The Waning Day

The Waning Day

 ^(“He will take away death for all time. The Lord God will dry tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8a)

What will we become after we have waited for
the setting of the sun? How shall we meet the long
shadows of the waning day? Time sped up while
we were busy carrying the hours on our backs.
We would rather not walk in the rain.

We took the time in parcels, portions meant to
be divided at a moment’s notice. We wrote the
return address in red and green to be satisfied
it would be seen. We were hedging our bets and
circling zip codes and licking envelopes stamped
with names we thought we remembered.

You must forgive me but I’m trying to capture
as much radiance as I can
before the lights go out and the air turns brief.
We wanted to share the relief that the coming day
was certain to bring.

Grief can make you feel invisible. Grief can
continue long past the due date other have
scribbled for you. Grief is silence in a world
that seems to have nothing to say and says it
from the start of every day.

But there is a love that is stronger than death,
a light brighter than a cloudless noon,
a hand wipes the tears and wounds away.
Greif and hope can exist in a single heart,
learning to cope with loss and future at once.

The door is open, the latch is unlocked,
The moments will come; days will last
from circle to circle and round and down,
the tears will be dried and the songs will

Remind us that every sunset had its day.

Another Color, Another Hue

Another Color, Another Hue

It seems it is time to wander
through the afternoon, looking for love
or something to call mine.
I had settled in for the evening when
the phone buzzed like an area code for
somewhere I had forgotten. I could have taken
things slower if only there were more people
to gather around a central theme.
Morning turned a cold shoulder to me
so I am depending on the afternoon to light
me up like a few friends sipping beers.

The days pass too quietly for me,
the moments full of melancholy that
masquerades as perpetual motion.

It’s true the days get in the way of
lightly wondering where the next smile
will grow. I did not invite this pain;
it shows up voluntarily. Truth is,
I probably could not find an interesting
sentence even surrounded by a handful of
friends.
But I still must fill the afternoon with something.

I turn slowly back to myself when the
loneliness comes like fog hugging the coastal hills.
I could sing you a lifeboat full of courage if
only my voice would not crack like ice, like rain.
Today is dressed up with nowhere to go. It merely
twirls and winds its way until the sun begins to set.
It brings the meandering morning to a close. I will
look for something new, another color,
for coming from so far away.

The Next Person

The Next Person

I pulled it down from off the shelf and
almost had sticker shock.
But I had nothing in my pockets and
had nothing left to lose.
You should have heard the double
dose
I incurred by waiting so long to be
heard. I could have waited till the
stores had all closed to inspect
the empty way they made me feel.
I had enough money to start the day
but unforeseen fortune had scraped it
away.

I knew the pattern that started a half
a century ago. I could feel the peaks
and valleys
laughing at my need for mediocrity.
Could we just agree that the facts
did not add up to our expectations?

I once believed and now I’m agnostic;
I once performed casual exorcisms
in my living room. I first heard someone
calling for Grandfather and corrected their
theology.

Now I shopped for sparklets and hunted the
the aisles for new hues to paint the day.
I might purchase them with credit if I cannot
find a way to earn my keep. I’ll walk the
steep sidewalks like a penitent. I’ll stay
close to the ground.

I put it back on the shelf and left it for
the next person behind me.

Like a Morning Glory

Like a Morning Glory

(for Theo)

You took me on adventures when you were 10.
I carried the backpack; you carried our bed. We plotted our
path to hidden countries in the basement. We got McDonald’s
ice cream and pizza because you did so well on your science exam.

Now you are 18, an adult, a fully formed fascination with life.
You carry the world like an explorer investigating the causes
of sky-birds who flew just above your head.

The earth is yours and all its fullness. The questions wait for
your examination. You carry them like postcards in your pocket.
You have rarely feared their answers; you waited for a solo voice.

I’ve seen you dance so certain that the floorboards captured your feet.
I’ve watched you sketch a friend or a new plant.
I’ve listened to you sing and tuned it like saltwater taffy.

Let the tailwinds send you higher, let the warm sun playfully
extract your laughter. May your curiosity carry you abundantly
into dog-eared chapters you will remember and remember again.

I can’t name them all, but you will, I’m sure. What do you
call that tree with heart-shaped leaves? How many colors are there
for daffodils or tulips? Can I transplant these peonies?

Let the wonder guide you; let it outsize the questions you pose,
the oceans you cross, and the friends who break bread with you.
I know the music will always lie just under the place where

Your heart beats for the friends you’ve made and the new ones
to come. You can change the world; you can spark it with hope.
You can share the taste of the river of life for every parched soul.

