footsteps were
relentless, and he stopped to try half a conversation
in the late morning sun.

Like a Time Capsule

Like a Time Capsule

(“But can anyone know what they’ve accidentally done wrong? Clear me of any unknown sin.” Psalm 19:12)

I’ve been running around this oval for far too long.
I used to run it so well with nothing left to sell and
only crafted pages of unbalanced mistakes.
I can see them, front and center, all the cages
where I locked away the wilder passions that
troubled me in darkness and silence.

I should have learned it a dozen lives ago that
there is no hiding once the deeds are done. There is no
consent for a choice gone wrong. I lack the control to
turn the pages to the next story I’ve hoped for ages to write.

I faced the facts, but only one at a time. I could not carry
the weight of every kind of stone that tripped me up.
I should have seen it coming;
I should have leaped out of the way. I opened my
mouth
to clear my mind and nothing came out except for
a squeaky scream that frightened even me.

The way I sneaked around the edges of my consciousness,
the way I perceived failures and fatalities only served
to make coming home a delayed tragedy.

So, clear my anonymity, let the motion pass unanimously.
My legs are mud-like and my imagination keeps recording
every uncertainty from the first time someone decided to
pry a confession out of my quivering mouth.

I’ll carry the weight, I’ll set it down on the porch.
I’ll visit the forest just a mile from my front door.
I’ll speak your name although it is unpronounceable
and hope when you call mine it will be a foreword
the new day longs for. I’ll
discover what I buried like a time capsule half a
century ago. I’ll reach out my hands to either side
and round dance with all the tribes that once invited me.

And if someone shows me how I’ve missed my steps
I’ll follow them faithfully until I learn them right.

Word Upon Word

Word Upon Word

(“I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.” Psalm 16:7)

I’ve been wondering what I should write because
sometimes it seems
I just pile word upon word like a jenga tumbler.
But I’m satisfied in what I’ve heard when lights
fade and the darkness brings the quietude I crave.
Stay and do not leave me here alone. We need no
sentences of nonsense to keep us awake. Sometimes we
can sit for hours and other times the seconds tick slowly
like the hum of locusts in the trees. The moments can
drone on in our faces like midnight apparitions.

I see the path behind me; hear the oceans I used to
visit and I long for years of yesterday when sunny days
inhabited my dreams. I listen for the familiar sound that
echoes like the laughter of friends. Along the way they
have seen my careless excursions and offered to accompany
me when the way was too steep to climb. This late in the
afternoon
they remind me that soon our rest will come, we will abide
asleep in the darkness that only shrouds us for the night.

I’ve listened as long as I could then I reset my alarm for
just one hour more. Words have accompanied me before
and they will carry me again. But theses streams of scenes
that show up in my dreams at night sometimes escort me
like a doula helping the morning give birth to unrehearsed
understandings. I’ll bend my ear to the blended affirmations
between the lines of night and day.

The Wine of Happy Vineyards

The Wine of Happy Vineyards

(“O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! Your praise reaches up to the heavens.” Psalm 8:1)

The songs fall from the heavens like petals from a rose;
the scent is like rain after the sun goes down.
Day to day the sunsets sing with lyrics reconfirmed
by the moon and stars.

We are so dry here after years of drought; the fields
barely yield the fruit we were once accustomed to.
Slow to grow and barely to flourish, we have waited
for the minds of the miscreants to change.

We are looking for the Spring and rain;
we are waiting for the winds to repent their
arid canopies of sundried mornings. We are looking
for the grand rearrangement, for something recent
to replace our handheld testaments of disillusionment.

We have dreamed it; we have been undone.
We have cast our windows fully open and our
doors
ajar to welcome the habits of heaven.
I’d invite you in to await the choruses complete
from the hills and across the river and up the banks
of hope. We will know the melody the moment we
hear it.

Have we drunk the wine of the happy vineyards;
have we possessed the bread of a thousand possibilities?
Has the light finally reached us from the furthest stars
that started a million years ago to traverse the universe?

We have heard the refrain pushed forward like whitecaps
driven by the wind. We have not stopped listening.
We see the masterstroke of genius in the setting sun
and realize there is more to this all than we can fit
into a few lines of a poem.