A Southern Breeze

A Southern Breeze

(“They will reach Jerusalem with gladness, singing and shouting for joy. They will be happy forever, forever free from sorrow and grief.” Isaiah 35:10)

So far from home we didn’t recognize the language
echoing around us. Similar, but unknown, it cast its
sounds like the frogs on the bogs near the end of the day.
But when they sang, we awoke. When they spoke in
stories that seemed to be repeated for the purpose reminding
themselves that once they were one, now they are one,
and will always be one. Perhaps they shared battle stories,
or romances around the campfire. All we knew is
we were on our way home
and hoped they would send us on our way
without a map to our name.

We had left years before, fleeing the vagaries of
cold edicts from foreign lands. We wailed and took
our babies with us to escape the fire by night that
no longer guided our steps. We ran until the end of
the city was a day behind us and carried the children
for days until we had no recognition of the land before us.
We took note of the eastern sky each morning as we
wandered like sheep without a shepherd. We escaped
like embers from a fire stoked by the wind.

But the day dawned when spirit blew us back the
way we came. We slowly turned, a steamship in the sea,
and made our way home hoping nothing had defaced
our memories. We had held them in our minds for so long
we hoped to find them unstained from the years we were gone.
But joy overtook us, a southern breeze that warmed the day,
and we danced back home like young elks along the river’s edge.

The Breeze Can Turn

The Breeze Can Turn

(“There are those who are last now who will be first in the future. And there are those who are first now who will be last in the future.” Luke 13:30)

The breeze can turn the day around,
it can move flags and leaves to their own devices.
The earth turns and the winds swirl
and we try to predict it all with instruments of sound.
The sand hill that you built your life upon,
no matter how high up the cliffs,
will not stand when the winds of time shift.
There are fewer days than when we started,
fewer moments to freely pursue the dreams of
salvation. You’ve fattened yourself like
a calf for the slaughter and do not realize
the days are racing forward.

Step down before
it is too late,
stand on the loaming ground before you fall
from the top of your precipice. Carry your
proclamations under your coat,
turn your speech around,
you’ve got more to confess than the
limits you’ve put on yourself. Failing
to flourish, you just pretend your boxes
are filled with more money than you can count.
Go look again,
the mice have eaten half of it. The rest are
necessary to pay your debt to humanity.

Poverty might look good on you. Poverty might
turn your words around. I’d befriend you
if you spoke honestly. I’d share a meal with you
if you lay down your presumptive power and
eat slowly the supper made by humble hands
born across the border.
The breeze can turn the day around,
if only you will listen to the wind and let
the Spirit fill your vacancy with the
cries of the walkers only wanting a chance
to work in the sun.

Sweetly Chastened

Sweetly Chastened

(“Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt!” John 12:15)

The breeze snuck up on me like the girl in
third grade who kissed my cheek and then
ran away.
I don’t remember her name. But I remember the
spot on my face where I blushed. I remember the
coolness on my forehead where the breeze stopped
me for just a moment.

I used to dream of kings. I used to dream of answers
that would solve household dilemmas. I used to dream
of days sitting on Crow Flies High Butte where you could see
upriver all the way to Montana and
hope I would see God.

And now I live on another river. I am Washington on one side,
you are Oregon on the other.

I used to speak like spirit was algebra, I used to write
like God was like the boulder the river erupted around as
it bent its way to the sea. I used to sing like the
answer could be found in
a secret chord and a name that, mentioned just once,
would bring all the horrors of nightmares to their knees.
I could cast the demons out of everyone else but
me.

I lusted for authority.

In Sacramento they trim the palms two weeks before Easter.
Five years in a row I gathered them so children and grandparents
could shout “Hosanna”. And then go vote for Republicans a few
months later.

In Minneapolis the pulpit thundered and a thousand people
were berated for
not being more like the donkey that Jesus rode upon, not being
willing to be his beast of burden.

Today I sit sweetly chastened. I am ready to meet the king
who drives a vw van. I am ready to meet the prince who walks
on the sand. I am ready to meet the lamb who subdues the lions
that undo the work of the Spirit. I am ready to be, more or less,
unknown so that

The king may be known in me.

Wait for the Green Breeze

Wait for the Green Breeze

(“He told her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness.’” Mark 5:34)

You cannot carry the crowd upon your shoulders.
You cannot lay down the law and expect everyone to obey.
You cannot walk through walls, you cannot dig to China,
but we can hire the verbs together,
watch the sky untether,
and wait for the green breeze that makes
the rocks hum.

You cannot dictate the future from your comma.
You cannot lay down a straight line to curve gravity back.
You cannot always run, you cannot cook without fire,
but we can rent the day together,
question hymns together,
and wait for the tide to turn that
takes us home.

Are your feet cold today, this February,
has the ice stained the impulses that leapt like fawns?
There is a melancholy that fills the spaces,
there are hard stops and soft memories that
fill our minds with faces that once kissed
our silences. Some have gone too soon,
and it feels we may never stop mourning.

How you fill my heart departed loves, how
your laughs and questions marks sit upon
the opening of the day

And mark it with smiles, tears, and
a longing to replay walks through courtyards
where we manufactured words to fit between
our cobbled dialogue.

We wait for the touch that makes
all whole again.

Caught by the Breeze

Caught by the Breeze

(“But Ittai said to the king, ‘As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, your servant will be where my lord the king may be, in death or in life.’” 2 Samuel 15:21) 

I.

It was a muggy morning; trash day in the suburbs.
The dogs had been out scrounging hamburger wrappers and
pizza boxes. And the wind blew.

A plastic lid from a large soda was caught by the breeze. Separated,
and turned on its side, the wind pushed it like a wheel down the asphalt
for a block and another. Twice and more it nearly fumbled in the moments
when the breeze was catching its breath. But just as it looked like the lid
would takes its rest within the gutter alone,
a gentle puff started it rolling again.

I watched this airy motion, the lid, the breeze and silent neighborhood trees
as witnesses to the same. Animated by atmosphere alone, the circle of plastic
crossed the street and barely crawled up a concrete driveway a quarter mile
from where it began.

Then, as if the universe had planned it, the solitary lid lay down on the
grass in front of the driveway’s home. And the fan of air blew elsewhere.

I’d rather been moved by the Spirit than coerced by a strong man.

II.

Come walk with me again, friend, life is shorter now than when we began.
Let the Spirit bring you to me again. We have less days to talk about the
ways of compassion, healing, love and revealing the light we both share
in common with all.

In these days of pain the light barely affects the chain of events that memory
brings like a waiter with the same burger I’ve eaten every Friday for years.

But sounds, the sounds jangle. The sounds are worse than toll bells, shakier
than cannon balls, fiercer than jet decibels on the ground. They shake my
nerves until the synapse explode in flame.

But your silence is like a hammer on the anvil of my mind. Your absence has
inverted solitude so I do not know which I should choose: the shock of a
shout across the room, or the weight of silence across the years.

There is more compassion left than holes in our clothes. More forgiveness and
amends,
than sand in our pockets.

So, return my call, answer my letter, let me know that you are better and
we will observe together what
the power of compassion can do.