How the Day Begins

How the Day Begins

(“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.” Galatians 1:6

My chest started out tight today;
underground memories crowded my mind.
Too many crimes congregate and push the
better moments aside.

The glassy sky was reflected in the dew that
was shaded from the sun to start and gone within
an hour. But the lawn was still wet to the touch
and the optics rewarded the future. We might be
able to see the river from here if we climbed a
few feet higher.

I confess I don’t take the time with the invasion
of thoughts that show up in night vision. I saw
you in a dream last night and I could not remember
your brother’s name. But you still held me in mind
and spoke lightly. You helped erase every unkind
infusion I partook in.

As my muscles relaxed, I walked with a slight
limp toward the same course I walk every day.
Unintentionally I rehearsed the silence that comes
following the storm that tried to make me remember
a decade or more of stumbling. I still fear the looks
of everyone I think knows the way my face shook
on days like these. There are warm pools that wash
away the creeping doubts, the increasing debts I owe.

My vision, though, is grace beyond the short-circuited
sight of my reoccurring sadness. It is all supernatural
and still invades my DNA like a steady rain covering
the fields with expectation.

Heroes Offer Bread

Heroes Offer Bread

(The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. Proverbs 10:3)

And so we set another shooter free who
thought he could thin the ranks of looters
in another state.

And we lionize the baby-face vigilante,
we call him hero and put his silhouette
on t-shirts to promote the next angry citizen
to take aim.

And we forget how to pray.

Heroes offer bread when cities blaze,
heroes bring a cold cup of water to reduce the heat,
heroes find the reason anger took to its feet,
heroes march the Via Dolorosa,
walk closer to the cross the more
the violence burns. Peace finds the ways
to become new heroes of the age.

Don’t shout so loud over your gun-toting victories,
don’t push verdicts like they are divine exoneration.
There is a Kingdom above all kings,
a government that lies upon the shoulders of the wise.
There is a campground where all are welcome,
there is a neighborhood where children are fed love
instead of anger.

Rioters may pay, but I don’t get to decide the verdict.
Looters may pay, but I do not get to perform the execution.
The streets of Jerusalem were filled with
mobs and moral judges
that both sent the Prince of Peace
to the cross.

When our meals are anger overcooked and burned to the edges
we will starve, we will bloat, we will boast about every alleged
grievance,

While the few leave their fields unharvested for the poor.

Show Me Open Fields

 

Show Me Open Fields

(“He sent Jesus to bless you by turning each of you away from doing evil things.” Acts 4:26b)

The smokestacks belch their acrid breath into
the air where deer should dance. The preachers ask
for allegiance sworn upon
the platforms of denial and mock trials of every
person who disagrees.

Shut up behind the doors of sunday, pretense
like a hollow drum repeats the clicking of teeth
at everything that must be defeated before we go
to an early lunch.

Don’t talk about me while I’m living,
don’t talk about me when I’ve died.
Just give me greater room to breathe,
show me open fields and I will not hide.

The dandelions wave their yellow heads and shed
their hairs turned white. We mow them down,
unwanted weeds we could have gardened,
turned to wine and celebrated
on spring days away from the smokey blindness
that tried to hide
the sun from upturned faces.

Shut behind the doors of doctrine, certainty
like a scorched pancake leaves us emptier than
when we began. We will stand to read the creeds,
and sit to gossip about those who live too loudly
at an early lunch.

Learn to love while we are living,
don’t wait until we have died.
Open the windows, clear the air,
join the picnic that is universe wide.

Wider Fields

 

Wider Fields

(“But he brought us from there in order to lead us in and give us the land...” Deuteronomy 6:23a)

It should no longer surprise me,
this mud and dirt under my feet.
Red clay from the badlands,
cement soot from the foundation we poured,
pavement dust from suburban sidewalks,
forest loam and evergreen needles,
fallen leaves on steep and slippery hills;
all under sweat, snow, sun, wind and
days that pass while the rain kisses everything.

For all the meander from city to rural sounds
of coyotes on the cliffs and mockingbirds gigging their riffs,
I’m bound inside my mind these days
(though safe, and only alarmed at dreamed
intentions on angry faces)
I still long to wander again,
to saunter past the circles of stringed instruments
who knew the lyrics to everything.

I would dedicate this to you, if I knew where you were.
I would sing my heart to you, if I knew you would hear.
I would hug the fear away from your face,
tell you it was all a mistake,
and gladly invite you to ramble again
past locked gates and lines drawn in the sand.

Would it surprise you that our feet show the
dirt from the sages before us?
Would it persuade you that offbeat is still
my favorite improvisation?
I will not detain you, but perhaps, in this
lockbox of age we will find the wider fields
we once walked upon.

The Mortal Silence

The Mortal Silence

(“As they led Jesus away, Simon, a man from Cyrene, was coming in from the fields. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross and to walk behind him.” Luke 23:26)

There was nothing peaceful about it,
the clouds were leaden upon a graphite sky.
The body politik and the rest of us, (anger and sickness)
saw events transpire for the best of us and so we cried
to send the one most like us down the avenue of shame.

Fires bled in our eyes, boiling over from the first boot
on our necks
to our last breath (and yet our feet were tattooed as well).

I misunderstood every word, tried to right and wrong the
whole day to death. I shouted with the crowd, I cursed the
powers that occupied us like slaves, I was with and against,
as my heart burst outside the courtroom and within the
reflexes of oppression. Yet I pressed closer to
the blazing procession, a day for the dead.

I saw death where people sang like mardi gras,
I saw life in the pierced head, the welts like a
pollock painting on the back of the fainting one
whose breath came as slow as summer wadis.
I saw strength in the stumbling,
power in the fainting,
and something else, something without a name.

They cast their words at him, dashing them against him
like stones through a glass wall. They were right after all,
and the lynching lasted far into the afternoon.

I did not volunteer, nor did I imagine I would hear the
turpitude wound around my own soul like shackles.
I was conscripted and took the beam, the angry
crossbar with its weight centered across my shoulders.
I knew the drill; it was all too common on this hill
where so many were hanged like cursed fruit from a tree.

But he. He was. My breath escapes and does not return.
But he. He was. His life escapes and so has the sun.
But he. He was. His eyes were fire and life and gold.
But he. He was. I was tired, compelled, and old.

Old as sin is what they say in the country. But he. He was.
Older. 

How does the Ancient of Days walk to the auction block?
How does Eternity Past put his feet on the same path as mine?
I was compelled. But he. He was.

Not repelled by the worst of us. And I, I loved this
weakest of kings, this dying god, and stayed as he
gave his life away.

He was. He is king over my erratic thinking,
and lord-in-love to a world still addicted (some in
His name)
to mining for violence. He was. He is
only found in the compelled quietness,
the mortal silence of tears of offender
and offended.