Never Any Debts

Never Any Debts

(“You shall not take vengeance, nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18)

You don’t remember the time when
pain was the only word I could define,
do you?
I could say I don’t mind, but that would be
untrue. I tossed my stones into a lake
years ago. And yet, today I can see the
reflection of scowls I carried because
I married your apologies to my mood.
I was a fool.

And because I can still see your face
doesn’t mean I haven’t tried to erase the
words that no one disguised. Coffee would
be nice. Or a two-hour lunch where either of us
cried. Losses pile up.

I don’t mean to say you owe me anything. I’m
still paying my own debts this late, too far past Spring.
I don’t mean to say anyone should have loved me more. I’ve
lengthened the timeline and still wonder that any of us
are loved at all.

So, if I call you next week, or send you a note in the mail,
I’ve settled accounts, and all the debts are on my side of the
ledger. I took too much interest in
looking for your check in the mail. I was

Whole

Before it all began. And we both were
uncertain by the time the bills came due.

All I can tell you, all I know for now,
is to love you is to love myself. To walk
in light is to see you unhindered by my own
timeline of pain. You are, to say it again,
free, my friend. There were never any debts to
begin with. 

Less Important Than the Melody

Less Important Than the Melody

(“Help each other in your troubles. In that way you obey Christ's law.” Galatians 6:2)

There is no reason to wait. Take the
sunrise to someone who
is still aching halfway through their day.
There is no reason to hesitate. Bring the
table with you and set it with
in the yard, gingham tablecloths and
fried chicken to tempt the neighbors
and their dogs. Enter the lonely space that
extends from the first tear of morning to the
half-shut eyes of midnight.
Why do you pray for miracles when
the old man up the road would be so happy
to hear a voice from the past, an anchor to reality
more heavenly
than a hundred verses of hymns.
And don’t forget the children who smile
so easily
at one twinkle of attention. Learn the choreography
that sets the burdened ones free.
Teach yourself the lessons you learned the last time
you returned from enforced silence to
hear native songs sung back to you again.
The words are less important than the melody
that lifts the eyes, lightens the shoulders, and brightens
the hills once shrouded in gloom.
Walk the dusty hills with the Teacher who
has no place to lay her head. Attend the weddings
of lovers
whose siblings stayed away. Dance with the groom,
twirl the bride, celebrate with cake on your face
and
invite the parson too. Be the presence in the
echoes, be the praises in the silence,
be the persona who frequent both
meadows and wilderness to discover the magic
and carry it to hovels waiting for time to begin.

Skip the Explanations for Now

 Skip the Explanations for Now

(“Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace) and be thankful.” Colossians 3:15)

Skip the explanations for now,
the commentary can wait.
Tell us the story, front to back,
inside out. Don’t leave out a detail.
Give us every quote.
Tell us how the budding leaves
narrated the next call to prayer.
Remind us how the grass underfoot
was the grace sowed into the tiny universe
we see from our fields.

Did you meet someone on the way?
Did she smile, did she dance?
Did the old man stop and ask you
to take a chance at smiling again?
(I believe I have met him before.)
Tell us about the dogs, one a baby Labrador,
the other a vanilla and chocolate mix;
tell us how they ran at you, how they
startled you,
and how they pranced and played as if
you were the happiest part of their day.

Tell us about the children in the back row
talking
while the teacher wrote on the board.
Tell us about the muzzle flashes, the screams
that pierced their half-grown bodies. Tell us
why, if you know,
a boy, a legal man, needed weapons of war;
why anyone would want one, why anyone would
conclude the rights to own it outweigh the
right to keep on breathing.

Tell it, and skip the excuses for now,
the legislation cannot wait.
Can you feel the full mass of every
massive wound effect as each round
tore into flesh? Tell us what you heard,
tell us what you think, tell us why weapons
are called
Peacemakers

While the children of God wait for the
Prince of peace to rewrite the story.

Tell us, from start to end, why we do not
begin just now.

Let Me Begin Again

Let Me Begin Again

(“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17)

The curtain closed on one more day
of the part I’ve been playing. I could
read the lines
time and time again.
I used to think about fences, like words,
like scripts,
that kept me in line.

Preoccupied with getting things right,
I feared missing a step or forgetting a line.
I tread the boards so carefully
I tripped over the first crack in the wood.

Without an audience or with limited applause,
the fault fell at my feet. It is not
that improvisation was disallowed or
frowned upon,
it was my fear of diving headfirst into
the deep end.

But you, gentle one, danced with me instead.
Your words were unrehearsed,
your eyes an invitation to swing around the moon,
pick daisies on Mars and
tour the stars one by one.

I was not as broken as I supposed,
I was born with atoms in my skin
that existed before the rivers, before the
globes and spheres,
before the sun we both felt on our faces.

You taught me to dance and sometimes cry…

Let me begin again:

I intended to use the stage, scripts, blocking,
props, sets, and lighting
as a metaphor
for
constraints.

I intended to describe the freedom of ad libs
in a culture of carefully drawn lines. I
intended
to write about sweet freedom,
complete with descriptions of ecstatic
experiences with the
God of words and the
Lord of dance.

Instead:

Today freedom means…

I can tell you honestly,
directly,
soliloquy,
that I am of more than one mind.

The theater never hindered me,
though another culture nearly did.
I am free to tell you
I never had a divine encounter

Unless it was in the presence of my cast
mates.