He Has Climbed
(“This royal law is found in the Scriptures: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’] If you obey this law, you are doing right.” James 2:8)
Where is the understanding, where is heaven that the kingdom rules?
Have you heard God’s questions,
have you forgotten to answer?
Forget not the speakers of truth,
the good words and the passion words,
the thunder words, the wonder words
that strike like lighting from the throne.
Listen. He has climbed the mountain of the Lord.
Listen. He has knelt beside the hungering.
Visit him. He now sits with movement calcified.
Visit him. He now wonders about the crucified,
the effort, the broken bones and heart he shares
with the beloved.
Don’t phone in your respects, touch his trembling hands
and sit. The silence is eloquent, your presence is rhyme and verse
that shatters the curse of age and loneliness.
Break your bread with him, spend your time with him,
pour the wine for him, and hear the stories he told just
yesterday
like you hear them for the first time today.
The knees give way, the heart grows weak,
the mind faints like a violin in the sun.
The memories spin like hummingbirds, the handwriting
recedes into notes about appointments and doctors,
food banks and offers to join the village where only
elders are allowed to play. But
the spirit never gives sway to the years. It is evergreen,
it bends in the wind and draws living water like xylem
to the trees.
Time is never wasted when poured like ointment on the feet
of the ones who only knew to speak of good tidings
and pronouncements of peace to the weary.
