I Knew the Wound Had Closed

I Knew the Wound Had Closed

(“After the sun had set, people with all kinds of diseases were brought to Jesus. He put his hands on each one of them and healed them.” Luke 4:40)

How great is your power, your love, and your healing,
to touch mortal flesh like mine and leave me reeling
that I could survive so long without the warmth of you hands on my brow.
You cool the overheated wounds that still burst freely
like the first time they ruptured.

But in your touch, between your fingers, inside the hug
that lasted longer than any other hug,
there I found safety from the ways I only rewound my
wounds in moods of despair; I feared I would never
see the scars that reminded me they had once been healed.

It was under the stars, just as the sun was disappearing behind
the hills,
it was far away from a dark moon, it was dusky and chilled.
It was the time of evening when faces change. It was the time
that it takes longer to recognize friend or foe. That was when
I thought I saw you,
That was when I waited in line.

I never sang the blues, I know they would only cheer me up.
But dirges were on my tongue morning till evening, longer than
I spoke in the day.

I was marginally happy; I sat on the sidelines. I was invited to
parties I could not attend. I was unlawfully blind. But I knew
the touch the moment his fingers found my face and nearly
erased
every malignant nerve and thought. There, where the bats
flit above in the yawning light, I knew the wound was closed,
I was whole, and pain, though not entirely eliminated, might lead
me closer to the dawning sun.

Worn Jeans and Acrid Flannels

Worn Jeans and Acrid Flannels

You miss the meaning like you miss the
beauty right before your eyes when a man
in worn jeans
and acrid flannels
decides to sing before the choir begins.
You don’t like the tune, do you? You’ve
never heard it before.
You don’t care for his toes barely tapping on
the newly laid carpet for the band?
You used to call them hobos,
and then drifters,
and the homeless,
but now they are houseless. Even inside your
sacred space
you’ll force him back outside after the final amen.

Or sooner if the light falls on his forehead to reveal
the tattoo of a horned being, a goat, a devil, a simple
young buck. But the horns are red, and hooves are cloven
and the doors may soon be closed and locked from the
inside once
he
exits without ceremony.

For five minutes he had never felt so free. He was baptized,
he was holy-ghost-filled, he was speaking in tongues, he was
prophesying, he was catechized, he was confirmed, he tasted the
eucharist before it was served. He never had no demons, he
never had any possessions at all. He just walked in, walked right
up past the kneeling benches and sang because he had the time.
Then the band tuned up, the choir hummed, and someone touched
the crust of his elbow
and escorted down. He sat bewildered and besmirched,
also sweaty and free; he sang every day after that for a week

On the street, behind the stairs, on his stained bedroll, where

Angels gather, listening in concentric circles for his morning song.

Like an Astounded Sunrise

 Like an Astounded Sunrise

(Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky…” Daniel 12:3a)

They are hanging on to air for dear life,
grasping the shadows that have hidden their humanity.
What we cannot see, what we dare not compare,
are the forces that buried them there.
Promised rooms at
Hotel Manna,
they wish time had cleaner lines.
They wish for music in their voice,
in their key,
in joyous solemnity.

Did you think the only light are
pinholes in a purple sky?
Did you pause to collect enough
for orphans, mothers,
breadlines and the living
who are breathing
full-size?

They are speaking, their throats are not closed;
we only hear the syllables we have chosen to be
correct and decent,
arise and descent,
descants for hymns in grandstand buildings.
In sight of the shore they paddle;
we sit on the hill and tell them to move upriver
farther from the privilege we have inherited.

Insight sounds like tremors underground,
justice looks like an astounded sunrise leaking
over the hills.

I’m sorry you were sent away,
I’m grieving you must hide away,
I’m standing still and looking where your
tears have spilled
while power preachers tighten the circles
on raised platform ascended by only the chosen.

Come drink my wine, sing our song,
face the eternal sun,

Let us share the feast of the forgotten
while orange sky envelops us all.

Let Me Begin Again

Let Me Begin Again

(“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17)

The curtain closed on one more day
of the part I’ve been playing. I could
read the lines
time and time again.
I used to think about fences, like words,
like scripts,
that kept me in line.

Preoccupied with getting things right,
I feared missing a step or forgetting a line.
I tread the boards so carefully
I tripped over the first crack in the wood.

Without an audience or with limited applause,
the fault fell at my feet. It is not
that improvisation was disallowed or
frowned upon,
it was my fear of diving headfirst into
the deep end.

But you, gentle one, danced with me instead.
Your words were unrehearsed,
your eyes an invitation to swing around the moon,
pick daisies on Mars and
tour the stars one by one.

I was not as broken as I supposed,
I was born with atoms in my skin
that existed before the rivers, before the
globes and spheres,
before the sun we both felt on our faces.

You taught me to dance and sometimes cry…

Let me begin again:

I intended to use the stage, scripts, blocking,
props, sets, and lighting
as a metaphor
for
constraints.

I intended to describe the freedom of ad libs
in a culture of carefully drawn lines. I
intended
to write about sweet freedom,
complete with descriptions of ecstatic
experiences with the
God of words and the
Lord of dance.

Instead:

Today freedom means…

I can tell you honestly,
directly,
soliloquy,
that I am of more than one mind.

The theater never hindered me,
though another culture nearly did.
I am free to tell you
I never had a divine encounter

Unless it was in the presence of my cast
mates.