Scissortails

Scissortails

(“God comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

My soul was indigo, ink black if you have to ask,

If you must know.

Until two scissortails cavorted against the whitewashed sky

Like adolescent children chasing each other 

Across a well-hilled grassy park. 

They were perfect in formation, a dance upon a canvas,

They were playing, prepared for mating, and they wrote

Joy across the opening sky.

But my brain has been cold ever since I sold my certainty,

And told everyone I knew, though artlessly, that we were leaving,

Driving southeast toward the vacuum of time and surety.

What the hell did they think we would live on,

How the hell did they think we would survive?

Had they never received comfort (stay a while) when

The bottom fell out and the walls closed in?

Had no one raised funds for them, put jars in every bank,

Spread the news and thanked every contribution as far as

Social media could fly?

How they hell did they think we could make it

When we left our most precious possession behind?

Why didn’t they line up and say, “Here, stay a while”,

Or “Let us get you home sooner than you can imagine.”

Yeah, keep those cards and letters coming because

So far,

The mailbox is empty of any letters addressed to me.

Why, during the previous decade of pain, no one came

And found me weeping, to sit with the spikes they could not

Understand. So, you see, some days are inky, so deeply

Indigo

My soul has nowhere to go.

We never lied about the hollow ahead, the abyss that certainly

Met us at the end of the road. We told the truth, and what’s worse

The truth was thinner than we knew.

It’s taken me a half hour each morning to learn where I am again,

It takes a shower each morning to burn away the tears from my head

And hope, at least, for scissortails or toddlers, or a letter in the mail.

Or one last effort from those who love us to get us back home.

How it Sounds

How it Sounds

(“I, I am the one who comforts you. Why should you fear humans who will die, mortals who are treated like grass?” Isaiah 51:12)

I know it often sounds as if my life is in the shadow,
the night has blanketed my hope for the light,
and I know you would rather hear flights of faith
than the grainy verse I write.

How can I be true and not publish the truth?
How can I believe and not admit my doubt?
How can I heal unless I admit my pain?
I will not know one thing within and show another without.

From a thousand miles away you cannot taste
the tears that have dried upon my face.
From twenty-five years away you cannot feel
the spears that have left their jagged traces
of scars and fragments of flint still stuck deep
within my heart.

Do you want my words to trumpet mountains
when there are none within sight?
Do you want my poems to scatter friendships
like seeds in a garden with a sleight-of-hand
that produces fake letters I’ve written myself?

I don’t blame you. If I heard me, but did not know me,
I would sound like Job’s comforters too. I’ve quoted the verses,
pointed their faces to the sun and blue sky, only to, bemused,
wonder why they never told me the truth again.

If you cannot bear my breakdowns, you cannot help me heal.
If you are scared of my meltdowns, you need to turn around now;
or seal our friendship with silence and presence,
not lectures and menace.

I know you’ve done better than me. I know you can quote faith
higher than me. I know your certainty alone guides you;
but I cannot bear to lie to myself, no matter how that makes
me look when it comes time to pray.

And truth, if you were oppressed, I would never expect you
to get over it. And truth, trauma posts its sadness whether we
invite it or not. Syndromes don’t come asking for permission.

So, I write what I write, and it will burn some day before
or after
my body is gone. They are only digits on a screen,
graphite from a number two yellow pencil

And will last no longer than this season’s dandelions
on the lawn.