A Pretty Good Day

A Pretty Good Day

(“Then he said, ‘I tell you the truth. You must change and become like little children. If you don’t do this, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” Matthew 18:3)

Splash is a sound that slaps the salty sidewalks on
summer afternoons. Children take the water seriously,
pointing the hose at the nearest victim. Giggles turn the
corners round the houses of everyone who has come out to see
the joy that fills the street.

They were mostly grandchildren dancing like fountains,
toddlers tasting the sunlight as they hugged the water
spraying over them. They had not learned

(Like so many adults do)

That it feels so much like earning the days that
are given for free. They invite us to misbehave for just
a triangle of time each day.

Children take what is offered, unabashed liberty.
They point the water hose at each other and the liquid
looks like diamonds bouncing off the sod.
The day turns late, the shadows grow long and parents
whistle for children to come home. One more slide down the
wetted grass, one more mouthful of water from the hose,
one more dousing of your crush, and one more towel to
dry everyone off

All in all, it was a pretty good day.
No of a certain age needs to be taught to play.

There Were Children Dancing

There Were Children Dancing

(“So God will choose the one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.” Romans 9:16)

I listened to the laughter coming from the next room;
there were children dancing to a whirling tune
I did not know and could not repeat. They circled
each other and leaped up and down. It was on a
stormy day with winds roaring from the east; foothills
to the coast, and the rain splattered the windows like
tiny balloons thrown by fairies.
It was rarely this easy. But today their feet moved
together, their giggles were not disruptive, and their
words were improvised along with their song.

There was something vital in that moment, there was

untitled poetry at play. It came from within them,
it came from without. It came from planets above,
it came from the earth below. It crept in through the doorway,
it circled room after room until, soon enough,
the laughter gave way to lavender exhaustion.

Not a breath was wasted, every movement was intentional,
every word was invented, not a syllable fell pasted to the floor.
They floated like dandelions, they tossed themselves like
pillows in the air. They sounded like cherubs, they looked like
an hour in a day without care. They slipped in their favorite
colors and poked around the edges of prayer.

No one planned it, no one invited the parties;
it was all the children knew to do with their spare time,
it was everything they had waited for since morning had dawned.
And all the adults learned laughter halfway through the dance.
Next time maybe they would lead it, maybe they would leave it
all to chance.

Like Blindfolded Children

Like Blindfolded Children

(“I was like eyes for the blind, like feet for the crippled.” Job 29:15)

I saw your face and the only thing I could think
was to ask if it was okay for me to say
that I miss you?
You weren’t the first to limp for me
when I had pretended to walk upright for years.
Studying the early morning light
was just another way to disguise my blindness.
It was no fault of my own,
and you saw none to begin with,
but I always depended on your description of
the day to remind me where love began and
rejection ended. I remember you did cartwheels
on my front lawn.

Hanging by your knees from the parallel bars
you saw me inverted; my feet had been burned from
walking on asphalt all summer. But your laugh
was July’s tune, your play like a kitten showing
how long it could hang on the living room drapes
in the sun.

We began the way that all children do;
hide-and-go-seek until it was too dark to
see the secret place in the grove of trees just
between the public park and the old tool shed
we swore was haunted. You would have carried
me on your back, but you were smaller than I was.
So you slowed your pace, and with childlike grace
that displaces adult apprehensions, you showed me
the dance floor, the gazebo, where teenagers pretended to be
married
by the neighbor next door.

Do I know your face? How can you ask? Though years
have stubbornly kept us apart like continental drift,
your laugh is as young as the last day of summer
50 years ago.

There is a grandmother here in town (we are both now
grands, can you believe it?) There is a grandmother in town
who entertains every visitor that sits on her couch and
every baby placed upon her lap.

How old shall we be before we can play again
like blindfolded children swinging at a pinata?
How far we have come, how near do I believe you to be,
(though my thoughts often deceive me.) How long until
we walk a dusky evening with nothing more than
a bunch of grapes and roll down the hill until
our jeans are grass-stained with the imprints of impossibility?
I could see more easily when you were there to guide me.

