Follow the Messengers

Follow the Messengers

(“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10)

Beyond the borders there is a square of
safety for me. I had studied the rural forms
for nearly 20 years and found the remains of
remote islands on the run. The tables were turned,
the tallest cedars burned and returned decades later.
All I could see from miles around atop the largest hill
on the grounds of a dozen acres of refuge, were angels
winging their way to me.

I discovered my identity in the motion of their wings and
the song of their mouths that echoed like childlike giggles
up and down the face of the canyons and the depths of the
muddy river running candidly.

I started listening to the way the wind blew through the
narrow windows of the tower and I could swear the birds
had stopped their chirping so I could hear the way the sun
made the grass grow. So I could hear the leaves inching out
toward the sky.

There had been trouble outside the fences,
there had been blockades keeping the stockpiles empty while
the children starved. They insisted it was legal the way
they turned away international aid. They imagined they
owned the soil where the tears of the mothers watered the dust
where innocence fell.

The angels moved past me. I was not their project and now I know.
They were moving me to move with them;
they were sent to melt the hearts of so-called kings who devastated
tens of thousands for an incomplete retribution. They have
nowhere to run, so let us run to them and leave our watchtowers
behind. Let us follow the messengers whose words are peace
and whose ways are love.

I Wasn't Bluffing

 

I Wasn’t Bluffing

(“But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them…’Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.’” Matthew 3:7a,8)

I wasn’t bluffing, I meant what I said;
so you’ve seen my soul, you’ve seen the hole in it.
If my scars were human (I suspect they are)
then blades of time and space intersected in the
place my elbow connected with the foam pillow afire
from sitting on the floor furnace vent. Did you see me shake
the flames out and the way the plastic flew like wildfire
and landed on the inside of my arm to char and boil a
silver dollar size burn on my arm. I was 13 and the scar
turned purple every time I went swimming for five years after.

So, I overheard the backstage talk that reasoned away the
unachievable mandates (we won’t wear a mask, but we’ll make you
change your gender), and wrestled with the water that never
washed me clean of
the demeaning stain of
deserving the pain of
the everlasting flames of
hell or god’s gory torture.

I would repent if only you will.
I will fall on my knees if you will once
beg pretty please the way that I did.
I will follow you into the river if you will
trade in your rolling eyes
take back your pious lies
and simply ask in words more sackcloth than satin,
“How did we offend?” Because you were the ones that had us
gathered around tables,
bemoaning the porn addiction among the faithful.
But I knew you had not spoken truth,
and had set traps to get confessions that, many times,
had already freely been given.

I wasn’t bluffing, I meant what I said;
you never saw my soul, and you invented its abyss.
My scars were human and I was left to find deserts
in the ocean.
I still am adrift in lonely, so alone I am
weightless.

 

I would repent, but will never give my confession again. 

Even Though They Follow

 

Even Though They Follow

(“I pray that You will forgive the sin of this people by the greatness of Your loving-kindness.” Numbers 14:19a)

Even though they follow you to find your hiding places,
even though they memorize every shadow,
even though they look away when you pass,
even though never call--

What they love is far less than you possess.

Even when they throw their eolian axes,
even when they are dead-set against your phantoms,
even when they insist demons inhabit your groaning,
even when they do not share their air with you—

What they breathe would toxify your alpine breath.

Even now your heart is aching, hanging on,
like the last leaf on the tree near the end of November.
Even now your mind is racing, spinning wheels,
like cobbled spokes on a wooden buggy;
Even now your tears are hidden, budding out,
like the first rose of the season, life is in your eyes.
Even now your words are measured, immobile,
like a frog caught in your throat longing for the pond.

Even though the days labor slower than midafternoon,
even though the ice steals your hopes and freezes them dry,
even though the mask you wear was placed there by others,
even though they know not what they do—

What you fear is displacement.
But you,
you, are the beautiful, though pained;
the treasured, though stolen;
the rare, though overlooked by all except

The rest of us who have learned that to ache
with another
is the highest affection of all.

I Do not Qualify

I Do not Qualify

(“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Luke 5:27)

How many times have You asked me;
over and over until I got up out of my crouch,
or just once, while You waited for the Yes
to run from my mouth to my feet? Direction
and discreet turns of phrase to keep me disguised
well enough.

I could follow, my name misspelled enough,
to enjoy the walk without explaining my choice.

Pretty soon I found the rags You left me, donned them,
looked bereft as I thought You meant me,
and talked just like the guys on the radio who
told me where to turn in my Bible while I was driving
deliveries for the downtown pharmacy in the VW bug
without a muffler. I don’t think I followed better then,
but the rest of Your team certainly thought I did.

Finally, a decade or so, I think my heart is finally in it,
but more lost than the day I left my seat. I don’t mean
to complain, but a high school education makes me feel
like no one at all when I am sure I could have studied, striding
down Berkeley’s Halls on at least a scholarship or half.
But I left the hope for higher learning thinking You meant
my sight set on Higher learning yet. I will follow You to
the end,
I will.
But we will have to have a conversation about that at
the end,
we will.

My heart is in it, following You, I mean. My feet and hands
and voice and wardrobe are sadder than they have ever been.
All I want to do is ask each one at the crossroad to
follow You,
but it is not enough, and teary I remember pictures I
nailed on the dream walls; preaching to half a thousand,
teaching to hundreds who memorized the notes in hand.

I do not qualify for the big sky palaces, they want Masters of
Divinity,
not Community College dropouts like me.

My heart is in it, following You, I mean. I’m must not sure
where that means for me to go, my voice is throaty, my thoughts
disjointed, my eyes red with tears, and my feet swollen. I love You
more,
and more Your people as well.

For me, please, grant the hundreds of friends and fields and
mother and brothers You said I would have in
this world
as well as
the world
to come.