Let’s Be Clear

Let’s Be Clear

(“Then the Lord put a message in Balaam’s mouth and said, ‘Return to Balak, and speak what I tell you.’” Numbers 23:5)

Let’s be clear,
not everything that is spoken can be heard;
not everything in creation can be seen.
Not every pocket is empty and not every
wallet is full. There are holes in my jeans
I never paid for; there are angels assigned to
lead us, or so we hope, or so we believe,
or so we tell everyone when it was all just
a matter of coincidences. It was two atoms
in the same place at the same time and they pulled
each other apart like the yoke of oxen in the field.

Sitting up straighter I can peer through the window;
my posture has been bent by pain and years. You say
you don’t believe, and I understand. Doubt is a ladder
up or down, depending on how you’re persuaded.
These noises have continued unabated and fill the silence
that anxiety brings.

I would speak if there was anyone to hear. I would talk,
but the varying results make me fear the knocks at my
door and who may be waiting to criticize my past
agony and my present
disquiet mind. I would apologize, but I’ve tried
that before. Forgiveness was granted but the
icy wind still blew through the cracks in the windows.

That has left me suspicious of everyone who possesses ears.
As much as they pretend to hear, I know they have never seen
the authentic me, so I may as well paint a picture they would prefer.
I may as well lock myself away. It is a risk too far
to assume how the highwire will hold the full weight of
my blended truth. I’ve welcomed the vagrant whose
story was as murky as my own. And now, in my spiritual
vagrancy, I look for someone to listen to my vague
incarnations of stories and stumbles.

My Knees Buckled

My Knees Buckled

 

It was not clear whether I had been
left in your care.
Others laughed as I fell
down the stairs.
Was it the way my knees buckled,
the way I struggled to grab the banister
and find my feet again?
I wish more people would think twice,
even once would do,
an ounce of consideration before
they lock the door down tight and
decide they know my fate.
Believe me, it was never my intent
to lie crumpled like the want ads
at the bottom of the landing.
Nor did I plan to do it twice.

Decades ago I could find a room
filled with paisley pillows, sandalwood incense
and corners where friends talked, scribbled
and planned the magic we dreamed for the world.
Sometimes wine, sometimes weed,
but mostly rolled up together in the need to
believe better days for the world that seemed
far too crazy
to ban warfare for good.

It was not certain whether time had been
broken in pieces.
Others massed at the borders insisting that
life was so much better “back then”. And
my
knees
buckled.

Somewhere I dropped the dream. Sometime after
the King offered me a place in the court, a place of honor,
the jester, of course. And I followed wild and cautious,
tiptoe and raucous for one brief chapter. I was told
by those in the know
that serious study would be required.
So, gaining my voice I lost my mime,
and made everything so plain there could be
no mistake.

Decades later I find a room,
and want to be a clown again.
I’ll light my incense, call a retired
carney or two,
and ask if we might dance again
in the park,
in the court,
in the rain,
in the shortest moments between
scribbles and songs.
And for once, at the end, the magic
will be new again, be eternal again,
like friends who can’t wait to hug
like we hugged back then.

One Playmate Who Knows

One Playmate Who Knows

(“Isn’t it clear, friends, that you...are children of promise?” Galatians 4:28 [The Message])

Some days it seems the children do not
want to come out to play.
They stay inside measuring the hems of everyone’s
pants and dresses. No one confesses they would rather
skip a rope. The work is their burden, the burden is their work;
and wouldn’t God be offended if they ended just a stitch too soon?

Besides, the children outside do not care what you wear,
the bubbles will float wherever the wind delivers them.
The sprinklers will spray the serious toward laughter and
the moonlighters toward day.

Some days it seems adults have forgotten their childhood friends.
The days come to an end too quickly, the porches sit quiet and empty
while one man’s tears plead for someone to search their memory
and remember his heartbeat, imagine his throbbing pain,
look south, or up, or in, to find him again. All he is hoping
is one playmate who knows, so their own tears well up in
Summer-time pools.

He must have fooled himself. He thought it was always family.
He must have misspoke far too often, mistook the blossoms
for perennials. But they do not bloom here where he has been
transplanted.

Come find me, I am not hiding. I never was good at hide-and-seek.
Ollie Ollie Oxen Free, please come and see me. My green lollipop
has melted, stuck to the preheated cement. But every word,
every card, every letter, every vowel was always meant to tell you
I could never give you up my friend.

The sun is setting, children are heading indoors, and still I sit,
praying, hoping, crying behind the bushes so no one sees,
that you will remember the playful days when skinned knees
meant no harm, and funny bones were cold, electric, warm;
The days when hearts were mended before the next game of
marbles in the alley round our circles of dirt.