Just in Time

Just in Time

(“And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.” Ephesians 2:17)

It is no disgrace to hear the morning gloires open
to the slowing sun. It is still the grayest of days and,
like sifted sugar, the snow sits atop the foothills.
With our mouths full of wonder we could have
second-guessed every word. There was something
human
about the message that graced our anxious waiting.
From parallel planes we had carried the animosity
of the ages. How would this announcement take us
from our place to the other with the river blocking our paths?
We were gauged by the notice we took that the shorelines
had changed.

We both awoke at dawn with time zones between us;
We heard the song with same ears we had used to
berate the far country we thought we knew.
We had stubbed our toes on the concrete drama
of religious dogma. We had tried all this before with
no one listening. We toed the party line and never
tried to find the common thread that ran from one
life
to another. We were chosen and they were neither
blessed nor corrupted. They were just born that way.
But their very touch, as seldom as it occurred, could
drive us to constant ritual cleansing of our souls.

At odds, the new song kept trying to break through the
tangled catechism we both held on to. I worship this
and you worship that, and we both end up condemning
the practices we called idolatry. We stretched our
definitions to include the final judgement we knew
they deserved.

But at one point of time, in one sphere intervening
and filling everything, we heard the words that we
were afraid to speak. We heard a question that seemed
to answer everything.

We traveled toward each other, following the air waves
that had finally caught our attention. And we arrived
near noon,
just in time to see the marigolds glow.

Foot Replacement

Foot Replacement

(“Now at last the Lord has helped me,” she said. “He has taken away my public disgrace!” Luke 1:25 )

I am sorry my writing sounds like moaning,
the ache from morning until groaning for the moments
I slumber only to recall in dreams the burst words upon my brow,
the worst guards against any reoccurrence against the rules.

My momentary agony is the glacial ice of a decade of abuse,
accused from the left and left by the right, and stumbling on my
own two feet the clumsy dance I’ve known since childhood. I would
have submitted to experimental foot replacement to cure my excursions
off the path.

So the cries you hear (when you would rather see roses and robins)
are the contest between the testing of the gods and the arrogance of men.
Midst it all, the sorrow, the heartbreak, the bait that hides the hook;
I have drunk their smog into my lungs and nearly drowned upon the
streets I hoped to live.

Like Zechariah, I’ve questioned God, and God has kept me quiet
more than once, more than twice. Are my sights so short that
He cannot find me in well-timed chastening to undress my disgrace?

I have waited for the waters to recede, the tears to disperse,
I’ve rehearsed every good thing I will say when He turns my dreams
of captivity to joy one day. Yet even He, I do not understand, offers
(through serendipity) the happiest career. Offered to me years ago,
it is once more a special on the buffet. When I turn the table,
ready to take the smile upon my plate, the course is taken;
I am shaken to the core.

Once more, another god-fellow lowers the boom, so full
of himself he cannot see past the fumes of his own hot words,
and severs a tie of 33 years in one angry stroke.

I once spoke fearlessly, now want to sleep and ignore the
knocks on the door, the rings of the phone

And breathe and eat and write alone.

Disrobe this ugly costume of disgrace.