While the Children Learn

While the Children Learn

(“Lord, you have made so many things! How wise you were when you made all of them! The earth is full of your creatures.” Psalm 104:24)

I’m not sure how to go about this.
I see my chihuahua lapping up the Autumn sun.
She chases the squirrels away, she patrols the yard
against the next door Husky a hundred times larger than she.
I am lonely still, missing my hearts who have left this world.
I wish the blue jays knew me by name,
the hummingbirds also, when they buzzing sounds like
mosquitos.

Saint Francis knew the bluebirds’ songs. He wrote their
notes upon his heart. I wish I could hear just a few more words
from the departed I’ve loved, from the disheartened who
filled the earth with more love than
most of us are worth.

I’ve seen geckos sunning in Mexican terraces,
moose standing by a Canadian road. I’ve heard
loons echoing the late afternoon and
seen the young Northern pike caught on the end of
an icy hook. I’ve heard the coyotes calling from the
buttes across the frozen lake,
I’ve heard the ice crack as the sun went down.
I’ve tasted fish fried fresh from the augured ice
with crackers and Vienna sausages to tide us over.

But today I heard from a close friend, how myriads of missiles
attacked his homeland. I ached that there are borders that
God has not drawn. I weep that butterflies know more than
we do.

Mid-Autumn is when the grasshoppers leap from
wheat sheaves to ditches by the side of the road.

October is when hostages were taken,
buildings were demolished,
politicians polished their speeches to take
advantage
of ancient hatreds that have nothing to do with
the ways of God in the world.

When our borders are reasons for death,
when our faith is motivation to unleash onslaughts
beneath the structures of sanity,
then perhaps we need to listen again. Perhaps
we need to sit cross-legged again on the
sand of the desert
and let our children play. Let our children
play. We have paid too much to be adults
when we bark like wild dogs at every unfamiliar
sound. Let the moon shine while the children learn
the names of cousins they never knew.

Spotlight on the Dandelions

Spotlight on the Dandelions

(“No one takes a light and puts it under a bowl or hides it. Instead, he puts the light on a lampstand so that the people who come in can see.” Luke 11:33)

Spotlight on the dandelions,
the unusual manes that push toward the sun.
The petals, tiny and golden, are imperfect like
the best artwork. Embellishing cracks in the sidewalk,
ants crawl past them and dig tunnels below their stretching
roots.
They smell like lawns after spring’s first mowing. They rarely
catch our attention, but they have so much to show.
They draw the secrets of the soil through opalescent stems
and wait for the next late-night thunderstorm to shake them awake.
And wait for the next rising of the sun to bid them rise
and shine.
Who knew they also make a delicate wine?
Some neighbors pluck them like weeds.
Some children ignore them playing with puppies.
They are disorderly invaders to some and
inspiration for a toddler’s bouquet presented to Mom.

Sit with one for an hour,
count the petals, caress the jagged leaves.
Listen to the freshening breeze and watch it
sway atop its sturdy stem. Does it remind you of
a picnic with a lover,
a wildwood meadow,
time without measure,
length without answers?

How many wishes have been granted as they
end their life cycle as flying pods of seeds?
How old were you when you wised upon your first one,
and how old shall you be when you blow the dandelion seeds
toward a distant reverie?

Of Puppies, Children and Autumn Days

Of Puppies, Children and Autumn Days

(“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.” Matthew 11:25)

Mid-November in a Pacific Northwest village
along the Columbia River there is a neighborhood where
dogs and children run free and kids play basketball in the
middle of the street.
There are netted trampolines where the
boys and girls squeak
and dogs named “Winnie”
and
“Simmie”
and
“Kitty”
visit each other’s yards.
(Though the chihuahua is ferocious and rumored to be
demon-possessed, her owner knows she is only a child
protecting her new home from the giant monster puppies
that live either side of her.)

Two brothers smile at the old man in the middle,
moved here in pain and resigned to never move again.
The older, maybe 13, loves Kitty the chihuahua, ignores
her hackles and brings puppy Winnie over in hopes
they will play. The oldest of the trio of pups,
the chihuahua only cuddles with mommy and daddy.
But the neighbor boy may know something the rest of us
do not;
how to lure the love out of a silly little brown dog.

The younger brother skips just like puppy Winnie
and laughs through the wet grass in mid-Autumn.
His name is Cooper and the old man in the middle
told him his name means
“Barrel Maker”. He smiled. Ran and told his mom.

And they both waved at the man who loves having
children and puppies cut across his lawn on their
sunny day adventures.

Will You Pick Me Up?

