Every Year or Two

Every Year or Two

(“Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God.” Romans 10:4)

Obsolete. Stuck in a snow globe with tinted glass,
all I’ve seen for a quarter century past are the gray arcs
of a home without corners to stash new thoughts. Left
with no filing system and trusting the handlers who shake
my occupation, I trust the simulations of winter.

Guarded: Within my residence I keep my thoughts to myself,
(heaven knows spokes are heard around the block and back)
and search every angle for another misdemeanor
in hopes my doctrine will not go missing.

(for the astute reader who is about to point out that my metaphor began with a globe and now describes searching every angle, you are to be saluted)

Incomplete. A closed system with nothing new to think,
nothing novel to drink, and memories of shrinking back
if a theory insisted freedom beyond my well-ordered turn.
Well-orbed living means, no matter which route I choose,
I will arrive. The paths are infinite, the destination prefabricated.

Artifacts. If you find my several parts under glass at the museum,
you may construct, with reasonable certainty, the square meter of space
I occupied. One pristine piece, briefly used and sadly set aside;
the Though Generator has been replaced by a turbine which keeps
every word in line, at its proper time, spaced apart to appear,
new

Every year or two.

Transformed. The lovely art I thought had freed me, deceived me;
the walls curved inward reflecting brief light back into a man-sized
follow spot upon a tiny stage. Centered, I was handcuffed by certainty.
Until the infinite touched my single-set theory and burst the walls
from the crystal ball I inhabited.

(for the previous travelers who have arrived here before me,
I will remember I may reside, even yet, in
a larger version of the globe from which I have been redeemed.)

Poetry is Dangerous

Poetry is Dangerous

(“For they are sham apostles; deceptive workers, wearing the masks of Christ’s apostles.” 2 Corinthians 11:13)

In poetry I am free to make my quotes mean
anything.

In essays and doctrine I
must remove the mask of self-conceit
and think which next word matches and means
the earliest intention of reasonable assumptions.

Poetry emerges untouched except by pencil and hand
without pausing to regret or examine intentions
like a bear sniffing for berries.

Poetry is dangerous then, as mushroom hunting by
novices,
and only hopes the mask it fashions
matches the heart-learned face of a love long known.

I can ask you questions within my refrains
unafraid of right or wrong,
and hope I raised you right, though carrots
resemble artichokes in the garden dug
where I see more compassion in your eyes
despite tears I shed when I wonder why
your doctrine leans so far from mine.

But you must know, having loved you more than
you can know…in poet, song or dissertation…
that tasting the fruit planted on my tongue
(carrots are not artichokes in the fresh fruit aisle)
poetry lets my circumvent the question so I can remember

Lunches across the table from my son, my best friend,
without competition or need to defend a new assumption
about how the world works and how God tends my questions
that I used to fully understand.

Poetry is dangerous, then, but casts a longer shadow
than mere paragraphs of prose proving right or wrong.

What it comes down to, artichoke or carrot, is that both are tasty,
and, handpicked, need no explanations having landed in
my salad.

(And so, I feel constrained to add, that truth is always truth, but
for the day or two I write it, poetry takes me to air less heavy
where can breathe without eternal outcome.)