The Answer to Every Question

The Answer to Every Question

(“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” 1 John 4:10)

You would know me from a distance,
I have the same appeal I did when we first met.
We can start again because we have ended at the same
fork in the road. Tell me which way you will go and
I will turn that way too. Tell me your destination and
I will make it my own. Follow me, I may not know where
we will end up,
but I know I want to go there with you.
My car is old and slower than it used to be,
but we can still get there if we take our time.
I will take my time until the breeze whispers that
you are mine.
Feel it all, the large and the small; let the emotions
that are hidden come out into the afternoon sun. Put
them in my hand and I will massage them, the hurting ones.
Put them in my hand and I will cherish them, the loving ones.
Waiting only postpones the way our souls relate,
putting it off increases the ennui. Can’t tell if it’s
right or wrong,
I just want to sing the words of the song and watch them
etch beloved lyrics upon your face. You might smile
while I am awkward with the tune. But you will know,
later or soon, how much they mean.
We both have been bogged down in tradition,
we both have been forced to keep the rules that keep us
fenced up like incarcerated rabbits caught nibbling the garden.
Today I do not even need to persuade you,
today I only want to upgrade the love first begun.
We can get out and walk once we reach our destination,
we can feel the sand between our toes. We can feel our
hands lightly touching,
we can hear the surf filling in the words we have forgotten.
And in that moment you know and I know there is nothing
we could tell that would drive us away.
The universe answers with the deepest love when we
ask the questions we have been afraid to ask.
It is you, I have seen you in the storm;
It is you; I have loved you in the warm and quiet
afternoons. And only hope to be loved too.
Then you take my hand and put it on your face and
I know
No one can replace you, then or now, and I take
you in my arms and hold you softly as our eyes
kiss and we know the answer to every question we’ve been asking.

Perhaps It Was the Poppies

Perhaps It Was the Poppies

(“I will answer their prayers before they finish praying.” Isaiah 65:24)

It was in the shape of a tree, an evergreen,
pointing beyond the skies and dreams away from
the magnetism of dirt and earth.

But there was not a guardian angel in sight. I know I knew
his name,
I thought we were personal like that. But, for now,
the name was locked deep inside my brain, and maybe a
mini stroke had hidden it forever.

It was the color of wind, a gale warning; the offshore flow
dropped heavy clouds with bullet rain driving us inside
except to make a run to the mailbox.

But there was not a ray of sun in sight. I longed for happy rays
that pierced my retinas, tanned my forehead and sent me safely
playing with my chihuahua. She doesn’t like the cold or the
precipitation. She hesitates at each drop.

It was the rhythm of fear, the heart rate, the paralysis,
the constant analysis of things that could go wrong. (Things
had gone wrong so many times before.) It was the wall that
calcified the heart and challenged anyone with soft enough
words
to tear it down from the outside. I had learned to hide; with
raw bruises where I had torn the fortress wall down before.
I looked in his eyes, told him my shame,
and years later everything changed. I sat with him for hours
when he cried about the love of his life. But I understand;
so my wall grew thicker by the year and higher each season.

Perhaps it was the sunflowers that reminded me of the power
of light.
Perhaps it was the poppies that buttered me up to install a
window, a small one, to peek at the days. Perhaps it was the
half dozen friends who never went away. But none of them
knew my shame, and I was not ready to risk it again.

So I walk where the shapes point to the sky,
I ponder inside darkness, I wait in frozen expectation,
and wish for one or the other kind of companion:

A new friend who knows nothing about me and wants to
know it all.
Or a friend who knows it all, and still craves my company.

Today I will travel between dreams and magnetic earth,
I will let the raindrops do their work to wash away the limestone
whitewash on my well-aged wall.

Silence is an Answer

Silence is an Answer

He got up from the table, the food had all been served,
but the looks on the faces, the uneasy gazes made him think
he might need to clear his mind before
they cleared the dishes.

He walked out the same door he had used for over
a decade
and walked out before desert.

