Like Picnics in the Shade

Like Picnics in the Shade

(“How beautiful is the person who comes over the mountains to bring good news, who announces peace and brings good news, who announces salvation and says to Jerusalem, ‘Your God is King.’” Isaiah 52:7)

The bridge spanned the ford
beneath greening skies.

The feet were beautiful along
the bluing banks.

The sky was descending along the
redding horizon.

The announcement of freedom was a prism full
of promise. Was a leap across the river.
Was a well-timed emancipation. Was a
well of water upon our parched tongues.

We had been disconnected. We were dejected
most days, sunny or haze. We knew the way
home
but the roads were well-guarded.

We started the inward journey as soon as we
understood that
no one could harm us on this way of open meadows.
No one could boast of conquering us like dust.
We were learning that trust looked a lot like
siestas in the sun.

We rejoiced like cranberry sky, strawberry wine,
and honeydew. We held our voices higher than
we had in epochs of time. We heard the message
and sang the words like an anthem of deliverance.
We spoke like we had know for years that we
were no longer captives, though we felt, sooner than
later
that we were imprisoned outside the fault lines
of mediocrity. We heard the news announced like liberty
unrestricted. And we shared it like picnics in the shade.

A Serenade to Soothe

A Serenade to Soothe

(“When you pray, do not say the same thing over and over again making long prayers like the people who do not know God. They think they are heard because their prayers are long.” Matthew 6:7)

Do you think your fancy words,
all dressed up and shining, make God hear you better,
make God’s ears perk up?
Did you think your elevated language,
complete with words of foreign tongues,
made God take notice,
make God get up and redecorate the dawn?
Etch your words deeply, not long.
Keep your focus narrow, not wrong.
When morning rises, greet Creator with a
silent song with hope of relief before long.
Let the shallow stream that never ceases to flow
teach you communion different that you have known.

I’ve been on the earning end of teary conversations,
I’ve dug my fingers into the carpet to be heard.
But you saw me before my first sight,
You acted before I even finished and came to my rescue
before I exhaled the Amen.

I only heard the invitation, I only saw the embers warm,
the table was set before I showed up, the meal was provided
before I began. The words were silent name tags
reserving my place from the beginning until now.

I’ve stopped my public praying; I’ve quieted my soul like
a child newly weaned. I’ve left out the titles I once used
and waited to meet you where you have always waited for me.

I mention my friends to you, even some who are gone;
I carry them in my heart and hope crosses their path today.
And if not, I continue to pray, knowing they do the same.
Our refrains are the same:
In your earth as it is in God’s heaven, and,
enough to eat for today if you please,
and a serenade to soothe the blues of
these difficult days.

How Multiplied

How Multiplied

(“For there will never cease to be poor people in the land; that is why I am commanding you, ‘Open your hand willingly to your poor and needy brother in your land.’” Deuteronomy 15:11)

There is not much but there is
more than I can carry. I could load it all on
my back, but how far could I go?
I could leave some behind, but who would
hijack my best intentions?
Come journey with me, we will share the load.
Come circle the sunset, come draw the morning rain.
Come as I follow the siren call, the angel’s refrain,
and we’ll split everything we find with anyone else
we meet on the trail. Why would we
keep more than they need? Why would we look the
other way?
I’ve pretended to be happy,
I’ve acted like I was not hungry.
But, truth be told, I still have unbidden tears and
my stomach craves an answer. Have you
felt the same way too? Am I the only one?
Do you wake up on days when everything is provided
and still feel like a pauper on the street?
Do you ever doubt the direction life has propelled
you, the trajectory of unnecessary missiles?
There is more poverty than simply lacking dollars,
there is more hunger than missing loaves of bread.
I’ll open my hand, I’ll help you up to the trail,
we can climb the waterfall we discovered as a couple of
adolescent boys when we were to afraid to ascend. We know
the rocks will be slippery,
but we need another adventure, a reason to sigh.
Or we’ll just walk in silence until it is time to eat again,
and we’ll claim our bread and wine, and we’ll
invite each passerby to share our meager provision
and we’ll see how multiplied we can be. We’ll
see how multiplied we all can be.

