Each Day is Framed

Each Day is Framed

(“Or else let them come to me for protection. Let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.” Psalm 27:5)

When each day begins framed with pain
the sun is hidden in the corners.
Birdsongs are fragments of scratched paint,
the best thoughts are cracked and peeling
despite the finest efforts of restoration.

Sometimes I feel the need to explain, dip my
pen in the blackest ink
and begin again. In Prose. In Short Sentences.
In Declarations. In Descriptions that get to the
Point
of pain.

But I write between moments, through half-open windows,
while the earth is crammed with minutes I’ve wasted
waiting for abatement. Could I write in clinical paragraphs
complete with footnotes and citations
some might believe this artless student of doubt.

But the days begin and end the same,
my brain the biggest enemy. How God inhabits
the letters, the numbers, the synapses and numbness
is a question for others better than me. I do not suffer well,
do not joy in it, revel in it or find a sliver of meaning in forces
that keep me pressed to the ground.

I am a mere dependent, assigned to the edges of my art.
The craft I laughed so passionately is untuned in the corner
and silent. Still I must write, and write well, not excellent; but
true.

And many will question the frame, wonder of my faith,
(as I also wonder), and note the stains upon the painting where
the shadow of pain blocked the sun’s healing rays. And

Peace is beyond my reach, though, I should believe,
it still inhabits the first brushstrokes beneath the layers
of grey. I await the colors of the day.

Perfectly Framed

Perfectly Framed

(“God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29)

Late February the frost can ice the upper hills and power lines
like wedding cake tiers, and by afternoon be nudged away to
the evergreen beneath; the love which the rains leave behind
in the moderate rainforest of the Great Northwest.

Yet, lower, where the Columbia lazily sweeps toward the sea,
the fog holds, shore to shore, the islands and lowlands, asleep
until the same sun urges its dissipation. Birdsongs replace the
foghorn the moaned morning open.

And one day, one day later, or two, in a micro-view of
frost to fog, I find upon the hillock behind my home, the
robins have gathered in the sun. A dozen redbreasts,
unhurried,
spend the richness of the sun and reap the first makings
of their spring home. Uninterrupted, without breeze or cloud,
these festival nomads fear nothing; my human presence
behind the windows, or the dogs, or the cat; they are
happily blind to us all.

But, with a highway close by, a logfull semi grumbles past,
not fast, but loudly announcing its passing. Without more
than a beat past the first diesel rumbles, the entire flock
scramble aloft and leave the incline uninhabited…

Except for,
one solo robin, larger by far than any of the rest,
lingered behind perfectly still, a garden ornament.
Older and knowing there was no danger, or fatter and
not wishing to change its solid footing; the one
remained, perfectly framed.