Your song continues, the new chorus is being written.
Sing it surely, sing it long. Leaving home you’ll find
the home will always return to you. Take your time.

May God’s hand guide you, may the rains fall warmly on your path.
May the blessings of constant sunlight capture your eyes.
And may this day, so full of promise, open like a morning glory budding.

February to August (a scrap)

February to August (a scrap)

 

The silence opened up an abundance of
opportunities. To spend the afternoon with a book
seemed like the closest thing to a best friend. To spend
the day with a best friend seemed intentionally out of reach.

The seas are unchanging, but the seasons turn steadily away
from hands reaching out for another golden sip of sunshine.
Not every day is a success story. Some are simply times of
waiting for the moon to rise.

He opened a playlist of bands from the 1960s and it moved his
writing forward in lurches and screeches. Lyrics crept in
and he pasted them slyly into his unfinished poem. No one
could blame him for his mini stolen phrases.

He looked out the window where neighbors watched ICE
kidnap the family across the street. That was mid-February
and nothing was colder than the way they dragged their
unwarranted catch into the cold and out of the blue.
It stopped him for a moment, this August afternoon in
Minneapolis. He wondered what he would do, and what
he would have done. He pointed his castaway moments toward
another stage of life and wondered
if the silence was
large enough to take captive every aging
beat of his heart.

A Sturdy Life

A Sturdy Life

(“So ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers out into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:38)

Wonder meets wonder in the eyes of
the downtown walkers habituating themselves to the sun.
It was the same as it had been the day before,
warm on the sidewalks of lazy ambition. The storefronts
had been blinking themselves open for the mid-morning rush.
Eyes to eyes the morning warmed on to the apex of the day.
Many believed the dream was just around the corner,
other had not given in a moment’s thought.

Meanwhile in the neighborhood nearby a man returned
the dogs he had been watching for his friend who returned
from another state on a week-long vacation. She walked out
the door to meet him in black slippers down the steps
and onto the concrete walkway with grass planking through
the cracks. He drove away and u-turned at the end of the block.
She waited for him to pass by again so he would
remember her waving goodbye.

What is the greatest number we can enliven; where are the
rulebooks that instruct us in the gardens of our incubation?
How many friends do we carry from childhood; how many
still fascinate our minds? Do we still remember their
phone numbers, or at least the area code? Can we still feel
the slatted stoops where we listened to Peter, Paul, and Mary
and comedy records in the afternoon?

I wander daily through current applications and past
evaluations of joy we left half exhausted. We found
ourselves filled, though, the next time we renovated our
restlessness again. Hope against hope, we believed that
behind someone’s eyes, we might see the promises
we daydreamed about.

All in all, it’s been a sturdy life built on words we fashioned,
images we sculpted, and the cities we founded in our brains.
Here’s hoping the sacred music that spun our days opened the
light for each other across our spatial habitations.

Our Perfecter in Pain

 Our Perfecter in Pain

(“Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36)

Scattered like rain-soaked ashes they
dotted the landscape with their bodies aching.
They had tried to do it all on their own, they had
run so hard that they were almost wasted away. Now
they were etched in silence where their wounds were newly
opened for everyone to see.
They held up cardboard signs; they were their hearts they
silently advertised.
Some were broken, torn in two. Some were perforated and
almost split apart. The day had been strenuous
on the
anniversary of their discontent. They blamed no one
and were the same during the day as they were through
their straining nights. They refused to change their tune
even if no one listened. They did not change to a
happier key
but kept insisting that something had caused them harm.

They had not come to play, though the notion had crossed
their minds. It was all too magnetic, this melancholy that
settled uninvited upon their buried hopes. They were just
as alive as ever, but every movement was an ache that
threatened to split their humanity down the middle.
It wasn’t subtle, but it had been easily ignored.

Oh shepherd, our sheep-gatherer, stitch our dreams with
your story of healing. Can our heartbreak belong to you,
can you unfasten our sorrow for just a day? We live
but are weary; we are not fashioned for this daily
slicing of our minds. We are victims of the seasons
and love out of time. Candidly we would like to name
the captors of our dissatisfaction.

Oh healer, our perfecter in pain, see us again
and remove the blame we carry too high upon our
shoulders. Join us as the center of our multitude;
remind us with crossbeam love that all suffering
belongs to you, belongs to you.

Belongs to you.