It was no wrong turn that took him there; in fact, he was invited.
This last meal was much like scores of others,
but in his sleep he dreamt the drinks might be poisoned.
So, his bride beside him, they left the folding chairs in winter
(they were stuck on the floor and
no one stood to help.)

The night fell before the sun stopped shining,
the talk was subdued, and the goodbyes stayed firmly
on the ground.
He wished for longer tables and shorter lines,
for wider conversation and deeper embraces (not
to suggest too many things were unexpressed.)

He got up from the table, the words all untangled
stayed behind in closets of puppet stages and belfries.
He would check the mail often, his bride beside him,
and opened the past like cobwebbed air.
He broke.

He

Broke.

Silence is an answer, he finally understood.
And he never entered the same doors again.

To Answer the Door

 

To Answer the Door

(“The Lord said to Gideon, “The men you have are too many for me to give them victory…They might think that they had won by themselves, and so give me no credit.” Judges 7:2)

Some days I am one, occasionally I am two,
but most days I simply am none.
On holidays maybe two to five;
Most days I have less than I want,
All days I have more than I need.

My doors are unlocked, my phone is not blocked,
why don’t you leave a coffee at my door?
Why don’t I hear your voice the way I did before?
Is my address obscured, have absurd notions about
my mosaic faith made you lose my number?

Did you think I could muscle through this impossible etude,
did you expect me to refuse your offer of lunch or conversation
upon the wandering hills? What exactly have I spilled that makes
you see such a stain modifying me?

I was never the strong one, even when I needed to be.
I was never the rock, the tower, the fascinating power
emitted from ministerial license or prophetic indulgence.
I cried more than I slept; even when friends faced me,
warm words faded, erased by the time they turned around.

By now I’ve learned the routine, I settle into the shadows unseen.
By now I expect nothing, though my heart feels like rain and
a flash flood warning has been issued for the tears in my eyes.

I love you unguarded, but now disheartened,
I sit with the slow-motion collage of letters and words
that spring from my mind unheard by anyone besides
the god who says he has heard it all before. But, if I
hope for anything,
I hope he does not ignore the repeats so incomplete
that track through my days and punctuate my nights.

Some days I have won, most days I have lost,
today I would jump out of my chair and cross the
room to answer the door…to see if anyone is there.

Just for Kicks

Just for Kicks

(“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14)

I was never a rebel just for kicks,
I was hardly an enlisted maverick.
But, by the time I had been stranded inside the bricks
and mortar of lines to cross and
coughing borders
I was forced to become larger than my story.

(Just between us, the butterflies that ravish the wildflowers
speak more eloquently to me.)

I was living like a ghost and no one saw me.
They saw the pottery I lived in and the tendency to crack.
I answered back but my arguments sounded like fallacy to
those who thought the cocoon was the condominium
we all should live and die in.

I heard you telling me to be fearless;
the judge and jury could not care less.
You have washed the gutters with your tears,
and yes, your heart has melted the listlessness away.

So I sported my fedora,
walked cautiously outdoors
and told the trees and the sky that
this was the last time I would lie
about who I am
and where I belong.

And my heart no longer kicked against the goads
that moved me to ride on donkeys or foals.
I rebuilt the house with the sun piercing every crack,
I re-spoke the words the Son of Man also spoke
and never turned back.

Winding Up

Winding Up

(“Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults.” 1 Corinthians 14:20)

Winding up another campaign to amass the anger
of minds that have leaned too long upon
provincial haze and
parochial obsessions

The speaker granted one question:

“Who, sir, do you answer to?”

Incomplete candor settled like coal fumes from a grade-school furnace,
while the answer quivered, a bird without a wing, and the inquisitor
waited. Not willing to pounce and certainly not a predator,
he tossed the question for an easy layup. But

The question hung above the rim, the speaker could not discern
if he was defense or offense. Swipe the question from the air or
finish with a full sweep of his arms. Bring the house down or

Bring

The House

down?

It takes at least three cups of coffee to finally understand the hue
of the other, the shade of another, and rescue ourselves from corners
of shadow into wall-less

Dances of light.