Undiluted Beauty

Undiluted Beauty

(“Do not be so certain you have won. Do not speak with your head held so high.” Psalm 75:5)

Do you know what I do not;
Is your power so great you have brought it to the battle?
Do you take counsel or do you put your head inside a
soundproof booth to keep your personal plans alive?

I used to need to be certain. I figured I was truly right.
I met every argument with a counter more wise,
I heard every disagreement as a disguise keeping
people from candor. I was the conveyer of truth,
my arguments were leakproof as they left my mouth.

But my soul hungered for more. My soul left me to
wonder why the surer arguments started to leave me empty.
I could hold my answers in a single hand but the truth
was numerous as all the grains of sand. How could I
be that foolish;
how could my doctrine be so brutish?

Are you still grasping dearly to parchment paper
copied hundreds of years ago? Do you remain sure of
the single verses you have plastered across your walls?
Has your mind ever changed? Has your fight ever ceased its
battles?

Under this sapphire sky are seashell eyes waiting for
freedom and unshackled fire within their soul. They long
to see
a day turning to night as the pastels of evening paint
the horizon.
They long to hear undiluted beauty and see the symphonies
of love from an orchestra of joy.

What shall we feed them this time? What recipes will we use?
Have we chosen saran-wrapped sandwiches from the deli counter?
Or are we willing to freestyle some bread and fixings, humble
ingredients, and water springing from underground. Shall we
admit we don’t always know what to do with so much fresh
produce. But we will feed you just the same.

The Battle, The Fatigue

 

The Battle, The Fatigue

 

(“But I have learned to feel safe and satisfied, just like a young child on its mother’s lap.” Psalm 131:2)

If I could sleep a hundred days, I would.
I’ve sat all day alone in my head 4000 days ago
Until now. There is no sword, no weapon to wield
that can slice through the shadows that weigh so much
they never bleed.

(And I would rather write an instead word here,
something to grant the reader a foreshadow that
rest will find me awakened like coffee and bacon.)

I do not want you to think that my faith has been shaken
(but it is)
I do not want you to imagine me wandering the path that
only leads me deeper into the darkening woods
(but I do)
I do not want you to think I’m an infidel, a heretic,
a miscreant, a fool or a poor soul swayed by a nasty spill
that befell me.
(but I am)

I have electronic friends to pass my days.
I have random music to explain the ways
the cells in my body buzz when my brain
stumbles and weaves into the 15^th round of a fight
it never intended to enter.
I have resonant instruments and harmonic strings
if ever I will play them.

How much rest does one person need when the battle,
the fatigue, the constant watching, the high alert lasts
from best life until late life? Where are the medics when
you are left bruised on the field?

I push my pencil forward one inch at a time,
who would think I would become so weary only
standing in one spot for the last decade?  
Who could predict that brain changes would
take so much out of me?

I am weary like the nub of the last crayon in the box,
I am tired like the black smoke from a candle wick dying in the dark.
I am silent, I am aboil, I am weighted, I am uncoiled,
I am medicated where the wounds lanced my dreams
and still I look at the phone to hear the past voices
that once laughed with me, but will not cry my pain.

So Mother, I am napping. Do not wake me until
the day has passed by at least twice over and the sun
is golden behind the river and fog.