Like Fairy Tales

 

Like Fairy Tales

(“But we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found.” Luke 15:32)

It’s like fairy tales with the ending that fixes everything,
like the carousels that promise gold while mixing horses
and unicorns and princesses and cardboard tickets.
It’s like the neighbor next door playing their music too loud,
like the ravens who rule from thirty feet high then soar toward
your head. You are not allowed so close to their home.

It’s like champagne before the wedding,
back pain after mending the treehouse for the grandkids.
It’s twirling like a top,

curling your toes when the raindrops break the summer heat.

It’s the interruption during the sermon,
the baby sticking his tongue out at the
man behind him,
and the man laughing and sticking his tongue out
too.
It’s the interruption during communion,
a paper airplane dive-bombing from the balcony,
and a note inside that makes her parents want to hide
but makes a teen boy blush when the wine is served.

It is every distraction, every absurd note played without
rehearsal.
It is every expansion, every blue note that dares to play
between the half steps decreed by convention. It is
every transaction that leaves less pocket money
but more time to love how funny random cloudbursts
feel on our skin.

It is each moment, another second of
trumpets and strings, caterpillars with wings,
exiting and entering; it is always (after all)
a moment of new beginnings.

Who Washed Your Hands

Who Washed Your Hands

(“Every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26)

It should have been me who washed Your hands
that night before eating the exodus meal; I should have
set the table neat with white linen, poured the wine
red
in the cups that speak so well,
set the matzo unbroken before our final
consummation, our ears not hearing
this was no celebration;
more memorial, a portrait predicting
what we would not speak throughout our
entire meal.

How could we know (except You had told us
time times it all) what we were too excited to hear.

We knew who You were, but missed who You are,
We confessed You Messiah, but doubted Your methods,
We wanted to follow, though unclear of our destination,
We asked the right questions, and lost the answers in our assumptions.

I cannot approach the table again with my sentences dotted,
my paragraphs complete.
I will not dine so certain nor stare down the uninvited,
I will sit with men uninitiated, talk with women untrained
and admit we are all simply amateurs, in it
for the love of the game.

It should have been me, washed Your feet,
but You took the towel, the basin, the water.

It should have been me, broken like bread,
but You took the fracture, the spikes and the thorns.

It should have been me, poured out like wine,
but You spilled the blood, for our tears and sweat

And built a family upon winning one death final
like we thought we would die given half the chance
(accomplishing nothing).

And built a family upon dying like victory
teaching us with basins and nails the announcement to make
to a world dead of war and sick of valor.