 Will You Pick Me Up?

(“Because you are God’s children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into us to call out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Galatians 4:6)

And so, a day begins the same as most days begin.
The sun rose, but I rose too late to see it.
The pains that have trapped me in a body
too old for its years
keep me pinned to my pillow too often to
count.

I do not mean to complain,
though I know how it sounds,
but how do I reclaim a decade
stolen by trips to medical centers and
uninvited spears that kept me locked
inside myself?

Papa, will you pick me up,
will you tell me how to sit on this planet
while the nerves in my brain
flash like fire? Papa, will you pause me,
put me in a parenthesis where I can explore
the mountains or the
bookshelves seventy miles away?
Papa, I don’t mean to cry so often,
and my reasons change with the turning
of the wind;
still,
(is a wish the same as a prayer?)
my feet that love to wander both
thoughts and ground
barely leave the few acres they can
walk around.

Papa, will you wake me in time
to sit around a table with beers and
friends and
guitars and
dangling ends of conversation
before the next thunderstorm sets in?

And the Children Play

(photo credit: Mercy Aiken)

And the Children Play

(“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 [The Message])

Entering the avenue where the unlikely children play--
a brother on a bike, a little sister right behind--
and there are paintings on the back of the facades,
dripping down the necks of the alleys
detailing recent history and partisan rallies.

And the children still play underneath the signs
of times adults ignore. What, indeed, are we fighting for?
When Palestine suffers, so do their neighbors.
When Africans suffer, so do the children in highrise daycare.

Unidentified artists paint the meaning for us so we do not
have to walk through the galleries; stop; wonder; deeper;
and never let the children out to play.

They painted caves in France; dark; damp; edgy; older;
and the children played in the prehistory.

They doodled walls in Bethlehem; bright; breath; deadly; newer;
And the children tagged their playmates unwalled.

They spray-canned stucco in Minneapolis; memos from a week ago;
african and indian, spanish and norwegian, stayed where the flowers lay
upon the asphalt dark as skin. And the children stood hugging
the knees of adults who they hoped knew better than they.

And my next door neighbor turned three today; she; bashful; blonde;
skipping;
and she plays in the backyard pool just before the party begins.

Her chalk drawings smile from the cement driveway as she catches
hugs from anyone who will toss one her way.

Two Bursts of Air

Two Bursts of Air

(“Because you are God’s children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into us to call out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Galatians 4:6)

She knew what she said before she could
lift herself propped up against the couch;
“mah”.

A single expansion of air, lips and lungs when
she could not find the first nestled retreat she ever knew.

She answered the phone; she was not supposed to;
she heard the voice, the first low vibration her skin had felt;
“dah”.

A single expansion of air, tongue and teeth when
she knew the joy of the first giggling she ever knew.

She wandered into his room, drunk on diapers,
and grabbed his leg to horsey ride;
“boy”.

A new expansion of air, throat and breath when
she knew the playful safety of big brother’s arms.

Dada, Mama, Bubba, Memaw, and Papaw; peanut,
noodle, booboo and bubbles. We all knew who,
we all hear her, we all see around the royal titles
christening our little broods. Dada can be sung like
an ancient ritual, dancing round the living room. Or
“Mama” can be a death wail in the middle of the afternoon.
Dada” can be red-in-the-face stomping stumpy legs away.
Or “Mama” can be the beginning of a sigh snuggled in
The best shelter on earth.

And Abba, I cry to you just the same, I sing. And
Abba, you call me son, or boy, or mickey, or hon.
I have cried, denied, amplified my longings with just those
two bursts of air. And, knowing all, you know I would
rather dance to that rhythm that entices us all to
The best shelter on earth.

A Single Honest Sentence

A Single Honest Sentence

(“And he said to me: ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” Zechariah 4:6)

The rooms were dusty July, places where camp-meetings echoed past the hills.
The children came, like summers do, sent for a week to seek
for God and friends and girls and boys. Children,
with minds so plastic even the heat could change their opinions.

Preteens with whirling energy that turned the forest into a cross-country race,
and the basketball court into dodge ball. Debates flared on the putt-putt course
over water hazards left there by the rain. The oldest got to hit their balls again.

