We Keep an Eye Out

We Keep an Eye Out

"In every direction, in every conceivable merciful convergence,
the heart pounds like someone waiting for the alarm to go off,
whetting our appetite for the congregation, the happy twirling
like the spinning of a yarn.
Memory is the gift you get for living.
Dreams are the seeds you plant, saving the future
like a first grade concert in the park.

How many breaths scatter across the hills,
how many landslides shortly after noon?
Can we hear the forgotten refrain,
can we see the genesis of creation imbued
with atomic fondness for the divine?
We talk while our joy is unescapable,
our song is an opening along the horizon of
everything, including moonlight, sunshine,
and stars late in the deep night. We can
name a few, along with the planets too.
We thought the lyrics were only English
with a smattering of Spanish. We thought the
words were enough to get us through the day.

We count the background; we gaze toward the sky.
We watch the sanity of uncertainty land like a dove
upon the boughs of cherry trees adorned by
fruit this late in the summer. We cannot wait to
carry them full-handed into the pail we have
used for a decade now and offered at least half
to the children who live next door.
We share it, also, with the deer that amble
through the inhabited cedars shortly after the
sun goes down.

We keep an eye out for the next doe and maybe a fawn;
we keep ourselves busy awaiting the next whistle the
sparrows sing. They are sonnets that surround the day.

To Let in The Light

To Let in The Light

(“When God seems foolish, he is more wise than men. When God seems weak, he is stronger than men.” 1 Corinthians 1:25)

It is the simplest thing to let in the light;
even one eye open would do the trick. But
tell me,
if you know,
does the light flow like violin strings,
or does it poke its way through the darkness
like a dog’s nose?

I never think about it until I sit down to
write about it,
until I remember I walk the same two miles every day,
but one house is now empty,
one field has been subdivided,
one dog no longer comes to greet me,
and the same hummingbird has focused my eyes
on things more microscopic than ever before.
Once, looking closely with these old eyes,
I saw a tiny stream of nectar sparkle from the
red-headed beak to the feeder.

Too often, like the birds mistake my windows for air,
I mistake the skies for empty. Pain sinks its
fangs into my head and deep into my mind. And
I, too,
lose sight of the light. It is a burden, a cauldron
of molten lead; and my eyes beg to close again,
and seek a shine within.
Too often, I mistake my tears for
atheism, while others mistake them for
why some days I do not make it out of bed.

It is the most difficult thing to let in the light;
with both eyes open it can break me like
open ice on a frozen lake.

To Go Home

To Go Home

(“This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who went before me, because he was before me.” John 1:30)

So you saw him eye-to-eye
and jumped in the womb when his
mother came calling.

You saw the spirit land
like a dove on his shoulder
and heard a voice announce his call.

You baptized him,
and wondered,
wishing it was his hand upon your head
that lay beneath the waters.

So you touched him skin-to-skin
and did resist his righteous request.
You leveled the earth before the lamb,
the world’s sin-eraser,
and got yourself in trouble with
politicians and kings.

Me, I feel stranded here,
moored upon earth in a square-foot perimeter.
Me, I’ve landed here without seeing,
without touching,
without knowing a heartbeat within my own,
an uncancelled thought, a ghost of a holy touch
on my wrinkled brow.

I write from emptiness, a well dry as crust,
a heart of tears so salty they are dust upon my cheeks.

I cry out, I appease to empty space above and within.

You saw him eye-to-eye,

Me, I’m just waiting to go home.

Courageous Love

Courageous Love

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to oppose an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn your other cheek to him as well.” Matthew 5:38-39

I can guarantee you that not a single person on the globe automatically turns their cheek to someone who hits them first. In fact, the way most of us tried to get out of trouble for fighting in school was by saying, “But he hit me first.” We have a built-in response that is like some free pass to unload on someone if they throw the first punch.