Atop the Ancient Peaks

 Atop the Ancient Peaks

(“My command from God was to bless these people, and there's nothing I can do to change what he has done.” Numbers 23:20)

Stand atop the ancient peaks,
turn your eyes toward the borderline.
What do you see, what do you know,
what do you give to all of those on the other side?
Did you find a better place;
do you live where no terror can touch you?
Then hand it down from the mountain,
send the safety you have boasted of,
find the few who speak your language
and invite them higher to sit with you.

Take their stories deep within,
hear their ballads of uncertainty.
Add their name to your banners,
fly their flag along with your own.
Find the beat of their drums inside
your own pulse. Take the steep path
down along the cliffs and meet them
at the end of the road.

Tear down the fences,
obliterate the walls.
Speak their language, I know they will teach you.
Your day starts at quarter to nine
and theirs a half hour before. You have the time
to share the daylight,
you have the rhymes that connect families
to the windy faucets of your excursion;
you have accomplished more than you expected,
and you have more to offer than your shambled objections.

Sit across from their newly camped grounds,
stoke the fires that keep us warm. Lead them to
the place
you created, the safety of your offering.
They are fathers and brothers, daughters and mothers,
they thirst for protection too.
Be the blessing they already own,
be accountable for their welfare and well-being.

Jokers see nothing past their own noses,
thieves see everything they do not own.

But you can see, if you scan the horizon,
more and more dialects you need to learn.
Open the gate and let the floods wash their
crinkling skin, offer the food you prepared for
undiscovered orphans. Take their hands and
learn their pulse that palpitates the same as your own.

When Joy is Ancient Like Rain

When Joy is Ancient Like Rain

(“Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!” Psalm 95:2)

Run in for cover,
that’s how my soul feels on days like these,
find somewhere to hide. Not that
I am in danger; I find my heart craving
impossible meals and solo excursions with
a gypsy mind.

There were two friends on the road,
one danced with his classmates and one
sipped wine whenever it was offered.
They had met up after 50 years,
they thought they might recognize the
old poppy fields. They thought they might taste
the teenage pizza they shared, a large
hot Italian sausage. They played pong
while they waited.

There were dark wooden tables there.
There were girls who recognized us.
There was a boy who looked like me
who thought he knew, finally, for once,
how the world worked and how God handed
out prizes to the penitent.
He cried in his room a lot over
cravings and old coffee cups underneath his bed.

This man, me-who-writes,
would give up a quarter cup of convenience
for a pinch of ad-libbed laughter in a
favorite restaurant.

I could sing of your insanity forever,
the ways you schemed, the poems you dreamed,
and the ways you viewed the world, they way
you practiced each scene like it was the first day
of a trip through the winding roads of the East Bay Hills.

Today, though the rain speaks every name I’ve
learned along the way,
I will listen for their songs. The joy feels like sadness,
the gladness sounds like monks chanting. The silence
looks like a doorway to sojourn and paisley afternoons.

I Do Not Refer to Ancient Tales

 

I Do Not Refer to Ancient Tales

Can I please speak the words you fear to hear?
May I please tell the stories that make my veneer thinner still?
I do not refer to ancient tales so old there is no trace of them.
I do not spin a yarn with the motives and suspects disguised.

If you gave me time to unwind it all,
you would soon discover my uncovered plotlines
carry on to this day and the next
from midnight to purple midnight again.

I am not innocent, though I try to hide myself well.
I veil my passions behind philanthropy and my
lusts behind synonyms for love and friends.
Be that as it may, once you find yourself entranced by my tales
you will discover the dirt dug up in the middle of the forest
was my dirt with my shoe prints all over it.

Some I will say are just my dreams and are empty of all meaning.
Some you will see are more than dreams and send your thoughts
careening
down avenues that lead you to the slums where
my darkest stories begin. What you will not know until the
stories end
is all my stories never leave their home of origin.

To say that this frightens some is evident,
but it is too small a word. For it frightened me from birth
to teen to husband to parent and onward. To some I have confessed,
others made a lucky guess, others heard my story from someone
else’s mouth how I transgressed with full phone numbers and
addresses. And though they happened long ago,
and though the storyline travels through the middle of me,
I will not deny someone else’s fable. Why discard their
ability to move my plot along? Their draft might be
much better than my own.