Mornings were slow. Lunch was just the fuel stop for an afternoon of
crab races, water balloon bazookas with multi-colored projectiles threatening
from every direction. The lucky ones were drenched early and sent back to their
cabins to change. The grass grew best where weeks of water bombs watered the field.

Preteen boys who insisted they did not sweat were handed deodorant sticks for free.
Puberty stinks and adults cannot forget old sweat and new bacteria.

But nighttime was the purpose, the focus, the target. After supper, near 6:30,
300 children crowded into the wooden tabernacle without air conditioning,
without insulation. An ancient shell with rafters swooping to the sky the color
of dried fences on the farm.

Rock music was piped in, the children shuffled from one row to the next.
Counselors sought vainly for the one camper missing from their group.
Each night was planned for maximum effect, to bring decisions.

Decision.

And some decided; to be nicer at home, to not talk back, to do their homework
more often: all summed up in giving their life to Christ. And sincere as children
are, they bought the line (which is just fine) and many trace the joy, the grace,
to one of these times.

The final night was full of expectation. It was Holy Ghost night. If you are
pentecostal, you say it all as one word: “holyghost”.

It is true the Spirit of the Living God will dwell in us, will speak to us, will entreat us
too. But the Spirit rarely bowls us over or transforms a boy who has 15 people
shouting in his ear.

I was there and loved the sweet aroma of children discovering God’s Spirit
like butterflies finding nectar. But the perfume was mixed with the latest
spirit-will-make-you-do-it fads.

And 30 years later I have to explain to some who felt defrauded, deceived and
prodded, that I’m sorry. I was a product of the times. Today I know the Spirit
so differently. And so today I quietly listen to a child speak, and know

There is more power in a single honest sentence from a twelve-year-old
than all the shouting in temples and tabernacles around the world.

Come and Go

Come and Go

Some days come and go,
and others are slow like the
local swimming hole after all the children
have gone home.

There is no drifting, splashing or
tick-tocking to mark the ions of time.
Some days they all stand still, hovered just above
the memories after

All the children have gone home.

These are the places in my dreams,
the spaces between the buzzing summer when
thoughts were younger
and the approaching winter when
only the silence has much to say.

Some days drag and push,
and others rehearse memory
in slow motion like the schoolroom clock before
all the children have gone

Home.

Crumbs

Crumbs

But she replied, “Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under the table eat what the children leave.” Mark 7:28

It is one of the strangest encounters that Jesus has in the gospels. It is recorded in both Mark and Matthew. Jesus traveled outside of Judea (read “Israel”) and went to the Gentile area of Tyre. Mark tells us that Jesus wanted to be alone, and sought out a house for just that purpose. As always, it was impossible to hide him.

As soon as he arrived a Greek (read “unaccepted Gentile”) woman approached Jesus and bowed before him. Her daughter was being harassed by an evil spirit. There is no greater anguish than a parent whose child is suffering. This woman crosses all social boundaries in search of an answer for her daughter.

Gentiles were “dogs”. And not “puppies”, but scrounging dogs, in the minds of most Jews of the day. Anyone outside of Israel was considered unclean. Nationalism and ethnic pride kept those “dogs” at arm’s length. Being woman and a Gentile, this woman was breaking every rule in the book. But that’s what desperation can do. Desperation will drive you to see your need met, even from outside your comfort zone.

Matthew tells us that she calls Jesus, “Lord, Son of David.” Outside the faith and nation of Israel, she recognizes what many in Israel had not; here was the Messiah, the Lord. And she was unafraid to beg him for his help.

Perhaps, upon hearing that Jesus was in town, she hurried through her duties, asked about where he was staying, and scurried to find him. If only she could find him before him moved on somewhere else. Her mind was a mix of hope, anxiety, expectation and faith. “I’ve heard of Jesus. He has healed many. I think he even healed a Roman’s kid. If for them, then why not for me? But I am a woman, and a Gentile from Tyre. Their prophets have foretold devastation for our region…”

As her thoughts spin, she sees him. Immediately she bows before him with her request. But his answer is like a spear to her heart.

“It’s not right, you know, to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” He told her his message was first for the children of Israel. In the micro-second it takes for a thousand thoughts to echo in our brain, the woman must have shrunk back, wanted to cry, started to blush and perhaps wanted to run. But two things kept her body still: the desperate state of her daughter, and one more, nearly indiscernible thing.

