Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

(“You may drink from the brook. And I have commanded ravens to bring you food there.” 1 Kings 17:4)

I used to sit right up front,
I didn’t want to miss a thing. The way the sound passed
through the throat of the poetess I loved. I didn’t want
a single note to drop on the darkwood floor. I used to
write whatever came to mind.

There were rooms like water, the saxophone streamed over
the casement in background sounds of summer meadows.
We liked jazz, we loved Brubeck,
we danced if another would dance first.
There were lazy brooks
that smoothed stones for us to put in our pockets
and display on our shelves at home.

I used to hear the espresso hiss, black as ravens served in
ceramic thimbles. The troubadour never missed the chance
to soar between sad eyes and aspirations. We breathed the
same air, heavy like upholstery, waiting for the piece of bread
we would pass from table to unknowable. We never cared
for
the first cut or the upper crust,
we saw visions in the cups of wine set between us.

But some venues close and become
parking lots or clothing stores or memories lost
in youthful ideals. We thought we might find it again.
Maps are sometime edited, locations pressed flat
and forgotten.

Now I sit near the back,
if I go anywhere at all. Though today I did invite
a bald eagle whose white face and plume
seemed to take in everything. The sun broke the
field where cattle grazed
into perforated patches, an opportunity hatched
between land and sky. Looking past the clouds I
returned, still unsatisfied.

There are streams that never evaporate, if only
in mind.
There are birds that sing the songs you once heard
from poets, jazz bands and campfires in a simple
Kum Ba Yah.

Campfires and Timeless Tales

 Campfires and Timeless Tales

(“I will be a Father to you. You will be My sons and daughters, says the All-powerful God.” 2 Corinthians 6:18)

Entrusted with mere existence I
often
cannot keep from trying to control
time as if the hands on the clock
can be speeded up by my anxieties.
It does not pass, it flows like jet-streams
laden with weather.

On the days when I can lay my machinery
down
and simply listen to the cranking of the gears,
the creaking of the years,
the friction of time against space
I discover something far beyond the face
of things.
Far slower than the pace of things.
Far nearer, by the grace of things.
A table filled with aunts and uncles,
a yard filled with first degree cousins,
an afternoon filled with siblings who happen upon
the bbq we serve whenever the summer sneaks
up on us unaware.

Did you see your brother waiting to cross the street,
stalled on the corner because the light stays red?
Did you see your sister ragged in the corner,
breathing on the backstreets waiting for the
curfew to be lifted?

Did you see the Power. like. love.
Did you see the campfires lit on a thousand hills
with no fences around them? Did you see
the maternal love latent in the universe?
Did you see the paternal care lately calling to
all of us?

Did you stop and stay though the wind blew the
smoke in your face? Existence will not wait
while we measure the time in nitpicking packages of
hills to die on. Instead, we rely on
the stories told that take the whole night to tell

And do notice the hours slip away while we pass around
flagons of wine, crumbles of cheese,
and more bread than we need as we
hear the kindling crack.

And each new tale begins.