Barefoot in Autumn

 Barefoot in Autumn

(“The prince of Yahweh’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place on which you stand is holy.’ Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:15)

Walking barefoot on the early autumn dew
and the ground gave slightly between his toes.
There was a place within that was as bare as the
fading grasses as the days shrunk a little each hour.
There was power, there were flexible moments,
there was thunder, there was cotton candy snow.
The sun was bright and never obscured, the stars
burned right where they had been appointed eons ago.
He wasn’t sure if angels attended his devotion,
or if God walked the same short path that day.
He just knew nothing should come between his unshod feet
and a few square yards of pure creation. Although he did cry
to think
of all the consumables that, tossed out of every home, now
in microscopic detail permeated each place he stepped.
He heard no voices, but did think a song would be appropriate.
He waited for the birds to begin, the robins and doves that
shared a tree just over his head. They were busy collecting berries
for their brood and paid him little attention. Some of the birds
hung upside down on the branches just to reach the diminutive berries.

He had fasted before, hoping the holy would fill the
empty places. He was not wrong. But the visions were drab,
dull green and gray. He prayed until his eyes stung; He knelt
and asked the same thing each time. His failures always were
the first order of business. The dissonance between what he believed
and what he could never control; he could write a book, but then
everyone would know he wasn’t who he hoped to be.

But that day, standing in the chilly autumn with his feet
naked and flush against the ground, he thought he heard
the silence speak. What was the language? What dialect?
Could the thoughts that came to his mind also be the thoughts
of god? Could his heart beat truer while the cold earth
seeped between his toes? He would go back inside,
pour a cup of tea, and finish reading about the climate crisis.
He would do all he could do and bottled the moment as an
elixir to fix his backlog of failures and his fresh open-mouthed
questions about sanity and sanctity.

The air was warm just inside his front door.

The Setting of Autumn

 

The Setting of Autumn

(“God has made everything fitting in its time, but has also placed eternity in their hearts…” Ecclesiastes 3:11a)

This is the kind of town where
you can watch Autumn set slowly behind the hills
while
an easy wind exhales with Winter rain.
And yet,
and yet,
I was not ready for the next season nor
expected that harsh pellets of heaven descending
would add to the darkness that remained
well past the rising of the sun.

For all the ice, for all the floods,
for all the harsh north that blew in through
the windows’ thin panes,
there was still waiting to do.
There was still waiting to do
well into the arms of heavy afternoons.
There was still one more word to hear
before the clouds obscured the sun that
had warmed the land. There were no
magic wands,
but there were words that broke through
sleet and raindrops,
sleep and pain.

It was time to listen again.

Autumn Cheers

 

Autumn Cheers

(“For your loyal love extends beyond the sky, and your faithfulness reaches the clouds.” Psalm 108:4)

Was the air wearing the scent of autumn today,
was the atmosphere dressed just to display the beauty
that dissolves into love?

Was the sky earth-hugging today, full of gray on white,
all business and play? Where the leaves fell
the robins and jays danced while tiny dogs
barked them away.

Night comes early and the light less steep,
the shadows are longer and sharper, our cheeks
blush as creation whispers romance;
lover and beloved sans words, sans precision,
gather the panorama of bonfires and the smokey presence
that follows the wind’s suggestions.

We see. We touch. We breathe. And much is
forgotten. We shiver, we sigh, we leap onto
piles of leaves
and remember the sewn manikins we stuffed
(plaid shirt, blue jeans, knit cap) and placed
in an old wooden chair on the front porch come
October.

It is never over, this canvas that paints our days;
they are never over, these reminders in the sky
that, whisper or wail, release in us upwelling joy
to embrace the caresses of the universe.

Our deepest pleasure is to toast the One who-in-love
composed it all, though are cups are too small,
our wine too common, we still say

Cheers,

and look around in silence while laughter
from the neighbor’s back yard enlivens our
pleasure, and we drink again, including more again
in our circle of mouth stopping wonder.

The Shortest Sentences

The Shortest Sentences

(”He took the seven loaves of bread and the fish and gave thanks to God. Then he divided the food and gave it to his followers, and they gave it to the people.” Matthew 15:36)

And the plains rolled slowly from the feet of the hills,
westward and looking, gazing and turning the questions upon themselves
over and over again. The crowd filled the grass,
every blade bent or broken. There is hunger here. There is thirst
and desire. There is aging hope, and fame sinking down the drains
of earlier expectations. The antique prophets spoke,
the burnished teachers with sparkling swag turned the thunder
to cuss and spit and anger. The wrath of God, in their hands,
was just the politics of borders.