Sharing Our Pillow

Sharing Our Pillow

(“Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of the gazelle grazing among the lilies.” Song of Solomon 4:5)

If I knew it wouldn’t wake you I would
lay my head between your breasts to hear your
even breath circling our bed. I would listen
to your heartbeat, so much steadier than mine.

Your skin would be soft like satin beneath my
ragged mane. Your body moving to the rhythm of
late night slumber as the room filled with our
body lotion and sweat.

I am safe here, with your body next to mine;
I have always found the way you desire me makes
me desire you more. Our kisses are memories
of sweet music and daily sweat.

When we were young, we explored each other
and fascinated each other and fulfilled each other
like wheat stalks in the wind. We were sated with
love and played in the night breeze where no one could find us.

That was 50 years ago, and you still fascinate me.
Your child-like sensuality makes me long to laugh
myself out of the doldrums I feel. You turn your lips
to me every time “Kiss Me” is played.

I have always found healing in the warmth between your breasts,
found uncommon release when sleep so often evaded me.
Your caresses reassured me when confidence fled my mind.
We blazed sometimes, like fire, and burned the bonds
that knotted our captive hearts. We made love like
we were brand new and I learned to listen for the
whispered moans that told me I would sleep well sharing
our pillow and intertwined until morning.

The Company of Middling Folk

The Company of Middling Folk

(“Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?” Ecclesiastes 7:16)

Did they remember your name those days after
you told of all your conquests and had knocked out those
demons and unclean spirits with merely a word?
Did they pay attention to you when you outlined the
hours of prayer you spent over the weekend and all the
food you refused to eat while everyone else was dining?
Did you think you were dying to exhibit that your best pal was god,
and that everyone knew you to be one righteous brother?
Did you run a popup prayer room where your power petitions
buried everyone’s nose in your pious practices? Did you think
that would raise your esteem among the ladies and gentlemen who
never encountered someone of your holy fame?

And those sayings of yours, those pithy sentences that sounded
convoluted but you said were so simple a child could understand them.
You told parables, but they wound around themselves like condiments
hid in the back of the refrigerator. You pronounced stories you insisted
were heavenly blue, heavenly true. Only a few wondered about their
origin, and among them one or two who considered they were lifted from
someone else’s anthology of folk wisdom.

I’d prefer the company of middling folk who know a joke and tell it
knowing we have heard it before. I prefer the camaraderie of men and women
who carry food so quietly that no one in the neighborhood hears them
ring the bell at the old widow’s door. And they don’t stay for long,
just enough to make sure she doesn’t need anything more. I prefer
the company of people who never outline their acts for the big wigs
to hear. They may go to coffee after their excursions but never brag
about their respectability.

When we boasted to each other of our exploits, we found our appetite
for goodness had taken a dive. When we pontificated about words of
wisdom
loudly in the ruckus room, they turned their backs to us and left us
standing alone. We learned the lesson quickly. We learned the ways of
kindness without announcing it to the world. And we were far more
satisfied, our righteousness and wisdom, quietly showing up the next
time someone needed them. And quietly we would respond, do what
we could do, and apologize there was not more.

I Let My Hands Hang

 

I Let My Hands Hang

(“But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” Matthew 5:39)

The long dark night gave way to the
floating sun and the light of day.
And I remembered why my sleep was so restless,
why my breakfast was so careless
and the memories of a singular slap to the face
replaced the peaceful dreams I could not recall.

I woke restless but the perpetrators were long gone
and all I had was a bruise below my eye.
I was proud (is that the word) that my hands
stayed at my side, that I did not answer back nor
threaten with stinging reprimands. I was not a
wholesaler who bought my offenses at bargain
prices to sell and release my hold on them.

The bruises quickly fade; the memory reaches
so far back it is ingrained like a limestone cave.
I should have counted to ten more slowly and then
back to one again. But the picture is finally floating
down the shallow rivulet toward the deeper water where
it falls below the waves whipped by the wind.

I cannot control my dreams. I have sometimes allowed them
to control me. Some I have dismissed with hasty fear,
others I wish had come true throughout the soundless breeze
of the day.

I would learn a better silence in the face of mistrusted words
that flew toward my mind. I let my hands hang.

The Canceled Acclaim

The Canceled Acclaim

(“Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.” Proverbs 29:23 [The Message]

The days were stitched together like fibers
on a loom. It was daylight too often, it was
late in the afternoon. I couldn’t predict what the
day would become; I only envisioned a few moments
when the light would favor my imagination.
I longed for something created to ease my mind,
something I could point to that broke the rules I
already patterned to sit me closer to the
heights of power.

