Freedom is Nothing

Freedom is Nothing

(“And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” Luke 17:4)

Freedom is nothing like the fortresses we build,
it is an open plain,
it is streams winding,
it is easy moments between noon and afternoon’s
breeze.
I’ll never excuse the hurts,
but I’ll forgive them.
And we can talk this Thursday evening
on the phone or on my deck.
We can unload the shipments of sludge
we’ve dug up from the past and
joke that we ever were all that serious.
Freedom is nothing like the theology we float,
it is God-in-us,
it is Christ forgiving,
it is the hardest labor between scars and therapy’s
change.
Nobody told us we could bottom out
so we didn’t talk for years.

I tried to revise the history,
I tried to say it never happened.
I wanted the day to transform the
memories that held my brain hostage.
You wanted to know there was nothing
left to be upset about. We wanted
freedom;

We wanted nothing more than untitled poetry
to hold us up between the storms. We could
laugh for ages
once we understood how mistaken we both had
been.

Freedom is nothing like the chronicles we read,
it is unrhymed poetry,
it is words waving,
it is written so well that the future can read it
like cuneiform characters in stone.

Like Cottonwood Fluff

Like Cottonwood Fluff

(“And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

Toss it into the air and let it float back down
like dandelions or cottonwood fluff, till it surrounds
the day like childlike joy. There is more than enough
to spare. There are voices in the air that call like
church-bells
to announce a new canticle for each doubtful heart.
The starting place is clear, the finish is certain,
but our steps in between demand a lighter hand.
A mother stays home, no gas in the car, and needs
to take her daughter to the doctor. And the breeze
blows as it will
until anonymous help finds its way under the door.
A father fears he has ruined a son with words that
should have been held back. But like a bursting dam
they escaped his mouth, burning the boy’s smile that
used to, unbidden, break the monotony of the grind. He
wished he could take it back, unwind the tone he
never meant. Don’t we all give vent at the worst
possible moments? He feared he was losing his job,
losing his mind, fusing shame and guilt he unloaded
it all in an unintentional moment. He was certain the words
went deeper than all the thousands before. He would
take the fire into his own bosom if he could.
And yet, last Christmas, every family game was punctuated
with laughter, and he began to believe in forgiveness again.

We all dream until there is nothing left to dream.
We all wait until the last moment, but love should never
wait at all.
Born of love (the Parent of us all) and dying at last
(the new Jerusalem) we pave our way (Via Dolorosa)
between aches and joy. And most of us could use
at least one more friend.

Love Does Not Float

 

Love Does Not Float

(“Beloveds, let us love one another. For love comes of God. And every one who loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7)

Love does not float.
It digs.
Love sometimes smells like sweat and dung,
coming from the last one you expect and
going to the hot fields to lift bales for the
neighbor who lost everything when the fires came.

Loves does not tiptoe.
It stomps.
It is earthquakes with baskets for the falling.
Love often lives among the ruins,
coming from the survivors you missed and
going to the shattered concrete remains of
houses where only the poor could afford
a building that tumbles with the slightest wind or
shaking.

Love does not fly.
It crawls.
It is smaller than kings and ruffians.
Love always seeks the silent ones,
coming from invisible wounds still healing and
going to the fading echoes whose voices have lost
their song. Their names are scrawled on the pavement.
Impermanent chalk.

Love does not speak.
It holds.
It is spacious as the saddest tear that needs a circle of existence.
Love will stay until the void is filled,
coming from the song of the fields and
going to the decayed kitchen where a widow
wonders how the dishes will ever be done. Her
name, though unknown, is present for everyone.

The First Thing I Noticed

The First Thing I Noticed

(“For this is the gospel message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:11)

I thought it was love when I tried to
twist your eyes around to see mine.
I thought it might be too late or too long
or never happen at all
if I waited until sunshine
lit the path open between shadows.

I insisted too often, covered up too much,
misheard the lyrics and assumed the world
was just like I imagined in my luster and my lusts.

If I started over I would love like water
and wade simply along the banks. I would
see you like air and not mirrors. I would
listen like a novel and not essays.
If I started over I would be loved by water
and let it seek its own level. I would
float upon its crystal waves and never flail.
I would
befriend like dolphins and drink the rain.

I think it is love when every banquet
is smiles and eyes or tears and salt.

 I think it is love when it finds you early
and you find it late.
I think it is love when “forgiven”
is the word that stops the shivering and
ends the infinite loop where fiery fear
refuses to surrender to peace.

The first thing I noticed was how the ocean embraces
the wrinkles and inches we thought everyone saw.
And the sun splays its quiet orange across the each
silent evening’s wave.