Now That the Burden is Gone

Now That the Burden is Gone

(“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our wrongdoings from us.” Psalm 103:12)

Did you see the dizzy way the day
turned like a clown? Did you pick up the
gravel that had been spread around your feet?
Which hour cost you the most?
Which stroke of the pen made all the difference?

The air is purer where the breeze has blown
every accusation further down the slopes. The
lights are brighter, full spectrum and sun, where
the tears are wiped from your cheeks. The
sounds turn from sullen bellows to the laughter
of a playground full of children.

Did you walk past the place where it first happened?
Did you fight the memories where they discarded their
own fears on your spine?
Did you sit in the backyard where they found what
they called evidence of your crime?
Did you take the time, today, straightway, and become
underwhelmed by the inherent insanity of it all?

The past is lighter where the breath of God has
whispered the pointed fingers back to their holsters? The
day breaks more softly, the angles are less oblique, and
the glass more transparent where one word is the word.
The distances from one sin to another are measured in
light-years. And your soul, like a beast of burden,
is happier now that the burden is gone.

How Deep the Kisses Go

 

How Deep the Kisses Go

(“If I go to the east, God is not there. And if I go to the west, I do not see him there.” Job 23:8)

I could add that I’ve looked up and down to see how deep the kisses go.
It is a long way down, north and south, to insist the address can be found
that got rumpled, unsuited for public view.
Yet here I am
answering the phone again
(and who shall I say is calling this time?)

The voice I am looking for shines with sweat,
the voice I am looking for is too soon for regret,
the voice I am looking for is too old to forget,
and still I find every time I turn to hear,
the clouds muffle its silence again,
(and yet, I have not given up the listening.)

Have you ever found yourself exploring holes and ditches
and then climbed down the sides of a six-foot pit
to discover the dirt slid like gravy and
the walls were too gravity to crawl out the same way
you jumped in? I would not call that a sin,
but you probably yelled the name of
a friend or two to
throw you a rope. Maybe no one came
until well after dinner time.

I could add that I have fallen also,
a child-man scraping his knees,
a curious boy climbing over piles of
cardboard boxes in the garage. I could
make a hideout for days against the walls
and behind my cardboard castle. But I
hid there in bare feet and soon the concrete floor
shot its icy cold through me. I would have walked down
the street on warmer sidewalks but my parents had
asked for an All Points Bulletin for a barefoot boy
on the run.

I could add that, though from hideouts or august asphalt,
it still is a long way down. Maybe what I’ve found is
the kisses surround us deeper than we can ever hope
to mine.