Now That the Burden is Gone

Now That the Burden is Gone

(“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our wrongdoings from us.” Psalm 103:12)

Did you see the dizzy way the day
turned like a clown? Did you pick up the
gravel that had been spread around your feet?
Which hour cost you the most?
Which stroke of the pen made all the difference?

The air is purer where the breeze has blown
every accusation further down the slopes. The
lights are brighter, full spectrum and sun, where
the tears are wiped from your cheeks. The
sounds turn from sullen bellows to the laughter
of a playground full of children.

Did you walk past the place where it first happened?
Did you fight the memories where they discarded their
own fears on your spine?
Did you sit in the backyard where they found what
they called evidence of your crime?
Did you take the time, today, straightway, and become
underwhelmed by the inherent insanity of it all?

The past is lighter where the breath of God has
whispered the pointed fingers back to their holsters? The
day breaks more softly, the angles are less oblique, and
the glass more transparent where one word is the word.
The distances from one sin to another are measured in
light-years. And your soul, like a beast of burden,
is happier now that the burden is gone.

I Find no PriceTag

I Find no PriceTag

(“You know how full of love and kindness our Lord Jesus was: though he was so very rich, yet to help you he became so very poor, so that by being poor he could make you rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

What is this pain dropped upon me,
a pack breaking my neck and twisting my back
that never lessens. No one adds to its weight
over time,
but the same burden carried hours and miles
over mountains of days and plateaus of hours,
unchanging terrain, my feet hang like anvils over
the edge of each mornings bed on waking.

And yet I know the destination, unseen today
through the blinding squeeze,
some well-photographed travelogue sent
back from beyond, waits. No, I am the one who

Waits.

The destination exists now, at the end;
and how far the hike when one day’s trek
is an hour of blindfold darkness and turning
around
I see exactly where I began. Each day,
the end less than inches from the start.

The milliseconds I have to reflect,
I know the pain of the Beloved was fire
fiercely ignited,
void of light or dark, presence or absence;
beyond my worst day and deeper than the
cliffs of agony I slip upon in heat or noise.

I know there is a Passion that has covered
the bloodshot crawl I call my walking,
where I used to run, my feet lie aching tomorrow.

Pay my way, I can find no pricetag to defray the cost,
and am lost so close to home. I would come now if
You would grant it; I have no energy to panic.

The Burden of Measure

The Burden of Measure

(“Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.” Romans 6:19b)

The weight of years can never be unloaded,
Laden with stacks of misdeeds restyled as mystery,
all the labels are yellowing around the edges with
the glue losing its power of attraction.

I know what is behind every shadow; the clues
are useless in the light of the sun. Those who think they know
should watch the reruns closely. I have carried
my vagabond baggage much further than they know.

I started to divide my life, and store each story in silos;
one for the acts of light without disputation,
the other for darkness (no matter my reputation at large).
I started last week, weighing each work from one to ten,
nine and above were sterling, all agreed.
All less than two were darkness (greed, lust, judgments and the
lies to divert discerning eyes).

I scanned my past, peering through the hazy tunnel of time,
and filled my second silo well before the first was a quarter complete.
Like the farmers when harvest is beyond expectation, I stored
my dark deeds in piles on the ground; stacks and stacks of deeds
and thoughts, false opinions and battles fought to escape the stares
that turned my face red and my hairs bristle like the cold.

I knew the older I become, the greater my debt, and silo one
will become simple seed for a small plot while the true harvest
overflows on the ground and silo two. Time has bound my
hands and my heart, the days left to me are far too few
to regain the best of me.

I’ve written a letter with the truth, to half a dozen I know,
though disturbed, will not take measures to disown me,
to stone me; they all know how prone we are to measure
another man’s storage with load groans of disapproval.
So, honest and loyal, they will die with me together
as the letter is opened to country air and truth.

We together, my hope, my trust, will dispose of counting
at once. And live heaven to man, land to mouth, past
unwritten and future bidding us renewal. Slaves once
to the past, slaves always, first to last, we offer our days
attached to the Master who passed over both our overflow
of darkness and mad attempts at
fullness. He has snatched our sad look backwards that
tore our hearts.