The Waning Day

The Waning Day

 ^(“He will take away death for all time. The Lord God will dry tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8a)

What will we become after we have waited for
the setting of the sun? How shall we meet the long
shadows of the waning day? Time sped up while
we were busy carrying the hours on our backs.
We would rather not walk in the rain.

We took the time in parcels, portions meant to
be divided at a moment’s notice. We wrote the
return address in red and green to be satisfied
it would be seen. We were hedging our bets and
circling zip codes and licking envelopes stamped
with names we thought we remembered.

You must forgive me but I’m trying to capture
as much radiance as I can
before the lights go out and the air turns brief.
We wanted to share the relief that the coming day
was certain to bring.

Grief can make you feel invisible. Grief can
continue long past the due date other have
scribbled for you. Grief is silence in a world
that seems to have nothing to say and says it
from the start of every day.

But there is a love that is stronger than death,
a light brighter than a cloudless noon,
a hand wipes the tears and wounds away.
Greif and hope can exist in a single heart,
learning to cope with loss and future at once.

The door is open, the latch is unlocked,
The moments will come; days will last
from circle to circle and round and down,
the tears will be dried and the songs will

Remind us that every sunset had its day.

Execution Hill

Execution Hill

(“Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.’” Luke 23:34a)

We pretended to walk across the river,
we made fun of the way others swam.
We filtered our sarcasm through a dozen
courtrooms filled with hungry spectators.
We expected a show, we expected to know
how the day would end and why we held on so long.
But we let loose of our story and demanded dancing
from a one-legged dog. We were not cruel,
just vastly misinformed.

We never expected the sky to storm from noon until
three, we had been told to expect sunshine on our sublime faces.
We were informed that we were born for this;
we believed it like a phone call from the government.
But we put our trust in iron, we put our hope in blades
of steel; we outsourced our future to magazines full of powder,
to derisive wars of words. We nailed the truth
to the wood.

We followed the dark procession,
we were there for the show.
We had nothing more to do that afternoon
than watch the slow execution of a trio of criminals,
(or so we were told.) We had heard the stories,
and met a few fellows who said they knew the
man in the middle
from an encounter along the road. They were
convinced they were healed. They were convinced
he didn’t belong hanging naked in front of the world.

We didn’t expect him to speak,
we expected little from him at all. He saved
those fellows along the road,
surely he could save himself like a king on a throne.
But we heard, quieter than the breeze, and loud as a
man innocent by degrees. It was forgiveness he eased
from his throat as we watched his life ebb away over those
hours.
It didn’t matter if we knew beforehand, now we knew
exactly what we had done. We stopped our talk and dice games,
and lost our exuberance for parades to execution hill.

I’d Wait on this Rock

I’d Wait on this Rock

“’Father,’ said Jesus, ‘forgive them! They don’t know what they’re doing!’ They divided his clothes, casting lots for them.” Luke 23:34

 

I’d fall across the border just to get a taste
of the streams that flow from the mountains,
that carry the refreshing waters of grace.
I’d stumble up the mountain just to get a glimpse
of the clouds that carry the rain to the valleys,
that sends the water for deer, and us, and others to drink.

I would stop short at the painful sound of
one calling out in their grief, that all the pain of the universe,
all the anger of the world
cannot stop the constant flow from Godward on
to creatures who sometimes ignore the clues that
beauty resides in the deepest wounds.

I would not presume to know what you do not know,
I could never guess what keeps us so far from the
spring breezes
that refresh the darkest brooding. I might find a lucky trail
that winds its way through the vale until I find
the burbling stream that flows from the granite cracks
just below my feet. Did I hear a voice, did I perceive it?
Did the blue jays lead me there, or the spirit, or the thirst
that drives me on?

I created ways to replace the water that flows through the blood,
I scouted deserts to find a place where performance was king,
I honed songs out of nothing, I jotted notes I promptly threw away,
I underscored a hundred lines in a hundred books I never read again.

I waited for a voice, a bell that sounded it was time to arrive;
I called like a begging dog, I cried like a summer storm.
I didn’t know when the replacements would arrive,
I didn’t know if there were any at all.
I just hoped the war would soon be over and
all the sparring would be done.

I’d wait on this rock until the promise arrives,
I’d watch the sun set minutes later each day.
I’d scan the horizon, just passing the time,
I’d follow the path of the rabbit to her warren.

But on the days that feel flat,
on the mornings the air pushes hard upon my mind,
I sometimes discover what is always there;
I sometimes feel something heavier than fear
that displaces my wandering with
words that feel like home.

The World Swings Open

The World Swings Open

(“Jesus prayed, ‘Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.’” Luke 23:34 [The Message])

Awash with mercy, the world swings open, the
oceans laugh, the air is wider than long.
But the oceans moan sometimes
at the eyes that will not see. The breath is
too narrow
to glide on the afternoon air. The
same
spirit
that chained the novelist to
a forsaken desk between miscreants,
still insists the ending is reserved for
an elite few.
Who knew
that love would ever be defined by
those who never taste the new vintage
that spilled from a body so maligned?

That day. This afternoon. A century from now
when the moon is overhead. One second before
the big bang. Five minutes after the baby cried.
Thirty-five years since my mother died. The
thru-line
runs from pierced hands and feet
to my backyard,
to the desert heat,
weaving castles, incomplete confessions and
the mercy seat.

Oh Wounded Love, oh Child of divine habitations,
oh Human gunned down in the ghetto, shut down by
 emboldened halos,
oh Glory that fills more than all existence,

We rethink our mass differentials and
line up, tiny as we are, to light up
the old executioner’s road with

Tales of mercy that refuses to die.

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.

"If You Forgive"

“He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’” John 20:22,23

I can only try to imagine what it must have been like to be one of Jesus’ disciples after the resurrection. I really have nothing to compare it to; I have no one who has died and come back to life. I have not even been fooled; thought someone was dead, then found out later that they were alive. April 1 is only three months away, though. That would be the greatest prank ever.