Wishing I could live more lowly and still be
acknowledged for my unseen character,
I reminded myself of the notes I could play while
ignoring the fingers that slipped across the black
and white keys.

My patience was tested, my longings more congested
than a winter’s cold or a summer’s scorn. I only
desired something beyond the corners of
hand-me-down
notions that I hid behind the closet doors of
my mind.

I took comfort in numbers; in the crowds I thought
shadowed my measured words. I wondered if
I could pacify the spaciousness that my depression
deserved. I confessed it all, this addiction to
connection, and wondered which way I could turn.

Above or below, I could not decipher what the
final judgement would mean. I had lifted more
weight
than my peers had attempted. And yet I was
still questioned my mental health. It was
daylight I craved, and a handful of accolades I thought
would restore my attention to legal details
that never let go of my mind.

A Silver Set

A Silver Set

(“Good words that hide an evil heart are like silver paint over a cheap, clay pot.” Proverbs 26:23)

I know you hoped that we would see you shine;
I know you wanted to be redesigned by bowing and
scraping and ordering every word around the perfect
incantations that sounded like speaking in tongues.

We had a silver set when I was growing up, sterling
silver I believe. We brought it out on holidays and scoured it
with the cream we kept hidden for just this purpose.
We burnished and polished until they reflected the sun
back to our open eyes again.

But we are all just silver plated, thinly wrapped around a common
lump of clay. I watched how you would get discouraged and then
call it depression and exit to watch it run its course like runoff after
the deluge. You agonized over hoping to reach another level but
your humanity seemed to be to blame.

I’ve laminated my own life scores of years over. I’ve wanted
to find
someone who didn’t care that all they saw was much. But
the crowds I ran in demanded prayer and perfection. They
expected a performance that looked like a faith-healer trashing
crutches and wheelchairs. But I always saw the healed person
limping around the same echoes again.

Touch me and you touch dirt, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes.
Hold me and your fingernails will get smudged with mud.
Talk to me, bring the wine, and I will open myself up
one last time. I am slow to show the slivers in the silver
that protects my ego. But for you I will try it one more time.

And perhaps we will find a better connection than thinly
disguised silver can ever deliver.

Strengthening

Strengthening

(“He went from place to place…strengthening all the disciples.” Acts 18:23b)

I just dropped by to say I heard the clouds
talking this morning in a colloquy with the sun. They agreed
gladly
to break by noon and flood the day with glass-blue
rays on the afternoon. I
only mention this because I know how much you
have longed for the beginning of wakefulness
to rouse you from the doldrums. You once knew
the lift of renewed songs and friendships grounded
in conversations that lasted past the sunsets of summer.
I came to remind you that the stars can be seen
from this side of the world as well.
I came to remember, right next to you,
the way the air felt holy when we first heard the story
that the conclave of heaven with earth foretold.
And we decided, this time, that time, to believe it
like every other story that invaded our disquieted minds.
Do you remember? Will you remind me while I
walk beside you on this late sunshine afternoon?

My Basic Intentions

My Basic Intentions

(“Whoever loves pure thoughts and kind words will have even the king as a friend.” Proverbs 22:11)

I fashioned the words I needed to
cash in the debts I was owed. I would never
ask for repayment directly but hint at
the mindless muddle it left me in.

Should we meet up to discuss it;
will you repay me when you can?
Or should I write it off, call it grace,
leave it alone transformed like mud into gold?

I’ve got words inside me I have rarely spoken,
fortunes I have not spent. I don’t need the cash,
I didn’t mean to bring it up again.
Rivers sometimes overflow their banks.

I would rewrite the note I sent if that would help.
I should not have raised the subject at all.
I am afraid that trees sometimes fall without warning
and unpredictably finish the day on the forest floor.

My intentions were pure, or so I hoped;
it was the wording that got in the way.
I did not know how to bring it up and
now I wish I never had.

So now I’ll say it all out loud; I’ll recite
what were my basic intentions. I’ve erased
the moment from my mind and left it behind
to feed my roses that have just begun to bloom.

