On the Patio

On the Patio

(“Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Hebrews 13:16)

Afterwards we ran inside to escape the rain.
But until then we had been breaking bread on the
patio surrounded by palm trees and bougainvillea.
The music was loud, our feet were tapping the concrete floor,
and the children hopped like sugary frogs.
Nearly the entire neighborhood was there, invited
on a whim. The grills were hissing, the dogs were
growling playfully waiting for every morsel
intentionally dropped their direction.
We ignored social graces and didn’t set places
based on early reservations. We
sat where we wanted,
stood and chatted like geese populating a mown field.

The sun had warmed the day, pushed the clouds away until
midafternoon. We laughed at silly jokes, some we’d told
since childhood.
No one cared except the stray teenager who heard and
rolled his eyes and then told it to his cadre of bros.
The cats, domestic and feral, soaked in the sun,
stretched out like tablecloths on the warming driveway.
No one talked of God, or angels, or sanity, or delusions.
We didn’t test the temperature of faith or check the boxes
of doctrinal hoaxes. We had no need of talk, no requirements
ticked of on ballots. It was lately the place where
names were memorized and acceptance ubiquitous.
Men remade amends, women healed the wounded,
children built memories out of legos and no one was
left out in the cold.

And then the deluge, then the downpour, then the dash
for irony that what started outside with more room than
we ever needed was
forced inside where we stood face to face, shoulder
to
shoulder
and nothing changed. Everyone sang. We ate and
then ate again.

The Clouds Obscured the Sun

The Clouds Obscured the Sun

(“Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival.” James 5:7 [The Message])

It had been ages since he had seen the sun. Huddled
behind windows covered in gauze and duct tape,
he wondered how the world had turned while
he hid hoping for safety.
Occasionally peeking through the cracks in
the casements
he knew it was near noon. He knew-later than soon-
that lunch would resume around the kitchen table.
He opened the fridge for another beer and a second
boiled egg. The air conditioning purred while summer
lasted longer than expected.
The postman walked past his house again. It had been
weeks since he opened an envelope at all.

No one knew him, no one knew him at all.
They had met him leaving for the grocery store,
they had seen him mowing his lawn. Hellos were
exchanged,
but the exact nature of his arrangement with life
never came up. Conversations ended with nods and
a dozen steps beyond his front yard. No one knew
if he lived alone, although most people suspected it.

He wanted to know if the clouds had obscured the sun,
if the heat of the day had been sifted through the colander of
mist from off the coast. He wanted to see the waves
he waded in as a child one more time.

The teenager next door practiced jazz on the saxophone.
He listened like a robin pacing the ground.
The notes were embodied raindrops, they were
wordless like his soul. He knew the songs,
they were the standards: Ellington, Basie, and
Brubeck. He opened the window for the first time
in years
to hear the way the music made him feel like
the mornings he spent with the sun on his back
and the magic of a girl who took his hand one time
waiting in line after recess.

What Has Happened to Our Song?

What Has Happened to Our Song?

(“But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.” 2 Timothy 2:23)

Whas it because of the onion sky?
Or did the poles shift, east and west, just
before the apocalypse? Stand where your
feet are, planted on the earth. Take the poetry
she gives,
taste the fruit on the vine. Wake with the blue jays
who always announce the days the same.
There is no back door out of this place.
There is no one to blame;
only new mornings, only golden afternoons,
only seasons and half moon bays.
There are windows that record every vibration
like a bee wing’s buzz. There are whispers that
can be heard across the neighborhood calling out
from under clouds, from thunder sounds, and
stifled giggles from children being trained by their dogs.

You thought to write an anthem for the ages,
you hoped we would digest every languid rhyme.
You borrowed more than you created;
you migrated below the radar until the organist remembered
the tune was not yours to begin with.
We inflated your ego for two years too long.
We never wanted you to suffer,
we never called you on the line.
We watched the way you denied that you loaded the dice;
we waited until the end of the day to ask you simply
for an honest attribution. We pinned the notes to your
piano keys hoping they would remind you
the author
was the same as the melodist this time.

What is happening to our song,
what has become of our dialogue between
creation and performance? When we hear the theme
that accompanied our birth we can rehearse again
and sing until our voices are hoarse. We can
play like children in the water no matter who
provided the stream.

The Stirring of Spun Clouds

 The Stirring of Spun Clouds

(“Let’s learn about the Lord. Let’s get to know the Lord. He will come to us as sure as the morning comes. He will come to us like the autumn rains and the spring rains that water the ground.” Hosea 6:3)

And just today, barely an inch ago,
the Japanese camelias carpet the gravel
leading to my home.
Like teacup shards, like cotton candy fog,
like rain that loosened the blooms from their
mid-spring branches,
the pink is silky between the pebbly gray.