Was that a gleam in his eye when Jesus talked about throwing the food to “dogs”? Surely this compassionate man, who stayed all day, wearing himself out physically and emotionally, to heal all who came to him, surely he wouldn’t really call me a “dog”, would he? Besides, there was that tone of voice. It was like he was saying, “I know what they call you….’dogs’”. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed like he gestured in the direction of Jerusalem as if to say, “that’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

She took courage. She saw more in his eyes and heard more in his tone of voice than the mere piercing words. And she decided that, in some way, he was inviting her forward, not pushing her away. She had heard the words before, with anger and hatred rising at their sound. But when Jesus said it, it was almost like an inside joke. “You know, and I know, there just simply are no ‘dogs’, sister, no matter what others say.”

So, she breathed deep, leaned into the wordplay and ventured one step closer: “Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under that table eat what the children leave.”

Crumbs. That’s all she wanted; crumbs.

She had met Jesus. Before she had only heard about him, and all of it was good. All of it encouraged her to seek him out. But now, face to face, that voice, that invitation to spar, making her an equal, it all convinced her: There is so much grace in this man that even the crumbs are more than I will ever need.

That’s what happens when people truly come face to face with Jesus. The fear is dispelled. The hubris melts. The anger is dispersed. Because, even if all you ever get from Jesus is a little splash from the pool, it is enough. It really is. There is always more where that came from. His grace is both endless and potent.

I don’t think we meditate on the potency of His grace enough. But, for me, that is what this story illustrates. We read it without seeing the look on Jesus’ face nor his tone. But she saw it all. We read what sounds like a rebuff. She heard it as an invitation to engage. We read it as Jesus being stingy. She heard that anything Jesus gives is more than enough.

It isn’t that Jesus measures out a little here and a little there. No, He is lavish. But, from our viewpoint, we must stop looking for the big events. Along with this dear woman, we can be satisfied with “crumbs”, because the crumbs from Jesus’ hand are more powerful than the greatest abilities the earth can provide. The smallest piece of bread that falls from his hand is both more grace than I even need, and the promise that all he ever gives is every-increasing grace.

So Jesus tells her, “If you can answer like that, you can go home! The evil spirit has left your daughter.” Arriving home, she found her child lying quietly in her bed, perfectly at peace.

God With Us

God With Us

“A virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and His name will be Immanuel (which is a Hebrew name that means ‘God with us’).” Matthew 1:23

One of the themes of Scripture, if not the centerpiece, is that God desires to be “with us”. God created Adam from His very breath and walked with Adam and Eve in Eden during the cool of the day. He instructed Moses to build a Tabernacle, a sort of mobile temple, to let the people know He was constantly with them, even when they were on the move. He tells them, “I will make my home among you and never turn away from you.” (Leviticus 26:11) Even when Israel forsook God through the time of the Kings, God kept wooing them back.

So, it is no great surprise that God finds the most intimate way to be with us; He comes to dwell as flesh and blood, taking all the realities of humanity upon Himself. This is why Christmas is so important. It reminds us that, not only did God dwell among us in Christ, but He actually entered the world in complete vulnerability. He began as a helpless newborn, the way each of us began.

Patti and I have three children. Each one is precious to us and we hope we did our best as parents to send them off into the world. None of them came with a scholarship, feeding instructions or a mind-reading app attached at their birth. Like all babies, each one was fully dependent on us for their care. Like most parents, that was a very frightening proposition, especially when we had not taken a language course in “baby”. Though incredibly resilient, infants are also fragile.

When Michael was about eight months old he was crawling across the living room floor. For some unknown reason I had a lamp plugged into an extension cord with the cord in easy reach of his tiny fingers. The connection was loose where the two cords met, exposing a bit of the metal plug. As most babies do, Michael reached for the plug and, before I could react, put it directly in his mouth. He froze, his mouth open, and I ran over, scooped him up, and then finally he began to cry. Fortunately, he had only a burn on the inside of his lips. But, he was vulnerable.

When Jonathan was about 24 months I unwittingly closed his fingers in the hinge side of a door. The moment I heard his cry I knew what I had done! His little finger bleed profusely. The very end of his pinky finger was broken, as small as the tip of an ink pen. After seven hours in the emergency room we exited with a toddler wearing a full-arm cast for a chipped pinky. He and his cast were the darling of the church nursery for the next few weeks. But, he was vulnerable.

