We Refused to Turn

We Refused to Turn

(“These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.” Daniel 3:23)

You erected an idol to yourself,
you demanded worship at the statue of your
insanity. We could not comply, we could not
bow
like it was some worship song flowing up
from creamy faces to the sun. You
sent the worst after us,
to subdue us,
to confuse us.
But we refused to turn our faces to
the effigy built in your image.

You sent the worst to arrest us,
door to door you knocked with your
covered faces, asking questions we had
no obligation to answer. We politely,
but plainly told you to fuck off.
Your brutish hands clutched the door
and we smelled the acrid tear gas you
had punched into crowds that were countering
your evil directives.

In short, burn us in your furnaces of fury
if you will but the short and full of it is
simple:
We
will
not
bow.

Singe the edges if you will.
We will sing our songs of sanity
to your appropriated helmets of state-sponsored
status. We will move with resolve
to introduce the truth. If you arrest us
we will stand. If you apprehend us, we will
still speak. If you sentence us, we will steadily
place our purpose where it belongs. We will
avert our eyes from your monstrous image and
turn to the invisible God who is truth and truth
and truth.

Covered with Bricks

Covered with Bricks

(“Jesus replied, ‘This very night before a rooster crows twice, you will say three times that you don't know me.’” Mark 14:30)

Fixed in time, the prophecy announces the dawn nearer
midnight than most. I did not recognize him in the
firelight
once the opposition seemed to have the upper hand.

Storm

The

Temple,

I wanted to say. I could not comprehend the ways of
bloody stripes and shame. I knew his name
but I had not seen these shadows before, nor
had expected them.

Deliver

Us

Now,

I wanted to cry. Instead I stood by, my mind dull, my
body paralyzed, and my tongue thick in my mouth. I don’t
know.

I

Don’t

Know

Is all I said. How had the tables turned? Had we not earned
a seat at the table, a place in the kingdom, a world where we
finally won?

We do not know him because we only see him
in thunderclouds and brimstone, in conflagrations and
bloodstones filling the valleys up to the bridles of the horses.

We

Don’t

Know

A thing. We only deny him because we never see him
in the eyes of the lynched. We are unhinged, doorways to
the peaceable kingdom covered with bricks.

And the roosters crow again and again
until we are ready to see the dove descend upon
the Son of Man and the eagle bow before the
shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

See Her Better

See Her Better

(“If there are poor among you, in one of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be selfish or greedy toward them.  But give freely to them, and freely lend them whatever they need.” Deuteronomy 15:7-8)

What do I know, you know;
what have I seen behind the screen,
the half-closed eyes of the mother, (I assume)
the grandmother, (yes, once again)
those eyes, cleansed by the crying of endless
days sitting in the same spot above the boulevard
where passersby take the pedestrian bridge.
Yes, those eyes reddened by countless tears;
her face pulpy and sallow and barely seen.

On the Mexican winter she rides on the hopes
that those who know her will not miss her. We barely
see beauty of cascades tipping over rocky cliffs after
a month of walking by. So we see even less this
disturbance to our soul
after a week of crossing.

Does she pin her hopes on tourists in this fishing village
filled with spring breakers and old couple romance seekers?
Will they see her better, covered in her native best; hues
bleeding across the shawl and stopping at the holes worn by
constant wear? Or did they cut their budget so close that
dropping pesos in her cup means one night sober,
or one less souvenir?

Or perhaps, it is often true, there is enough left, but we
hear the religious impulse from our idols of self-advancement,
“You, get a job”. We are jesters in the court of
capital palaces and advancement.

But some, hearing the words of the better God, hear words
spoken to them, “Give. Do not let your left hand know
what your right hand has done.” And quietly,
they slip their hand inside their pockets, grab a wad of
what they will,
and slightly, and sleight of hand,
silent as they can, slide the bills into the cup
without breaking stride.

Milk, a roast, diapers, or one more week
with power; the hearts of an aged widow and
an unknown traveler meet once,
and only once. But again love has leapt
over hurdles and past benches of cultural inertia.