Sing the Silvery Song

Sing the Silvery Song

(“And now behold, we are in your hands; do to us as it seems good and right in your sight to do.” Joshua 9:25)

Oh no, not today. Not while we are doubling down on
the trouble we have avoided so far. You were far stronger than
we could imagine and bowed ourselves before you with our
hands quivering in the sun. There was a day

When we were all simply people on the sand. But you took your name,
we took our land,
and it all became the worst capture the flag game ever seen.

Your ancestors and ours roamed this dirt in different directions.
Some followed the river, some stayed close to the oasis of trees.
Some built huts while some built tall houses with gardens on the roof.
We all shared the plums and figs and dates and planted new fruit
trees when we wanted. We raised our sheep and goats and a few pigs.
We ate at tables spread for neighbors with enough for children and
elders.

Oh no, not today. Not another gridiron gladiator storming the gates.
Not another flock of locusts setting the air on fire. We’ve hidden
for far too long and now
ask for courtesy, a little sympathy, a new translation for an old
alteration we made up on the spot. Speak the old languages,
sing the silvery song, beat the drum slowly and wake us up with
pipes from the hills.

Let us gather now like we know it’s almost over,
let us share the table set among the sweet clover.
Let us listen for the bell that rings out freedom,
let us grasp hands, and shake them like we just succeeded
and will look for the ways the sunlight plays so late
in a summer evening.

It Used to be a Cathedral

It Used to be a Cathedral

(“You neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness! Matthew 23:23b)

They think they have it all figured out,
they post their demands on the underlings’ foreheads.
They think their cause is just when it is
merely
the same chant they’ve hummed from day one.
They fashion their bombs and measure them by the ton;
they load their words like ammo for a machine gun.
They insist everyone pays their way;
they record everything they say and
play it back
just to listen to their own voice.

All the while the song beckons from
under our feet and over our heads;
the song is no longer today than then,
but we mishear it and shoot ourselves in the foot.

It used to be a cathedral,
now it is just an armory.
It used to be a library, but all the books have
been banned, they’ve been burned,
they’ve been ripped to pieces by incisors
of know-it-alls who never learned to celebrate
the paragraphs the send us into the world.

Every book you erase leaves another author
ready to rearrange tomorrow like it needed to be.
Go fold your laundry, find a good book,
get a glass of wine and read something classic,
or challenging,
or, if heaven allows, something rambling
that opens the world to take that little house on the corner,
open the doors
and allow the stragglers a place at the table.

They think they have the answers;
they have written them on index cards.
They think the lyrics should never be played backwards,
and ignore the plainsong that used to
remove the cannons from the parapets and
melt them into fork and spoons, along with the food,
that never was paid for in the first place.

They think we’ll be impressed with how
impeccably that are dressed. But we are just fine
with thrift store finds. We are waiting for
the day when we obey the truce that was
declared ages ago. We are ready to shed
our garments of pain and leave the battlefield,

Transforming it into a park with a bandshell
where the song is flung in every direction and the
children play undetected where we once
wrestled forged enemies to the ground.

Put On Another Log

Put On Another Log

(“And so I remind you to stir up the gift of God that is in you…” 1 Timothy 1:6)

Don’t watch me burn.
Sit by the fire and warm your hands.
Pick up a guitar.
Wink at the girl across from you.
Tap your feet in the blackened soot.
Sing the song on the top of the sky.
Repeat the words that first made you fly.
Tell the story,
please tell it again.
Tell the story we have heard a hundred times before.
Show us how you memorized it,
or how your grandfather revised it generations ago.
Point out the constellations, I can never get the right.
Big Dipper. Little Dipper. North Star. Pleiades. Obscured by the
lights from town.
Pass out the wine you found on the final excursion
to the vineyards last fall. Do you have Dandelion,
and can we share?

Put on another log, we want to stay until early morning.
The stack is at the back of the property, dried, I hope,
after winter rains.
Teach us the song we’ve forgotten, let the blues harp
take the lead. The toddlers are dancing in shadows of the flames,
the teens are hoping to kiss for the first time tonight.
It is late spring and the air is cool. There are extra
sweatshirts inside the shed. The smell of last autumn’s
smoke still clings to sleeves and hoods.
A dad in plaid is shaving sticks of their bark and
handing them to kids with hot dogs in their hands.
Later we will burn some marshmallows, the embers will glow
blue and orange,
one baby is cuddling with her head on the side of the new
black Labrador puppy.
One is nestled in Auntie’s arms, eyelids are slow semaphores
as sleep pulls him close.

The fire, we kept it fanned. We planned for a few, and more than
that
stayed quiet and late. In the morning we will wash down the night
with coffee for the handful who never went home.