Follow the Messengers

Follow the Messengers

(“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10)

Beyond the borders there is a square of
safety for me. I had studied the rural forms
for nearly 20 years and found the remains of
remote islands on the run. The tables were turned,
the tallest cedars burned and returned decades later.
All I could see from miles around atop the largest hill
on the grounds of a dozen acres of refuge, were angels
winging their way to me.

I discovered my identity in the motion of their wings and
the song of their mouths that echoed like childlike giggles
up and down the face of the canyons and the depths of the
muddy river running candidly.

I started listening to the way the wind blew through the
narrow windows of the tower and I could swear the birds
had stopped their chirping so I could hear the way the sun
made the grass grow. So I could hear the leaves inching out
toward the sky.

There had been trouble outside the fences,
there had been blockades keeping the stockpiles empty while
the children starved. They insisted it was legal the way
they turned away international aid. They imagined they
owned the soil where the tears of the mothers watered the dust
where innocence fell.

The angels moved past me. I was not their project and now I know.
They were moving me to move with them;
they were sent to melt the hearts of so-called kings who devastated
tens of thousands for an incomplete retribution. They have
nowhere to run, so let us run to them and leave our watchtowers
behind. Let us follow the messengers whose words are peace
and whose ways are love.

Beyond our Reach

Beyond our Reach

(“He will once again have compassion on us; he will tread down our iniquities. You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19)

Yet my heart still yearns for more love than I’ve been offered,
and I cannot admit it to the faithful and devoted
for I should be content with the love they espouse,
the love they says is unending,
(and the love I know to be true).
Yet so few grew in their affection for

a stumbler who trips over mere gravel,
a bumbler who constantly unravels plans and acquaintances.

Still I’ve groveled to earn back the friendship,
the kinship I admittedly broke. But I haven’t dug
deep enough, I think. The smoke still hovers over
embers of anger and rejection. I haven’t shoveled
long enough to prove my grief is great as their scars.

Let’s all go for a swim on top of the ocean,
let’s all go for a hike on top of the world,
let’s all seek adventures on top of dunes,
let’s all skim the top of rivers again.

I fear I’ve let the cat out of the bag,
I’m not as confident as my weekly proclamations.
There are few who care about my daily palpitations,
my constant mental storms and wilted white flags.

Let’s all glide above the atmosphere,
let’s all picnic above the earth,
let’s all round dance above the dust,
let’s all sing as if our hearts will burst.

My feet are calloused, my eyes itch from sand,
my directions are misguided, my arguments are obtuse.
The journey has been painful, knocked all my certainty loose,
the navigation is not at fault, but the way is weary,
and every sense assaulted like moth-eaten quilts.

Still I embark, never on time. Later than ever these days,
and watching my thoughts unwind. My destination has
always been the same; a tribe, a gathering, a clan,
a caravan, a band that loves to sing the same song

Out of tune because the earth keeps rolling.
The instruments enter and exit while the voices
find a common song,
An early song,
a folk song,
the music that encircles top and bottom
and leaves the air cleansed by the exhaled version of
the eternal song.

Only Once

Only Once

(“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and his heart was stirred with love and pity. He ran to him, hugged him tight, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20b)

I have only once been kissed by a man,
a big black man,
10 years my junior,
6 inches higher.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
save my father as I bobbled saggily in diapers,
but I was kissed by a man in
the last church my dad ever attended.

I had skipped several meetings, the table talk,
the bread dipped in wine. The last time had been
weeks beyond my memory. But he saw me
as my feet fell into a carpet covered Sunday.

He is boisterous; he thinks everyone is wonderful.
He is full noon at the beginning of the day.
His wife, not quite prim, but proper, shines
more silently.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
black-suited, like a heart-seeking missile he
saw me enter and
wrapped his huge arms around my receptive shoulders
and kissed me on the cheek so quickly
I had no time to think and no place to run.
I was stunned in the most gracious way.

Sometimes our hearts are towed from squared
basements and foundations
toward a horizon where the sea mist caresses us
like the first time I ever
was kissed by a man.

Beyond the Years

Beyond the Years

("But let us give thanks to God! He gives us the victory because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done." 1 Corinthians 15:57)

Do not march on in anger,
no need to parade in fear,
the triumphant procession extends beyond the years
that have held you down below
the sod of so many opinions.

Awake now, meet the day;
alive now, come and play in the sun
and join the immortal one who has opened every tomb,
emptied every grave,
and leads you, oh reluctant warrior,
in celebration you may not see, but fills the
reflections of the waters,
echoes from the planets to galaxies,
small talk in tiny cafes,
suspects of doubt along with
trumpets of faith.

The rich man's cave where he lay
is void of its treasure. There was no holding down
the apex of creation. Laugh at monster death,
cry at dying's destruction, but live, for life
is the gift, hidden in the earthy darkness and now
ablaze in the light of day.

These pain, these pains,
these bones that creak with age.
These pains, these names
that seem to upstage our hope,
our glory, our truest story while we
wait with poverty at our feet and
loss knocking at the door.

That day, that day,
mere hours away from the cruelest pain.
That day, lambs play
with lions and entertain babies
who we kept away from snakes in the garden
for fear.

Though this day may squeeze the breath from your believing,
though tomorrow a storm may rage unpredicted,
though politicians deceive, mega-seat theaters play
the movies we payed dearly to believe, and even though
the pins and needles sting like adder's poison

the reason to hope still stands like the world wiped clean
once it did all it could do to mute the song of all creation;
the life breaks through like high-speed videography
cracking the sidewalks in moments,
revealing the life that existed far before the
concrete of time.

Beyond

Beyond

(“You are wonderful, Lord, and you deserve all praise, because you are much greater than anyone can understand.” Psalm 145:3)

It is not so much that I have waited too long,
or that you have been late in arriving (the very last thing
I would consider). It may even be that I waited to see
the unseeable. I listened like a recording technician,
faithful to the layers and bursts, the measures and rests,
as well as the melody the composer invented on paper.

And now, just as I was blind for looking too dimensional,
I must admit I was waiting as well for the unhearable.

Your light is not so dim that we only see its faint glow
against the darkest black on the market;
Your voice is not so faint that we only hear it when even
the crickets have lost their nerve.

Your light is higher, and, though the word is understood,
even the word does little good, and yet, I will say, you are

Brighter.

But it is not a matter of lumens or wavelength, it is our limited
perception. We see, and are blind. We point out the sparkle upon the river,
the diamonds overrunning the waterfall and the rainbow in the mist.
And, thinking we have seen it all, we measure glory, for which
there is no measure,
we measure glory a factor above the daylight cast upon our
favored view. We even saw what few others viewed.

Neither are you too faint for our human ears. We know by rote
that dogs can hear what we cannot. But your language comes
to be heard, sometimes by the singing bird, others the crash
of the river as it diverts its flow upon an ancient boulder in its path.

Those are surely your notes, your memos, the table of contents
for Creation’s greatest novel. And perhaps the silence is your language
full. For we confuse the silence with emptiness, and go searching for
another poet to sing our blues.

Beyond and above, greater and below, in radial love like
a circular embrace, what we do not hear may be the best of

All we have heard.