With the Tongue

With the Tongue

(“With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God.” James 3:9)

Another day I might have ignored the comment,
another time I would have kept my peace.
Another day I would have slept through the thunder storm,
another time I would have caged my words.
You didn’t know the races that person ran,
you didn’t pay attention to their struggle and pain.
You just ran your tongue over your incisors, sharpening
your sentences to slice them whole. You memorized
the hymns and high songs,
and spit out invectives like tiny missiles across the
face of the target of your disapproval. Your aim was
off-center and your poison spread around the room.

The mouth formed the words moments after you
thought them. You didn’t look close enough to see
that the victim of your aspiration was another
re-creation of the Divine you loved to sing about.
You tamped down like a foot destroying a rose,
destroying the image that would have beautified the moment.
You doubled-down your unsacred sound moments after
How Great Thou Art, and Amazing Grace. You scattered
the light you could have shared across the floor in the
faintest phosphorescence.

God doesn’t need your compliments, God isn’t looking
for your slippery accolades. But God is waiting for you to
inhale and find the words to reverse the damage you did
to his creative artisan. You are just a crock of clay,
and so am I, inhabited by the Spirit, we should be
shining without looking away.

Dog-Eared Invitations

Dog-Eared Invitations

(“The Lord remembers us and will bless us.” Psalm 115:12a)

Look inside the rain, let it remind you of faces
that you used to see, faces you know were good
for a kiss or a laugh and usually both.
I know you would prefer that the
thread reached back 50 years unbroken.
Instead the spool unraveled five or ten years
at a time.

You can take to the road to find them,
you can send a letter describing how they
showed up in your dreams.
You can call and hope their voice sounds the same,
you can count up the words lost over the
stretches of highway from desert to home.

The road narrows but rarely answers the
questions we’ve never asked. I’d travel the
world with you,
I’d scrape the sand off your face. I’d help
you find the faces you left behind,
I’d deliver invitations to everyone who has
forgotten your name.

Do you feel unseen? Do you tell yourself stories
of what might have been? Does the rain keep you
from going outside; does it mock your hope for
freedom’s ring?

Listen beyond the trail that has led you here.
Let the wind carry the voices from the past.
I know you ache for forgotten friends; I know you
would never forsake even the one who cannot
remember your name.

Let’s start the journey by faith;
let’s empty our baskets and create a
new recipe for road trips. A day, a week,
a reverie, a sleep, a month, a cross-country
race to the end where we cash in our
dog-eared invitations to dance around
the bonfires again.

Show Me Open Fields

 

Show Me Open Fields

(“He sent Jesus to bless you by turning each of you away from doing evil things.” Acts 4:26b)

The smokestacks belch their acrid breath into
the air where deer should dance. The preachers ask
for allegiance sworn upon
the platforms of denial and mock trials of every
person who disagrees.

Shut up behind the doors of sunday, pretense
like a hollow drum repeats the clicking of teeth
at everything that must be defeated before we go
to an early lunch.

Don’t talk about me while I’m living,
don’t talk about me when I’ve died.
Just give me greater room to breathe,
show me open fields and I will not hide.

The dandelions wave their yellow heads and shed
their hairs turned white. We mow them down,
unwanted weeds we could have gardened,
turned to wine and celebrated
on spring days away from the smokey blindness
that tried to hide
the sun from upturned faces.

Shut behind the doors of doctrine, certainty
like a scorched pancake leaves us emptier than
when we began. We will stand to read the creeds,
and sit to gossip about those who live too loudly
at an early lunch.

Learn to love while we are living,
don’t wait until we have died.
Open the windows, clear the air,
join the picnic that is universe wide.