I Don’t Wander Far

I Don’t Wander Far

(“Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.” Hosea 6:3)

I don’t wander very far from home these days;
I follow the path my feet have made looping the same
walkway today and tomorrow, Mondays and Yesterdays
and hold conversations in the late afternoon.
Sometimes I wonder if you hide from me,
or if it is me who masks my existence.
There are hints of perfume past the cherry trees
that have not yet blossomed. It is early March
and they are shaded by apple trees on the sunward side.

I have all day to rehearse the accompaniment
for a dozen voices this week. But I don’t like
the arrangement and my talents are rusty from
like of use.

I’d tell you more about what hovers within
but it would be the same story as a year ago,
the same yearnings, and mostly unmet,
that have grappled with my mind from the beginning
of my certainty that you would speak to me in ways
that would change my disappearing face into something
more beatific. I’ve searched for ecstatic visions just within
my latched doors. I should play my music more.

The trail I take every day is taller on one end than the other,
I arrive home, though, at the same altitude I began.
I should spend more time with my fingers
strumming my guitar.
Or hear words I could pour out in rhymes and
rhythms you could understand.

I pray the day will close with at least a line
of divine poetry as I wait like the trees for
Spring.

Far Enough Away

Far Enough Away

“The Lord is merciful and righteous. Our God is compassionate.” Psalm 116:5

Spun far outside my tribal galaxy
I’d like a slice of dopamine
please.

I don’t know why, but someone noted that
we deserve nothing from the divine. Without mercy,
without compassion,
we are assigned only a fiery brine.

I reject that notion outright. Right-out loud now.

Far enough away to recognize the echoes from decades
of ingrown notions, my mind spins at those once close
who love the dictates concerning shithole nations, women’s faces
bleeding,
and blaspheming the life of Christ in wanderers who come to us
like Mary and Joseph journeyed to Egypt.
(notice, I have no ellipses.)

And while we leave them like fanciful dung,
there is a God who “lifts the needy from the garbage heap.”

There is sun for your face, beloved.
There are kisses of love.
There is fog, but blue above.
There is new for you in the circle that
embraces everything.

But some lap up mercy like milk,
and beg for more after the dishes are washed and dried.
Then refuse it those orbiting outside, beyond the walls,
beyond the rules and laws we write to control how many
falls we are allowed;
then, I fear, right out loud, the cupboard is empty and
the bowl is quite broken.

There are bluebirds for your ears, beloved.
There are waltzes of love.
There is fear, but mercy above.
There are myriads and myriads
around the throne
who speak a language never known.

And the kingdom will come (on earth as in heaven)
when we stop sanctifying gravity
and learn the lesson of unholy leaven.