"Get Over It"

 

“Get Over It”

(“He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. Acts 15:9)

I remember when a friend told me to get over it,
a friend who never knew what it could be. “Get over”
the wounds of my doing or
the bullets from the guns of comrades in arms.
Get-over the masks that pretended to be pretty
until they saw
the ugly in me.

And in telling me to
get over it
they only
added to the shit
that piled high as the steeples of a
country village church.

(Although I lied when I said there were
reporters outside the door.) The only ones who knew
or wanted the truth
were those who had dropped their stones to throw
a long time ago. Their pockets now empty,
they moved through life with an ease that accompanies
the lightness of those who have eschewed judgment and
chosen love’s pervasive brightness.

Oh, believe me, I’ve gotten over many things. But some I still
burrow through. Some I need a boost; bend now and let me
stand upon your knees. While some are still a necklace of mud
drying in the heat.

Where has salvation taken you?
I remember softball when your daughters told their sisters
to drop the ball when the boy with a limp rounded the bases.
My soul is as pained as his ankles.

Though my limp worsens, I would hasten to your side,
even if you had lied about what hurt you. Be silent or
speak, without judgement I would seek the way the
Spirit talks in comfortable rhythms; She knows the path
to every lineage of pain woven between heart and mind. She
forces no rhymes, but, in freedom, in grace, in truth, gives space.
I would compose no rebuttals,
but hope to be the vessel to contain your pain
until we both are visited by the peace, the dove,
the carefree goose who saves us from enslavement
to rigid stories that require a fairy-tale ending.

My story is messy, grimy and tear-stained.
My story is painful, timely, and unstrained
by requirements of strict interpretation. “Get
over it” sometimes frightens me from the oil
that can only be poured on open wounds.
I am still hoping to round the bases with the help
of a few errors from my friends.

Hidden

Hidden

(“Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.” Psalm 19:12)

Some are imbedded for so long, it seems like they’ve been there from day one;
we recognized them well at first, in front; but time covered them with sand,
and ash and soot.

I spent six years in Texas before I knew you there existed
strange worlds where
you need not drive and hour to reach the nearest town. Six blocks
north of my new East L.A. neighborhood I crossed the street
and stood in San Gabriel with Alhambra behind me.

In second grade there, (it might have been third) I asked a
schoolmate if I still had an accent. (I think I wanted one, to
be distinct, to stand out. Not a deep Southern drawl, just enough
to be cool and from somewhere else, somewhere where no one
had ever been.) She crinkled her nose, looked up to the sky and said
“I think so, maybe a little.” (I avoid “ya’ll”, if you all were interested.)

But intonation has left its mark, without my knowing it well. “Uffda”,
from my Norwegian friends, and “ennit” from my Native brothers.

“Uffda, that’s a huge bowl of tripe soup, ennit?”

But, unless you recorded my speech with my knowing, and made me
listen through the hour that traced my talking (tied to a chair, I
would never
volunteer), I am certain there are expressions my kids laugh about
when they have their “adult” lunches and giggle about moms and dads.

I’ll be honest, my dad insisted “cassette” had a long “a” and so sounded
like a girl name Kay. He had many old Gospel Quartet Kay-settes.
He had a double tacks: one was to deny he ever spoke that way, and two,
to say he knew for certain it was pronounced his way.

So, Heavenly Father, You don’t have to tell me twice; if the
words I use every day
can trip me up without a single moment of awareness,
I am certain I need You to dig deep where my sins are
hidden better, and with more resolve, than
my inattention to the certain silence of my
latent drawl.