I Thought it Was Courage

I Thought it Was Courage

(“Peter said to him, ‘If they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away!’” Matthew 26:33)

I meant it when I said it; I thought it was courage and
never entered my mind it could be hubris. You were our hope,
our royal, our King, our divine deliverer and we were just waiting
for you to ascend the judgement seat where you would dismember
ever inch of empire. We knew you would bring some kind of coup,
a regime change, that would set us truly free.

I didn’t understand then, sometimes I still miss the meaning;
but I didn’t take your words into me and only thought this would be
a victory march up to the temple walls.

I wasn’t alone in my over-glossed promise, all the others backed
me up. We thought we could ignite it by some sword-play and
one of us cut off the ear of a palace official. And all you did was
reach up and heal that mercenary.

I wanted to look you in the eyes and see the fire burning that
would consume every adversary of empire that kept us under its thumb.
We only heard the bells ring from another time to announce
the call to vespers and long-robed mendicants praying on
bruised knees.

They took you to the judgement hall, the began to interrogate
you. The stripped you and whipped you and stripped your back
of flesh. And that was when I became afraid.

I watched it all from the outside warming my hands by a
welcome fire. And they thought they recognized me (I wish
I had hidden my eyes) and insisted I knew you. How did they
know? How could they tell?

But it took a young servant girl, a whisp of one, to get me
to curse and deny you full-throated.

And then I heard the crow. I wanted to sink, to melt between
the cement cracks. I wanted to see you, I wanted to tell you
I never meant it, I never wanted to let it come to this.
So I ran and hid. I heaved in silence. I didn’t trust myself with
even the slightest sound for fear I would say the same things
again even in the solitary darkness.

I was afraid I would never see you again, never speak with you
and hear your words that set me free.

I lumbered to the street where the criminals walked carrying
their crosses
on their backs. I waited, not knowing how long before
I would see you once more. When you passed by, I saw your eyes
and I hope you saw mine. I hope you saw the sorrow, the regret,
the self-loathing that led me to admit I was less than I imagined.

I saw your eyes and could not decipher them. Was that disappointment,
sadness, pain? Was that affection hidden behind the tears welling
in your eyes?

I know you, I knew you, and I shall know you more. Dearest
Lord
forgive the mud I found myself rolling in only to
protect my tiny self.

The Wine of Happy Vineyards

The Wine of Happy Vineyards

(“O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! Your praise reaches up to the heavens.” Psalm 8:1)

The songs fall from the heavens like petals from a rose;
the scent is like rain after the sun goes down.
Day to day the sunsets sing with lyrics reconfirmed
by the moon and stars.

We are so dry here after years of drought; the fields
barely yield the fruit we were once accustomed to.
Slow to grow and barely to flourish, we have waited
for the minds of the miscreants to change.

We are looking for the Spring and rain;
we are waiting for the winds to repent their
arid canopies of sundried mornings. We are looking
for the grand rearrangement, for something recent
to replace our handheld testaments of disillusionment.

We have dreamed it; we have been undone.
We have cast our windows fully open and our
doors
ajar to welcome the habits of heaven.
I’d invite you in to await the choruses complete
from the hills and across the river and up the banks
of hope. We will know the melody the moment we
hear it.

Have we drunk the wine of the happy vineyards;
have we possessed the bread of a thousand possibilities?
Has the light finally reached us from the furthest stars
that started a million years ago to traverse the universe?

We have heard the refrain pushed forward like whitecaps
driven by the wind. We have not stopped listening.
We see the masterstroke of genius in the setting sun
and realize there is more to this all than we can fit
into a few lines of a poem.

I Rarely Squint These Days

I Rarely Squint These Days

I used to fall for anything, hit the ground after one light
touch
of someone’s words. I used to crawl away afterwards,
after the “amens” and “holy spirit come” faded into
cars going home.

They believed every word they said. I wanted to.
They prayed for people, they said, that felt like praying for
refrigerators. I prayed alone. Punctuated with tears, caught
in a cedar jewelry box crafted by a seventh grader. I never
wanted to
fool
anyone, except myself.

I wanted everything they had. I wanted words as clear as
stone engravings. I wanted to touch the invisible, I wanted to
taste
the indiscernible. The circuits in my brain
conspired
against me, overheating to produce the yearning for fire.

If I squinted my eyes just right, so tight that greens and reds
would appear,
or if I stared long enough into the cup of wine until
I saw some presence there,
I thought Spring had sprouted in my soul.
I can still do it today. But it never changed my heart.

I rarely squint these days or I’ll miss the butterflies dancing
behind the towering walnut tree in my back yard. I rarely
listen for
inner voices so
I do not miss the buzz of hummingbirds dancing and mating before
they land on the feeder above my head.
I find the presence in quesadillas and margaritas,
at tables where moms and new babies laugh,
where toddlers peer into the strollers in simple joy at
the tiny man on his first excursion in the world.

I find the imago dei in a friend I haven’t seen in years,
who rushes to hug me and tells me her husband is
playing in the band.

I rarely squint these days.