And just now, barely a jete ago,
a glimmer blanketed the retinas of the
unspoken glow. What was dark cold was
now
a warm you could hear all the way
across the river-shaped room. What was cold haze
gave way to warm blue waterfalls and
lagoons where ballerinas came to play.

Whether we mind or not,
whether shoes chewed by asphalt or
toes singing sand,
the day lives within us,
the dance sculpts us,
the stirring of spun clouds
(classical rain)
lifts us outside and
into ourselves.

Call Them By Name

 

Call Them by Name

(“I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.” John 12:24)

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the corners that never see
the breath of morning breezes.
It is easy to say I will not reject the shadows,
I will not gasp at the unexposed stories
locked away in a steamer trunk too heavy to bear.

If you have lost the key, I will help you find it;
I will turn it gently in the lock and avert my gaze
as you tilt the lid slowly, as the light lowly beams
across the musty contents.

They are everything you have stowed away,
the hopes, the loves, the dreams, the clouds,
the kites you would launch in an opening sky.
But hidden they have become an ache of sorrow,
lead weights upon your opening soul.

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the dreams you have packed away.
I have stored my own shadows, wept over my unspoken
passions, and grieved the love I never gave and the love
I have lost.

I will listen, though you whisper haltingly,
though you stammer for words to, this time,
give life to the dreams that were nearly a casket below
the earth.
Tell them to me low enough and only I will hear.
Tell them to me slowly, birth never comes quickly or
easily. But I will be your doula never leaving your side
until, born anew,
the full light shines on all you thought was dead or
shame. Now they are christened: “Beloved”.

Call them by name.

Between the Paintbrush Clouds

 

Between the Paintbrush Clouds

(“But the king commanded…saying, ‘Deal gently with the young man Absalom for my sake.’” 2 Samuel 18:5)

Between the paintbrush clouds and peeks at the sky
we all move beneath the same sunshine.
Move lightly, for the sake of another;
step softly, for the songs of numbers of
countless birds remain unheard if we
wear nothing but our combat boots.

Between the hot-tipped arrows and the neighbor’s porch
we all wait beneath the no-mans land unplanned.
Bring coffee for the comfort,
and a chair just for conversation.
Bring children who laugh away the wounds
with their soap bubbles and endless questions.

Between the pale failures and occasional wins
we all regret what might have been.
See deeper, for the love of breath and light.
Hear weeping, the same as your own. The
circle where we dwell unwraps our faces,
deciphers our songs,
and reminds us we belong to each other.
Let it fly like dandelions away.

A Rainful of Thunder

A Rainful of Thunder

Sing the longing, the refrain of spiral clouds after
chorus one, two and three. Rehearse the verses you’ve heard
from improvised warblers giving dawn its due revolution.

You’ve heard the mourning dove, seen them nest,
and return next year, the next, and left the nest waiting
outside upon the balcony. Was it their young who returned,
or the chance landing upon the previous pairs address?
It did not matter, their coos accompanied the rhythm and hum
of the slow meter of everyday drums.

Echo the wind. You’ve watched it since beginning to see
what the invisible leaves behind and the visible steps aside
just as you wished for an unobstructed view. Were the
clouds lost ghost ships and did the earth slip from under
your feet as they teetered across the sky? Were leaves spinning
timbrels the trees used to join the dance? Was this the time
when all stands still,

Breath is imperceptible,
time does not pass but waits like a diamond web
to catch certain memories and give them back
once dreams and wonder have followed
our popsicle sticks down the gutter on a hot
and sticky summer
just after the shout of a rainful of thunder.

Clouds and Architecture

Clouds and Architecture

Unexpected notions have come and
gone so often
that it seems the clouds have swept me up into
their architecture and laid me down
upon an unknown and soggy ground
that feels like familiar but hides
the humans that make crying worth the time.

It must come down to only this, having heard
the medical reports and read the latest issue of Science,
explaining addiction and pleasure, the dopamine and
neurotransmitters shooting skeet in my brain.

“PULL!”

And the send the tingle to my ears,
the rush to my cheeks,
the ache to my stomach’s pit,
and the hunt for the last thing that
made me half as happy as the last time.

When did my brain decide
it would be the guide from adolescence
to a middle class home? Who stole the
dreams I knew
would come true
because they were good.
I have outrun my days. The dreams are
bubbles burst on wind and sunless day.

One man said, (I trusted his sincerity)
for increased clarity, keep your joy bucket full.
What he could not see (nor could I tell till now)
the bucket is rusted out and holds
less than my most rapid fill. He meant well.

For those who will allow it,
who are also enshrouded with brain ticks
that make clouds into bricks of dizzy architecture:
To want to start all over again,
and be further from the beginning, within reach of the end
is the most dangerous pain; clouds and anti-depressants,
prayer and Sunday school lessons, are the tension rings
that prevent the whole things slipping into the rapids.

Did I mention I hate the fact that some friends are gone
and I would like to have them back?