The Shortest Sentence

The Shortest Sentence

(“I will boast in the Lord; let the oppressed hear and rejoice.” Psalm 34:2)

There are days meant for reflection when we wait
to meet you at the station. The ground is long between us,
the air is stretched thin. The longing for absolution,
the craving of love with the proper inflection.
There are days when the rain brings pain,
the atmosphere has shifted again and the pressure
pushes the blood around in my brain. I have no one
to blame but the creator of it all.
But then I see you, eyes that have seen deeper within
my soul
than anyone I know. You make me feel the way I’ve always longed
to feel, the way I think we all deserve to feel.
And you do it all with your own pain front and center,
you do it all as sweet as summer grass after the rain.
I’ve confessed more to you than anyone I know.
I’ve admitted my prayers seem useless.

We might sit on upholstered armchairs in a room
in the bookstore where all the children’s books are
shelved. We might choose a dozen and leaf through them.
We might discover some things that
are just meant to be, like the touch of a hand,
hopes intertwined that say; I share the love so
the pain will not win. I share the affection that
keeps the anxiety at bay. And we would smile that night
at the secrets we know, the secrets we never share with
anyone else.

The only time we ever lie is when we say, “I’m fine”
when asked. I’ll tell you the truth next time if you will too.
Sometimes we say it with rounded sounds to make us believe
there isn’t much wrong. But the pain is the same, whether
we tell it or not.

We would know, sitting there among the stacks,
the inflection really said, “I need you” (we fear to
admit it.) We would see the truth in each other’s eyes.
Softly I would stand and give the simplest wink to the shortest
sentence of sadness: “I’m fine.”

When Winter Calls

When Winter Calls

(“How fair you are, my love. How fair you are! Your eyes are doves.” Song of Solomon 1:15)

When the rain falls, when winter calls so quietly
we do not hear it at all,
then let us find the songs behind the water-logged
skies.
Let us imagine days before the river freezes,
let us allow the magic of unhindered sight
weave the threads of words
to shine as brightly as Christmas lights strung
late in the season.
And let us wait for the laughter that begins
when children
see puddles as simply

New ways to play.

But then there are days when
the seams come loose and we
are no longer waterproof.
How shall we leave the house,
how shall we present ourselves drenched
and cold?

Do you recall how we laughed while our
frozen fingers thawed?
Let us, ice or storm,
ignore the lectures that ignite our fears and
simply learn

New ways to play.

The Days Are Short

The Days Are Short

(“He turned the wilderness into pools of water and the desert into flowing springs.” Psalm 107:35)

I wanted to get a head start and send you
the pre-snow breath of autumn. The days are short
for bare feet and wine in the sun.
And though my own hours are divided in
half,
I would share them with you as if we had
a hundred years to spend
listening to streams and frogs playing on the banks.
I would walk the levees, even though my legs give
out so much quicker in this slant-lighted season.
I meet my limit far too soon,
or start far too late in the day. Please
don’t feel you must arrange your schedule around me.
But the sparrows were bathing in
a puddle earlier, the leaves hanging lightly to
their branches as they blush before winter.
I wonder if last year’s leaves are happy as loam,
if the rose petals feed next year’s blooms.

Though pain commands my hours, tells my
bones there are fewer miles I can travel in a day, the
dawn peeks in anyway.
Complaint is not a language that settles well on my tongue.

There is time to build a new earth, though my time fades.
There are reservoirs of mercy though the sun sets early.
The deer eat the remains of the apples in my yard,
the guns half a world away disturb the mountain’s flow.
There are babies fighting for breath, there are elders
forced underground.

The day is punctuated. The percussion becomes harsh.
The rivers flow but are dammed by territorial possession.

And we wait for rain that will wash us clean,
we hope the river will soon drown our sorrows
and
cleanse our inhuman intentions.

Come, let us walk together, holding hands across the
hostile borders.

My Invisible Skin

 My Invisible Skin

(“I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.” John 16:33)

It isn’t guilt these days,
it’s the suffering, the sheer pain of squeezing
the most moments from each slant of the sun.
Do I miss friends who no longer understand?

