Gatherings Like This

Gatherings Like This

(“Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.” Romans 15:7)

It was all so small, but warmer than it had been
in a decade of Decembers. Small family, restful smiles,
grace and a place where words and action met in
a holy embrace. It was quiet and laughter like a
Christmas eve with a dozen adults and children
evenly scattered around the room.

We might have wished for snow but that mattered
very little now. It was time to eat and share
gifts we had hunted near the end of the year. All the way
from newborn babies to a man in his seventies, time
seemed endless as we inhaled the atmosphere that only
these kind of gatherings can bring.

A guitar, waiting in the corner, was lifted and strummed.
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” started from small mouths
to older, and “Silent Night” was sung like a lullaby though no one
would be sleeping for hours from now.

You Hugged the Rain

You Hugged the Rain

(“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31)

I remember everything.
Except your words.
I remember your face like the aura
of a child. I see the way your eyes crinkled
every time you smiled.
I remember everything.

I’m sorry if I ever ignored you,
or if I ever cut our phone calls short.
I was guarding my own heart for so long
I sometimes thought an early goodbye was
better than
adding more words to your memory. You already
seemed
to be filled with too many lectures.
But I could have listened longer. I could have.

I thought you were ready to explode like
a water balloon landing on the ground. And then
I’d look again
and the water, seeking its own level,
settled behind your eyes. I know what it’s like
to shut everything tight
and lock it up for fear of being exposed. Usually
I would discover, walking in the cold, that I could
find and alley where the snow had not yet been plowed.

I’m weary too. But I’ve seen you when you forgot the
pressure. You played like a child. You hugged the rain.
You waved down silly hitchhikers to give them directions to town.
But it wears me out too.

I should have met you for ice cream more often.
I should have mentioned the waterfall that washes our
shame away like
the first sunny day following the snow.
I wish I knew because I would have
remembered everything.
Your words. Your pain. Your loves. Your refrains
of distant songs. Your worth. Your worth. Your worth.
I would have remembered everything.

The Pain Descended Like a Metal Plate

 The Pain Descended Like a Metal Plate

(“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.” Ecclesiastes 2:24)

The pain descended like a metal plate,
boxed my head and locked it away. With
all the extra weight
the trail was longer than the day before.
My vision crashes like needles and fog,
I turn a corner and am startled by a puddle
from this morning’s rain. It had not happened before;
I hope it will not happen again.

I have asked before, and still have no answer,
where is the key that unlocks the crushing pressure
nearly cracking my brain. I’m given an
hour
a day for recreation and find time only to recline
to keep the fire away.

I would meet you for tacos, I would. Or coffee and
croissants. But no one knows the hours when the
warden unlocks my cell. I can hardly invite you to
my unkempt ramblings and misfired hope.

I would bring a bottle of wine. It’s true. Or your favorite
Irish whiskey. They are my habitual escape. I forget
I don’t have the combination to free me, and believe me,
I’ll laugh and smile for a while. But I’d rather grin because
I can move my head or my neck or my shoulder without pain
again. Still, I’ll bring the bottle.

Can I send this to you in the mail? It is too long for a text.
If you read it would you understand? Would you think it best
to
bring a chocolate donut to my door. You know why I have
not
visited you often enough, don’t you? You know how my
entire body
is imprisoned by the cold steel of a decade of pain.
You know, since I solo nearly every day, the time may
be short until, insane,
I stop trying to understand anything.

You don’t need to have the key to visit me.
You don’t even need bread. Give me the wine of
your company,
and a few stories from our friends.

Each Morning the Cobwebs

 

Each Morning the Cobwebs

(“You must eat these things in a holy place…” Numbers 18:10)

Each morning the cobwebs decorate my brain
in dusty fog; pain is the wall between overnight dreary
and midday promises of clear skies, though clouds hug the
lowlands no matter the time.

My mind has shrunk and slowed. It hangs on to old
impurities, a swamp of pitfalls, a canyon of cliffs, a
mudded well with walls so slick from slime, escaping
is no longer in the plans.

For each day forward, for the moment the sun and the
mouth of the well align,
there are a month of others when a monster hand covers
my only minute of warm, my only breath of light for
weeks at a time.

Some days hasten, some hold back, my hours are not my own,
they belong to the malady in my head. Some days are over
before I’ve begun. Some days repeat hour after hour, while
I hesitate to venture past the mailbox. Sometimes I take the dog,
sometimes I fear saying “hi”.

I will not excuse my damp flailing, the past failing, the present
and constant funnel where my wounded heart hears even the best
words as foreign babble. I’ve troubled you too long, son, daughter,
friend, peer. I’ve troubled you too long; only the dearest to me
know. Only the dearest heard the words rebounded from my
wounds and sounded like another angry hurricane to rip the
foundations again.

Perhaps I could trouble you for a meal, coffee, breaking bread?
Perhaps I could trouble you to sit with me, silent, a simple spread
so holy that soul and spirit are nourished,
dispensing with ladders, the climb to advancement
is found on park benches, sandy beaches, or a artisan picnic
before the storm roars down the river.

Perhaps my thoughts will be clearer before the evening ends.

For Pianos and Wine

For Pianos and Wine

(“People ate until they couldn’t eat any more. He gave them what they had wanted.” Psalm 78:29)

I would give anything for eight candles and a piano,
a light for each visitor in the room, a table of food,
and a tune we all knew by heart.

A draught of ale, bacon wrapped dates with an entrée of duck
or lamb,
or goat or ham,
and dessert imagined by witty minds or luckily stumbled upon
at a Mexican panadería.

I would go back in time if it helped,
to hug the finest friends (some still in arm’s reach,
some across the wireless space,
some closer than before but with back turned to late
comments and figures of speech.)
I am the same friend, only my brain has changed.
I have same love, only the scope is strange to their thinking.
I have the same calloused fingers from playing guitar alone.

I would give anything for two guitars, a flute and a horn.
An evening searching for baptism and listening to the call of
nightingales.

But I would not give up the expanse, the exploded boxes,
the labyrinth that takes me deeper, the hope that takes me sweeter,
the few new friends who think it a wonder that I share
a drink with them at all.

I would give anything to hear a voice on the line:
we heard you are hurting. We heard you’ve changed.
We heard you may be out of the tribe. We heard you’ve remained
the same. We saw your slow exit and your limping. We saw
your tears and the simple goodbye you waved when your heart
wanted to stay.

And we just wanted to say: We don’t care how your brain works today,
just join us again for bread, for candles, for pianos and wine.