That Pinpoint of Time

That Pinpoint of Time

(“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22:13)

Did your time feel like it was funneled down a
vortex slide into a single pinpoint of everything?
All the past and future convened to meet in a super mass
of holy magnitude and whirlwinds of exceptional mass.
It seemed as if the air had solidified and the ground turned
like a twirling toddler getting himself dizzy and falling
on the floor.
I was going to hold the door open for you to walk out
into the sunshine. But you were lost in your encounter
with all of time meeting in the single space you occupied.
Your yesterday caught up with you,
your tomorrow greeted you on the back end. There was no
escaping the way that time began to unravel your straight-line
existence. You could do nothing but smile and test the
air to be sure it was still breathable.

We had met years ago when time still ran a straight line.
We knew where we had been and hoped we would enjoy
where we were going. We never thought that we would
encounter the fullness of the mystery of the tornados of time.

While everything moved horizontally toward the edge of your existence
you could count the days by moons and suns. But here was all creation
swirling around you, day and night meeting each other from
front to back with future and past sharing places under your
gaze.

We did not expect to find the Spirit moving in such a way that
we could find her no matter which direction we faced. It was not
simply our past and future, but the rule seemed to be that whatever
direction we looked the divine had been there first. It was only
a hint, but it seemed the crucial mass of time reminded us
of the Spirit that occupies everything. Yesterday and tomorrow
were now full of the light that shines without the sun. Frightened
at first
now we twirled ourselves at the invitation of the Spirit that
filled all things front to back, top to bottom, horizontal and
vertical, we knew the diagonal was fully filled in that
pinpoint of time.

Composition

Composition

(“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3)

I had just sat down to let my mind wander between
muses of immunity and sirens of mediocrity and I spotted,
coming across the lawn and toward my adolescent apple trees,
a doe of uncertain years loping across my view.
It was not unexpected. She was one of a dozen who would
venture to my yard over warm summer days.
She made me wonder where she goes after nibbling
the buds off my roses. Next year I’ll find a way to
keep them off the menu for my four-legged visitors.
But today she sauntered past leaving them, maybe,
for a midnight snack the next time she comes around.

I started the day by rolling the burden on my back
to a stronger companion who volunteered to show me
the way home. I walked along streams of consciousness
and pondered how I would start this poem. I still
am not certain it has begun at all.

My daughter told me about rescuing a baby bunny from
the jaws of their big tabby cat named Timmy. She chased
him into their garage where she thought she had him cornered.
But he slinked through a slightly open door into the
laundry room. She caught Timmy and he released his prey.
Chasing him back outside, she quickly let her three dogs out into the yard.
She scoured the house, looking everywhere for the
injured bunny and finally found him hiding at the back of her
clothes closet in the bedroom. No wounds were visible, just
a spot where bare skin peeked through the fur. Taking him
outside to let him out in the wild near a grove us bushes,
there was a mature rabbit waiting, its mother, she was sure.
The rabbit ran and my daughter loosed the baby bunny
into the bushes.

She and Timmy are still fighting.

The Recitations of Love

The Recitations of Love

(“Fools make fun of guilt, but the godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation.” Proverbs 14:9)

He wanted to jot his emotions down before
the ink dried on the page. They were fleeting but heavy,
they were deep and they were noisy.
He had learned to be impatient about the past
indiscretions. He once thought he had a gift
for painting the unknowable but discovered the
colors ran faster than his brushstrokes could keep up.
He leaned on what he had learned to love, the daily way
his inclinations moved his heart. He knew, and would
try to remember, that prayer was nothing more than
unspoken breaths caught on the dawn of a pink and
orange morning.

He captured his pain, the reminders of how little he gained
from underneath the burdens of tripping and falling where
he wished he had stood strong. The past was a long arc
that followed him down the halls and around the alleys
like corner store bullies waiting after school.
He walked around the block searching for a new place
to bury the thoughts that haunted his steps from day
to the midnight at the end of the week.

But if he stopped for just a moment, if he stood still
and let the light bleed into his eyes, he could hear the
words that started with a look and drew him closer than
he thought he deserved. They were indelible and could
not be erased.
He learned to listen again to the recitations of love,
the mystery that turned upon the timing of the ancient of days.
He could not deny the past, but he no longer needed to
die every day. He replayed the liturgy that played like
a butterfly near his shame and dread. He smiled again and
began again to pace himself in and out of his heirloom of
life.

Destroyed in an Hour

Destroyed in an Hour

(“All these riches have been destroyed in one hour!” Revelation 18:17a)

You thought you would stand forever, didn’t you.
All the reports showed your finances were strong,
your ledger was balanced on the best side of your fortune.
The birds stopped mocking you, the dogs lapped at your feet,
the acolytes lined up by the hour to praise your silvery age
like it was the highest building, like its final floor reached
above heaven.

