I Tried to Count the Stars

I Tried to Count the Stars

(“Jesus answered, ‘The foxes have holes to live in. The birds have nests to live in. But the Son of Man has no place to rest his head.’” Luke 9:58)

I tried to count the stars last night and
thought of you.
How naïve to believe they were
just lanterns swinging from an overhead dome.
I tried to measure the miles from them
to where I stood
and fell asleep as the earth turned toward morning.
I tried to count the years in our days and
wondered how we mourn a friend’s passing one morning,
and attend a christening the next.
Light and dark fight it out for our
attention. We are membranes with ears,
eyes diffusing summer leaves in sharp relief.

I assume I have passed you on the street a thousand times,
or met you on an overpass while chrome machines roar
underneath.

I tried to think my way through the last two decades,
pray my way into unconscious flights of ecstasy.
I have missed every face I’ve known,
have remembered la anciana begging on a sidewalk
in Cancun.
I’ve trimmed my roses before the snow fell and waited
until May to watch them bloom.
I’ve seen the rain spit up dust on a Texas afternoon.
I have swallowed my song too long
fearing the tune would elude me.

But I’ve watched, though I rarely see,
your way through the galaxy and your
face that dropped tears on the cheeks of a child,
on the forehead of a child,
on the first blue tulip, the first daffodil.
And I wonder how many abodes we count looking
for home.

Woodstoves and Venison Stew

 

Woodstoves and Venison Stew

(“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11)

You could hear the clouds as everyone went to bed,
while the wind waited to exhale the midwinter chill.
There were woodstoves with venison stew cooking all night.
It would be ready before the children woke for school.

And I know I am awakened,
I know I do not sleep enough,
And I know I am shaken by the sounds of
siblings who insist I do not believe rightly
or at all.

I saw the wounds, the abuse, the bruises, but also the
how they locked your voice away. And you, with
Christ in you,
believe you have suffered because you are not worth enough.

All I know is the sounds of some siblings
are daggers disguised as hatpins. They know how
to spell your sins and lay them out in complete sentences.
While you cannot find a single room in the house for safety,
a single piece of paper to write your story, you believe
the worst fables while you grace the tables of your neighbors with
cookies and visits and the quiet type of conversation that
makes children want you to visit again.

I see the wounds; I carry some myself. Self-inflicted, but
unhealed by my family of faith. I spread the blanket
far too wide, let the undecided feel they could never catch up
to the head start of the holy. They wept. They argued.
They rarely arrived early to hear another reason (song or
dance or sermon) that their life failed the acid test. They
were insufficient.

Yet today is a quiet day, the clouds cover the earth thinly,
the wind rests beside the river banks, giving a moment of respite
from frail winter’s story. The smoke from woodstoves spirals
straight toward the heavens. Children laugh, ask for one more story,
while the parents wish they would go to bed early
and leave them, just two, for only the next hour before sleep.

Because some know. They have counted well. Their doors are open,
their smiles are wide, they take in the vagrant, they embrace the child.
I have never noticed them in church. But I notice their gifts

Scattered like new snow upon their days; sleigh-bells and
venison stew shared with whoever knew
the aroma was meant for them.

Your Count Was Off

Your Count Was Off

(“The king replied, ‘But look, I see four men. They’re untied, walking in the middle of the fire, and unharmed. The fourth one looks like a son of the gods.’” Daniel 3:25)

Have you ever stood outside when the grass was dewing,
when the darkness was wooing your feet to the meadow,
your arms by your sides, and your eyes to the sky;
Have you ever stood outside in the smudgy dark
and watched all night as the moon came down?

And were you certain, mostly because of the static electricity
from people rubbing on your head,
that it was your fault the moon was dead?

Have you ever lived in God’s house (in our out) where
every move was calculated, measured, and manipulated?
Have you ever walked in to pray, and cried instead, words and
devotion fled and only your naked knees understood anything?
Have you ever dreamt, 30 years later, that it all meant something
but you never were tall enough to bring the glory down?

And were you certain, mostly because of the chemical reaction
from short-robed preachers accusing your soul,
that it was your fault behind and ahead?

Have you ever held up new grapes to the sun,
wondering in a half-second’s eternity of winding vineyards
and wines that brighten the eyes?
Have you ever had a day when a king’s summons
met your serenity tête-à-tête squeezing you between
another’s troubles; a wound upon the head because of what
the king had said?

And were you certain, mostly because of the wind in your soul,
that there was no other option, though most thought the king a priest,
that it was you and the troubled who might not escape unscathed?

And did anyone tell you at midnight, after the madness, in the middle
of either faith or sadness,

That your count was off and one more stood unburned, not only in the furnace
but also in the years with you unarmed. And unharmed.

You Cannot Outwit the Pain

You Cannot Outwit the Pain

(“The Lord was angry with Israel again, and he caused David to turn against the Israelites. He said, ‘Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.’” 2 Samuel 24:1)

It is impossible to outsmart the pain,
no matter your reinforcements, the arrows outwit your
finest strategies.

Rally the troops--and head, feet, lungs and heart
will still beat with the impulses; the grated shards of the brain.

Line up your best defenses, pray, sleep, cry, weep or sing,
and the pain will laugh once the amen is hummed; the sting awaits
the next unguarded thought.

The broken leg instructs the brain to crawl,
the broken arm presses the brain to scrawl,
the broken heart shatters the brain’s defenses,
and pain wraps it all with aching for the deep
and moats too wide to cross.

Suffering is only denied to those who throw their pain away,
who; anger and heat, judgment and fire, lies and deceit,
platitudes and bromides--setting the world ablaze to heal
the burn they will not feel.

You cannot outwit the pain.

But the aching know the pain is wiser, higher, wider,
and uncrossable. It is inscrutable and hidden behind
cupboards and bookshelves, prayerbooks and hymnals,
climax and nadir, silk and sackcloth, others and our own;
it will not retreat though we have assessed the enemy,
completed our military census,
and called its name out plain.

It is impossible to outsmart pain.
And perhaps that is why such willing wrists
took the iron spikes as a scepter,
took such abusive cries as a coronation song,
and cried like we all cry when pain makes us feel

forgotten.

Why have you forgotten?

It is impossible to outsmart the pain.