I once had a plastic model, a man with invisible skin.
Inside were the organs: stomach and liver and arteries and veins.
I never learned much from him, or from the frogs I dissected in school.
All their insides blended in dirty wash-water grey.
It is fortunate I am not a physician.

At any rate I wish there was a picture window
to my soul
and it could be viewed dispassionately,
entirely undressed.
I would no longer need to rehearse my
answers, no longer hide what gathered dust
in the rafters. And I would be happy to sit still
for every x-ray snapshot.

Scolding never healed a headache,
surprise inspections alter few behaviors.
If you could see through my plastic skin
would you dissect my present from my past?
Would you think my last iteration was more
tattered than the first?

In the end it matters little,
though surgeons have whittled away at
a few of my organs.
My within remains intact,
my invisible skin only covers
a mosaic whose colors sometimes change
but whose essence has remained the same.

Why Are Some Days Narrow?

Why Are Some Days Narrow?

(“But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God…so that our God may enlighten our eyes.” Ezra 9:8)

Why are some days narrow slits letting through
only a ray at a time?
Why do the silent clouds
drown out the robin’s songs?
Here in this heart, vacant for so long,
there is room enough for
the universe.
Here in these eyes, darkened for so long,
there is light enough for
all of us.
Why do some minds that
should have been opened long ago
profess love and
push the stragglers off the narrow road?
Why are most peoples’ gods a filmy image
of animus and prejudice?
Here in this room, filled for 100 years,
sit only 8 or 9, maybe a dozen next week,
decrying the leaden darkness when
the air outside is alive. Hope is the
title of humanity’s verse. Love never
needs a dress rehearsal.

Not all epiphanies happen in a moment,
most are slow-motion.
They hit your soul first, the ocean’s breath,
before they mist the air, your mental unrest,
that drives you to voice
everything you have always known.
And then you ask the questions

About why
you let the narrow slats
limit your attention to a universe full
of butterflies visiting poppies.
The rest stops come easier now.

I’ve Thought of Fire

 I’ve Thought of Fire

(“No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29)

I’ve thought of fire,
I’ve conjured smoke,
I’ve conferred with wind,
I’ve bought a home
for doves outside my window.

I’ve heard the sun,
I’ve written rain,
I’ve painted with snow,
I’ve lured the song
like sirens across the silence.

I’ve wrestled pain,
I’ve conquered fear,
I’ve compared the view,
I’ve sought the grass
for days to rest in summer.

But I’m still erasing,
I’ve awoken slow,
I’m still rehearsing,
I’ve run too fast,
I’ve brushed the golden hair
of a toddling daughter.

I’ve spoken low,
I’ve daydreamed sage,
I’ve deferred my soul,
I’ve smudged my words
for days like this. For
love.

These Silent Days

 

These Silent Days

These silent days can be interrupted
by
a woodpecker rehearsing for the Spring.
And then, more often,
they are punctuated with sobs from the
hollow of distant grief and aches.
Life can turn cruel without our knowing,
a decade passes and chop block houses line
the field where mustard and poppies once grew.
Life can be sweetened for an hour,
a meal, a hug, a dog nuzzling at your elbow.
The air is heavier
the fewer people in the room.
Half a day later and the dishes are cleared,
loneliness creeps in uninvited
but is so familiar you put out a chair for him.
And though the buzz of life once flew like geese,
like bees,
the silence now hangs over the hours.
Before, now, and after, it is the way it always
has been.

These Days the Blues

 

These Days the Blues

(“And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers!’” Matthew 12:49)

These days the blues pursue me
just two steps behind my slower pace.
I’ve remanufactured time, an endless loop,
an arpeggio designed to keep me within soothing
distance of smiles I miss,
wine we’ve dispensed,
and arguments we’ve left to evaporate
once the sun makes its rounds again.

Once I wanted less pressure,
once I sought more leisure,
now I look down the driveway for
another soul, a dead ringer for
day trips on dewy hills.

Once I was impressed by counts
and recounts,
filled chairs and noise,
good reports about a preaching machine
now grounded without wings.