You spent your spare time circling the globe, you were
given trinkets made of gold. You imagined lines and lines of
supplicants waiting for you to speak the magic words that
would turn their lives around. They knew you were the poverty
breaker
and wanted to be captured by your unnatural mission. They
were certain there was a secret equation that would turn the
water to wine, their tears to diamonds, and their disappointments
to opalescent stained-glass windows that let the golden rays
fall across the paltry collections of misguidance they
had invested their time to believe.

You survived the earthquakes; you held on when the markets
tanked.
You laughed at the storm that leveled everything within
miles of your epicenter. You were untouchable. You were
slippery and had closed every deal with your fingers crossed
behind your back. If someone failed when you pulled the rug
out from under them,
you told them they had simply picked the wrong place to stand.

But there were pests you did not see, insects that lived between
the cash and the plastic you stored behind the walls of
infamous portraits. The agreements you forced you forgers to
sign soon ran out of time. They payoffs you slipped into the
hands of the survivors weren’t enough to keep them from finally
speaking the earth-shattering truth.

Your money stayed intact. In fact, your accounts became bloated,
but too many people now, fooled for so long, began to prophecy the
crash of the one who the world had called beyond and completely
blessed. You crashed as your ego shattered; your scruples were the
first to go.

When your deals shriveled, you swiveled and found
no one was left on the opposite side of your lavish mahogany
desk. Your conscience was seared and you blamed it all,
the meteoric rise and the asteroidal downfall, on
lies a flunky or two had started and could not be stopped.

Briefly you rebounded. But within the hour everything
you built for your name and leisure was over. You could
admit it if you wanted. You could heal from the haunted
cobwebs that left your mind, so deceived and diseased,
that you stood on the first floor and opened the door while
weeping that your reach had receded like a dirge from a person
that no one knew.

To Sculpt Vignettes

To Sculpt Vignettes

(“Listen to me! For I have important things to tell you. Everything I say is right.” Proverbs 8:6)

I looked ahead through the tunnel vision where I hoped
to see a light at the end. It had all been so simple then,
a new day of discoveries or a day trip with friends.
We would ride to Oakland and sit in a coffee shop in
the 70s
where words were spoken from a tiny stage. Where
I first read the early lines of my poetry and sometimes sang
songs I had just written for the girl beside me. We would
drive back home in my best friend’s blue VW bug feeling we
were the luckiest posse alive. We could have studied the
words like the night before a big test. We could have
memorized the verbs that made the evening pass like
an old freight train at night.

I was too nervous to try busking in the park. My skills
were crowded, my fingers careless across the strings.
I did know the songs so well, though, that they came out
of my dreams and into the waking room covered with
psychedelic posters of my favorite bands.

But I sang them nakedly and rarely ventured outside.
I rehearsed them alone wishing my voice could tune
the melody just so. Now I am old and my range has been
shortened by the passing of time. I can barely sing my
rhymes I hoped to retain.

But I could speak. I wanted to sculpt vignettes that
were lit from above. I wanted a better name than just
the sound
of cloudless days. If I am lucky, I’ll write
a piece good enough to stand upon the smallest
stage in the park
and be heard by someone who nearly and only wanted
to be reminded of love a league or two ago. I’ll play
the notes on black and white keys while I recite the words
I hope will make you smile.

The Jangly Sky

The Jangly Sky

(“And I heard the altar saying, ‘Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.’” Revelation 16:7)

The sky above me was jangly while the
sun sent spangly shadows between the trees
darting between leaf and leaf in waves and unruly
particles.

I pondered swiftly the ways our puzzled faces
looked when carrying what we thought we had lost
between us like luggage on the floor. We left it to
the microscopes to explain it all.

We tried to disguise our worried visage, we begged
our distrust to dissuade us like rain on the desert floor.
We had heard the words come from the distant past
and we pretended to understand it at last. We were
foolish.

We let our fears of going outside capture our guarded mind.
We listened to the clanging caught between windchimes and
crows. We pretended to know the answers while we
started the afternoon with the same doubts. We were
disingenuous.

The sky stayed the same throughout the waning day,
the sun scooted over a degree or two seeking the western
horizon. Underneath it all we remembered deer in the
front yard and rabbits in the back. We were
persuaded.

We admitted we had run short of easy answers and so,
simple as we were, we let the light play across our faces.
We moved, quick and stealth, following our canvas thoughts
to their storied end. We knew now that every view would need
to bend.