But new and older, without a place to lay his head,
another spoke with patina. Our hunger deepened, our thirst
a dry and violent hole cracked well past autumn. Yet, the

shortest sentence fills us like banquets.

The slightest promise

Coaxes rain from the empty skies,
and empties our eyes of a life-full of precipitation.

We crossed the borders and He knew us,
we marched with refugees on the sands of worn leather,
arriving later than we had planned,
the party must have ended,
the budget overspent,
with only the roadies left behind packing up the
double-bass and banjos.  We doubled our pace

And discovered

There is not late, no ever, there is not there, nor never,
only fullness and every hungry for more.

Find Me

Find Me

(“The Lord God has told us what is right   and what he demands: ‘See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God.’” Micah 6:8)

Magnify the road we walk,
the uphill path across the i-beam shadows
of trees on the left and a stream on the right.
Do not journey alone on the path made for
more
than single file silence. The wordless ways
we speak are shared in breathless rhythms.

The early autumn recites the first frost
and so our hoods are pulled tightly overhead,
our fingers holed up inside our sweatshirt sleeves.
By noon we sweat, as autumn demands our attention
before ice replaces frost below the footprints we
lay down today.

Repeats of family hikes, reverie of first friends
wandering the hills, squandering the day, living
on coca cola and trail mix; hoping to see wildlife,
taking our time. We forget the days fade so quickly
come October’s dominance and sway.

Branches lie strewn on the forest floor, remnants
of life unattached. The decay begins the moment the
wind bends it beyond nature’s hinge; yet still it hides
life beneath its sundried core scattering at first movement
or light.

The writer is dim today, and longer than autumn should allow.
Joy with a handful, laughter unabashed and a trip to the
Grand Canyon
might swell the life he dropped on the way, tumbling along
the chalky cliff with orange gloves still waving from outcrops
between the cracks.

Too late to return and find it before darkness cover our tracks.

Find me merciful, please, though I’ve lost most of my companions.
Find me humble, still, but ready. Point me, and, though I do
not
recognize the way
I will still say, “Lead me”. But, on this
October day,
I’d prefer another who understand my solitude,
my silence and can cure me to the bold man I once knew
in May.

Over our Heads

Over our Heads

(“I am coming to you now. But I pray these things while I am still in the world. I say all this so that these followers can have the true happiness that I have. I want them to be completely happy.” John 17:13)

Angelic arpeggios are always dancing in a world with perfect acoustics.
Rain spins and mockingbirds on old limbs on forested ledges echo
the rounded chords; writing and rewriting, singing their choreography
under our feet,
and
over our heads,
and
within the earth,
and
from the farthest star.

I don’t know what the future is for my babies. I only wish them happiness.

Autumn drips more often in syncopation, the rain reminds the wind
to chime, bamboo and aluminum, hanging from garage and patio eaves.
The leaves take a chance, flying from their perches with cursive flight plans
until they land to cover the hillsides until snow.

The Father hears the request of the Son; in this world, before the next one,
for joy to be modified so all can read the lines, and memorized, the day
that begins mournful can arise, not theorized and greater dimension than
pantomime, is sung without a thought of how it will end, or
why it began.

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

(“Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.” 2 Timothy 4:12b)

The leaves twirled on the winter grass like
sparrows dancing romance. The final rosebuds nodded,
the summer campfires have turned to woodheat inside
winterized homes. Morning does not break in the Northwest
autumn, but sneaks up slowly from late night’s dark insistence
to the day obscured by couriers of rain. Even the dog barks
at the fallen log that lay there just the same day before,
and before just the same. And the cat stretches, winking
at the careless movement toward afternoon.

Those mornings carry more weight, though far less sunlight;
this season asks for reckoning, extra apparel and friends
spending
an evening watching the children play, begging to
go out into the rain.

These days suggest the joy we left behind at summer’s end,
this life asks for memories and names and daytrips and old friends.
Old friends, the ones we saw every day when we were young,
and spent the duration of every day playing like night never comes.

This time reminds our eyes, our state of mind, that young love ages,
friendships are memorized in stages, and every book eventually ends,
the few back pages we slowly read, hoping for a sequel,
longing for another childhood recommended to take us on the
last several seasons home.

Today the horizon is broken by hills and changing trees,
if not, I might see you coming. If not, I might hear your footsteps
on the sloppy leaves wanting to know if, one more time, just maybe,
I could come out to play.