When Sarah was born, ten years after Jon, she was adored by the whole lot of us. The boys and I went baby-girl clothes shopping immediately after her birth. From time to time during her infancy and into toddler-hood she would wake in the middle of the night bawling. It was as if she had woken from a frightening dream. Patti or I would simply hold her close, sometimes for as much as 45 minutes, until the moment passed. Though we never knew exactly what caused those late-night disruptions, we did know that she was vulnerable.

This may sound like a strange thing about God, but I wonder if becoming a baby was scary to Him. God is omniscient, meaning He knows everything. But there is a difference between “knowing” and “experiencing”. That is part of the reason Jesus came, so we could be assured that God understands our predicament, our trials and even our joys. Imagine being the Creator of All and contemplating life as a vulnerable newborn. The God who is Sovereign, who called the Universe into being, is now at the complete mercy of a young couple raising their firstborn child. He who commanded the Hosts of Heaven invaded humanity in helpless flesh.

Will you take some time this season, look at Jesus, and wonder at the miracle of “God with us”? Will you follow that same Jesus who, loving us to the very end, endured the suffering of crucifixion because God wanted to be “with us”? Will you rejoice that “God with us” was resurrected from the dead, not to make us some supernatural beings, but to endorse our very humanity. Oh, the mysteries of the grace of God. The All-Powerful God’s great desire is to be “with us”, and to do so, He laid aside His power, taking on our own vulnerability. That is the Christ we celebrate at Christmas. 

One Sunday on a February Morning

One Sunday on a February Morning

(“But you are merciful and gentle, Lord, slow in getting angry, full of constant loving-kindness and of truth.” Psalm 86:15)

I heard the sound of Your people rustling,
I heard the talking, the prayer and listening.
I heard the babies high above the others and,
for a moment their squeals held the floor.

I saw the old men asking, the young men grasping
their ladies by the hand. I saw the old women planning,
the young women juggling their children and their man.

I felt gentle flurries, foglet drizzle that dampened our shoulders
and hands with the first greetings of the morning. The grass
glistened from asphalt to sidewalk, left too long after summer’s
last trim. Some mud in the entry, more children with their pennies
to drop with laughter in the willow baskets with dollars and numbers
back, forth, up and down. If mom let them, they bombed the
offering plate with their tiny ammo.

One of the littlest, black hair, round face, believes he owns the place,
wandered to the holy steps where the man who always shakes everyone’s
hands stands. The old blonde table was absent its juice and crackers,
but he still was slow to touch it. The pews are for playing, but this table
is always where people are praying so solemn.

I saw the burdened, I saw the tangles of lives lived backwards
and forwards, and beginning and again. I saw the love (I
cannot lie)
when, for one hour it did not matter why children disobey,
spouses walk away, jobs are scarce, darkness scares our
little ones awake. We did not need to make up for
our mistakes or wear our usual daytime masks. Our
thrift store faces are just fine when

We enter the meeting one more time to
touch the gentle spring of Eternal love,
with breath coming easy in this dancing insanity,
the divine and humanity seriously at play.

Cannot Help

Cannot Help

We cannot help missing the whispers; morning’s hand nudging us awake.
We cannot help listening to inherited tunes within our four walls,
a splat of wood and mud manufactured for one generation or two.

Faint chirps reach us, dim beams speak but everyday incandescence
masks the call of the sun awake; the day has offered the next chance

To hear the lyrics correctly again, to begin from measure one, verse one,
without thinking at all.

I can tap my feet, clap my hands, nod my head, sway and play the way
memory fades from organic paints to steel gray. In wooden repetition
my rhythm mimics perfection yet betrays my affection for the tempo
I’ve played. I hit the notes and lost the nuance.

We are too much adults with our baskets filled with facts, coached to
promote the thin sliver of opinion. We are too much children removed
too soonfrom muddy banks rain-slick that tug us beyond the safe range of hearing.

We are concrete mud, dried and rigid from drought,
We are flood and mud, overfilled and deposited, truth or doubt.

We are players, by the rules; we are singers, pitched safely;
we are writer, word-perfect; we are speakers, rote certain.

And I? I have not played in the river in years; have not dived between
half-notes in far too long. All my fantasies are clearly labeled, the characters
a perfect one-to-one correspondence lest there be any question of my
orthodoxy.

