I Have Waves Within

I Have Waves Within

(“My Father has life in himself. And so he has made his Son to have life in himself.” John 5:26)

And so I sat drinking a beer I’ve ordered twice before.
This time the server brought me a sample and said,
“some people don’t like this one.”
“I’ve had it before”, I said, and wondered what the complaint
could be.
I asked the proprietor and she said, “They say it’s too sweet.”
And I had never thought it sweet before.

Now as I sipped it, along with tortilla chips and salsa,
I decided it was sweet indeed. My tastes run toward the
citrus and sour. I don’t know why I never noticed it.
I don’t know why this time it was far too sweet for my tastes.

I have a brain susceptible to change. I have waves within
that gravity pulls in a constant ebb and flow. I live most of
my days
in the neap tide.

It does not matter, except I would rather be the influencer
than the influenced. I’ve developed a strange
attitude. I’ve had a change of heart. I see the students
of mediocrity hiding in the wings. I’ve often wished
I had majored in artful things.

You have convinced me, and I will never be the same.
Every chance I take I consider that tickling of leaves in
the early summer breeze. I contemplate things I
rarely understand. And understand things far beyond
contemplation.

So let’s share some wine before the afternoon wastes away.

All Tattered and Perfection

All Tattered and Perfection

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

Where lives intersect; eat and play and love,
we can dance the steps of the joyful,
we can hear the melody redeemed,
we can note the steps, follow the quarter-tones,
and wonder at rounds geometrically opposed to
the strict sounds that stayed within the walls of
our protected subdivisions.

But we must not journalize the stranger; bell and chant and candle.

Here in the day we are reduced to children again who
play by the rules until the rules hinder the play. Why can’t
the newest one have four strikes, not three? Why shouldn’t the
corner boy paint portraits in pink and green?

Once we have discovered our New World we die if we think
the discovering is done.
Each coast is clearly concocted of sand dropped in new
frameworks against the horizon.
Each cavern is deep or dry, shallow or dripping with stalagmites
dialed by time slower than the kitchen wall ticking.

Dry eyes, warm clouds, sand crabs, foreign sounds,
hands raised, knees bowed, hymns sung, voices loud.

A hush at supper, a shout at soccer; vespers and incense,
chocolate and cadences; each soul is its own invocation,
and benediction can begin

The moment we embrace the introspection that longs for
the dances we’ve never learned or seen or heard.

The Dancer is not of this world or your world,
The Dancer spreads the music through every crack in time.
The Dancer indwells each space between movements
and encircles the down-beats tapped or clapped or missed
in our tripping attempts to follow.

The Dancer is invitation; all tattered and perfection,
torn and covered with the crash of waterfalls and the
force of hurricanes. The Dancer is whisper; the epicenter
of creation’s silence fully alive.