This Groggy Heart

This Groggy Heart

(“If you feel you must brag, then have enough sense to brag about worshiping me, the Lord. What I like best is showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone on earth.” Jeremiah 9:24)

You stayed long after every thought had its day.
You were the heaviness of contemplation and the
lightness of hilarity when morning came.
My mind is still stuffed with worries,
my brain with the unease that comes from
dreams filled with inadequacy. I need
you
closer than ever and every moment
when my thoughts stray like neighborhood dogs
on the prowl. I need the kindness that meets me
in the middle of my dirge. I need the laughter that lasts
well beyond the afternoon.

The earth feels old today, long in the tooth and
bearded in gray. It was younger when I walked to
the corner bowling alley and played pinball most
of the afternoon. I thought summer was the
best playground and would never end.
The earth feels stale today, I hate to say it.
For I know it is full of verdant discoveries and
colors of autumn as the leaves depart for the winter.

While I clean out the cobweb thoughts, you remain,
just the same,
and bid me mirror your love at the speed of light.
Can I, quietly and quickly, silence the report of gunfire
and let the drops of rain coax life from this
groggy heart of mine?

Sounding Like Tablas

Sounding Like Tablas

(“So then, no one should brag about human beings. Everything belongs to you.” 1 Corinthians 3:21)

And I heard a voice sounding like tablas against
a sweating sky. I never second-guess the sounds anymore.
And I saw angels flying,
though I saw nothing at all.
And I knew the world was filled with thoughts that had
wandered behind me
from the day something died within until
the moment I wrote this

WORD.

And I cannot describe, to even my own satisfaction,
why the sun should smile as it does.
I could not explain the way roosters crow,
doves cry,
and the earth dances, the earth whirls,
the earth prances, the earth twirls on its path
to who
knows
where.

My fists are unbent. My fingers are swollen from
years of piano notes,
from decades of fretting the chords to form
someone else’s songs.

I still hurry, hoping I’ll hear another pronouncement
that all is well, and all manner of things shall be well.
But the proclamations do not go before me;
they capture me,
they unwrap me before
I ever hear them coming.

I can see it on your face. No, I can imagine it.
The wrinkles around your eyes as you squint at my
imprecision.

I would explain. I would elucidate. I would hand out
an outline. I would project a PowerPoint. But

Some things

Are more felt that explained. And Spring beckons me
from this weary winter. Spring caught be by the heel with
the first sight of daffodils in my neighbor’s garden.