What if, just one day, I spun a tale, knowing not where it would take me,
and became lost in the woods of another land where planets are sentient,
people non-existent and
popcorn is perfectly paired with chocolate wine?

Laughter Travels

Laughter Travels

Laughter travels around the hills, up and down
the ridges and through the valleys. It reflects off
granite walls and fills the meadow with sound;
no one can know its source, for wherever you stand, you are
the center of its radius. The laughter, like atmospheric pressure,
clears the clouds and opens the sky to new possibilities.

Laughter packs no baggage, free and improvised. It is the only sound
that babies do best; unspelled and landing upon the ears like
the rainbow on a clear sky. Does their angel tickle their fancy?
Does light find its way within the child’s cheeks? Do circles
amaze her blinking eyes? Do waving trees greet him with
their limbs?

Are we the funny ones with our faces screwed up like
an old clown’s wrinkles? Are we the silliness that ignites
the chuckle, and joining in, we cackle and gurgle more
self-conscious than the tot whose face is flooded with
tears and snot by the end of the spasm that carried us all
into a forest of elves and fairies whose language, I am convinced,
is that same as babies, and exercise quite regularly their
laughter and mirth.

Hilarity lifts the weights with more power than serious convention.

And try as we might, every face in place to recreate the moment
her giggle multiplied itself up out of the windows, across the neighborhood,
past the island that sits in the middle of the river and across the state line
to Oregonian hearers who swore they heard a new bird unsung before.

Try as we might, after conducting each experiment and checking our computations,
we never discovered the word or touch or face or insect or shape or color
or smell or any other. Perhaps, and this is our favorite thesis,

when she laughed, she laughed at nothing at all.

Tiny

Tiny

(“But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Nehemiah 9:17b)

Tiny things, visible but overlooked; soft coos,
babies sleeping in the quilted corners of our playroom.
Tiny things, heard but so submerged; round eyes,
mothers gazing at the miracle dozing underneath the adult hum.

A mom who found the man who would love her,
A dad who found the woman who never gave up;
Nine mingled children, a pair of twins included,
sing like they own the earth, play like they have all day,
love like rejection has never pinched their delight for attention,
and run to hug,
and run to hide,
and run to lay aside today’s trouble for another
chance to laugh like every day is Christmas day.

I know those families; rare. I love those couples; repaired
by hope and elongated breaths between the questions that measured
the path like mile markers up the steeps and down.

Tiny things, thoughts soak the eyes and the cheeks; soft asides,
trouble is not the enemy, conquered by hands’ light touch.
Tiny things, words painted, each name a circle; round crosses,
enclosed and warm, the fireplace glows, the moment creates

A Christmas day fond of the first; children and unlikely
parents in love and loved beyond measure.

Tiny things, like babes in the straw, changed our images,
our dances, our carols and our wintry reasons for the day.

Childness

Childness

(“May he bring you new life and strength while you are old. For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Ruth 4:15)

I heard the tornado spin through a child’s voice over telephone waves;
whining close to his house, upstate New York, the report included noise
and possibilities of boys being lifted out of their shoes to land flat-footed
on the soft green lawn of the neighbor’s dream.

Twisting wind never frightened him, it was curiosity that connected him
to such progressive torque. Alive or dead were unconsidered, and nowhere
to be found in his equation of childness and caution. It was more important to
radio in the information to travelers along the way.

You see, we were wandering, with his beloved aunt and uncle on board,
and he could see the possibility of a carhop drive-thru pulling up to order
a little less wind. He left his uncle a voice mail, with authority, with concern,
but little quaver; simply the courage a seven year old boy knows when he is assigned
the task of warning other about tornadoes.

The love of grade school cousins, or the affection of four year old granddaughters
are gifts bestowed between black spike storms that scare even demons
to their death and adults to quiver at the edge of the turbulent precipice.

The love of cousins, the pure joy of granddaughters never dissipates the threats at all.
But their courage turns black to song, shy to joy, and tears…

Tears now flow, but from stories read in a fairy tale full of princes and princesses,
where granddaughters cry when the prince is pained, and the princess may never
see him again.

And for one moment, Papa and Ani see each other, tear to tear, and know
though the tornados may come yesterday again,
the pause is enough to love the world good night,
and wake for joy of another day far away from prospects
and expectations.