These days the pain recruits me
just behind my older face.
Please call me, my brother;
please ride up and remind me
why I once called you sister.
Oh mother, of father, oh family
who ate vegan spaghetti and bread.

Now I’m impressed by doubts
and dropouts,
question marks and silence,
good transports that carry my heart
on prayer and a wing.

These Days I Rarely Understand

These Days I Rarely Understand

(“All scripture is inspired by God...so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else prophesies about dead end days.
How many days on the calendar,
how many decades in the rear-view mirror,
how many centuries of waiting in caves,
how many isolated on mountain peaks with
their stashes of canned goods and guns?

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else preaches about conspiracy certainty.
How many people does it take
to keep a secret from the rest of us?
You swear everything you see with your eyes
is invented by newscasters and forecasters of death.
But everything you find in your head,
or is invisibly said by unmasked hatred
you swallow like chocolate cake.

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone divides the garments of the poor
and casts lots for the leftovers to carpet their bedroom floors.
How many lungs without breath
until you put on your boots and join the rest
who cannot stand for one more chokehold in the name of
law.
Remove the blindfold to see what is in front of you,
and sell all you have to join the hidden,
and tell how long it took to find the forbidden words
that set the prisoners free. Don’t speak of equality
until you can imagine traffic that accelerates the moment
you become a pedestrian. Watch the crosswalk son.

These days I rarely understand a word you say;
but love. I’ll scrape my knees for love,
cross the street for love,
eat what you eat for love,
take the heat for love.

I remember every face that said Christ was a white man’s
religion,
and when I tried to convince them otherwise.
Today I would listen. I don’t know how, but he has become whiter
in this stolen land haunted by its ancestors who knew grandfather better
than we think we know his son.

Please dream with me about undivided skies,
plains that grant us bread,
rains that soften our beards and faces,
and streets that bear the names of original blessing instead
of original sin.

Listen with me and let us understand (grandfather, son and holy ghost)
if we will not love, we have not listened. And if we have not listened,
we have not understood.

Come and Go

Come and Go

Some days come and go,
and others are slow like the
local swimming hole after all the children
have gone home.

There is no drifting, splashing or
tick-tocking to mark the ions of time.
Some days they all stand still, hovered just above
the memories after

All the children have gone home.

These are the places in my dreams,
the spaces between the buzzing summer when
thoughts were younger
and the approaching winter when
only the silence has much to say.

Some days drag and push,
and others rehearse memory
in slow motion like the schoolroom clock before
all the children have gone

Home.

Of All Days

Of All Days

(“So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouts, with the sounding of rams’ horns and trumpets, and of cymbals, and the playing of lyres and harps.” 1 Chronicles 15:28)

So I said to them, once the lightness had returned to my step:

“I was warned about the storms you bring,
with your refusals to sing, and everything you see that has
turned the great green world black. I will not turn back.”

And they just looked at me, mouths hanging open, not a breath taken,
and spears for eyes that pierced the thought bubble above my head:

They said:

“When will you learn it is our call to burn the beastly fields
that are filled with weeds and wheat beneath your feet. When will
you see, take note, and agree with our proposal, read it squarely,
about our disposal of human garbage at the curb.”

And I just looked at them, mouth hanging open, my breath still shaken,
and years of lies that made me feel different. Until this little bit of time.

Come on, people. Dance, people. Look upward, darlings. Look outward, pals.
Listen slowly, sisters. Listen surely, brothers. For the demons are canceled
for the day.

Invite every opponent, swing open the mighty iron gates,
Lay out the long red carpet, Ring the bells, it’s not too late
for every point on the globe to hear the chimes singing,
“Disrobe your objections and dance the directions of the
three-beats-in-one.”

So I said to them, once the smoke rose above the clouds
the hugged the sun like chariot wheels across the sky:

“Here is why I wrote this tune (I knew the lyrics would drive
you crazy, and still, there they are.) Do you see how far we are
from the

Joy of Mercy

The

Glee of Grace

The

Hymn of Peace

And the

Cancelled Notes we owed and could never pay? So I ask honestly,
Why, on this, of all days, would you try to keep anyone away?”