Travel With Friends

(“The earth is full of Your loving-kindness, O Lord. Teach me Your Law.” Psalm 119:64)

Warm it up or ice it down,
the earth is surrounded by divine attachment
forward and back.
Travel with friends, buy an old custom van,
and take off not knowing where to go;
that is the only way to never get lost.

Stop the first night where you land as the sun
blinds the driver’s eyes going down. No one likes
camping
so a hotel somewhere outside of Amarillo will do.
One friend is on the move, another is seeking treatment
for a fatal disease, two are sisters who are leaving home
for the first time to see what wonders there are down the road.
And the driver, he thought he knew his destination until

The next day doing Denver, he began to wonder why he
had no idea what direction to take. One convenience store clerk
said the way west was easy, but it all felt like the rattan weave
of a straight back chair. Stopping for directions every turn
and disorientation, the advice was harder to follow as the day
was lazy and did not contribute
to the need to know what direction to go.

They drove for hours, and tensions grew high. Lowering
their voices
the sisters wondered if they would ever reach the campus
of their dreams
on time.
The driver trembled for his friend so ill he barely breathed
his anxiety at all. But his face had grown red, his hands
pale and cold, and the one on the move propped his head up
on a pillow found behind the back seat.

The temperature rose as they iced his fevered brow,
the road was surrounded by angelic anonymity
over and under.
Travel with friends, driving a custom van,
and rounded the day knowing why they were going,
though lost,

They found the love that enraptures the universe.

When the Sparks Began

 

When the Sparks Began

(“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.” Colossians 4:6)

 

They had been transparent days until then,
skies full of space, dewy grass with the fallen
petals of camelias carpeting the places beneath
the trees.

They had been joyful evenings until then,
rounds full of laughter, guitars with the chosen
chords of folk songs measuring the pace of memorized
ditties and reels.

A careless cigarette dropped from the traveler’s mouth
into a ditch on a day when all burning was banned.
He noticed, he looked
and exhaled again as he hurried to his destination.

A thoughtless epithet dropped from the minstrel’s mouth
into the circle of fifths on a night when choral odes were planned.
She heard it, she laughed
as if that would soften the blow of a word misplaced and unrationed.

The day became opaque for hours to weeks,
the sun was burnt orange, the sky soot black and weeping,
ancient tree roots and newly budded roses were burned
at the stake
along with farms and meadows and houses.

The night became static, claustrophobic and silent,
the guitar cases clicked as instruments were laid down to sleep.
Songs sung for generations, songs sung for solidarity were mute
at the way
unsavory words sucked the joy from picking and strumming
and singing and humming.

Wildfire and iced hearts. All we needed was seasoning to grace
the moment when the sparks began.

I Find no PriceTag

I Find no PriceTag

(“You know how full of love and kindness our Lord Jesus was: though he was so very rich, yet to help you he became so very poor, so that by being poor he could make you rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

What is this pain dropped upon me,
a pack breaking my neck and twisting my back
that never lessens. No one adds to its weight
over time,
but the same burden carried hours and miles
over mountains of days and plateaus of hours,
unchanging terrain, my feet hang like anvils over
the edge of each mornings bed on waking.

And yet I know the destination, unseen today
through the blinding squeeze,
some well-photographed travelogue sent
back from beyond, waits. No, I am the one who

Waits.

The destination exists now, at the end;
and how far the hike when one day’s trek
is an hour of blindfold darkness and turning
around
I see exactly where I began. Each day,
the end less than inches from the start.

The milliseconds I have to reflect,
I know the pain of the Beloved was fire
fiercely ignited,
void of light or dark, presence or absence;
beyond my worst day and deeper than the
cliffs of agony I slip upon in heat or noise.

I know there is a Passion that has covered
the bloodshot crawl I call my walking,
where I used to run, my feet lie aching tomorrow.

Pay my way, I can find no pricetag to defray the cost,
and am lost so close to home. I would come now if
You would grant it; I have no energy to panic.