You Heard Me

You Heard Me

(“In my distress I called to the Lord; I called to my God. From his heavenly temple he heard my voice; he listened to my cry for help.” 2 Samuel 22:7)

Somewhere between the margin of the
sky and earth my cry was heard. The sky was
as thin as a skin stretched over a drum.
The earth was thick and slowly rolling toward
the river that occupied my dreams.
I cannot quote a specific line,
I cannot identify the rays that broke from
sun to sky. I only know the vibration of my own
voice
lifted it over the trees and carried it further than
I could see.

This life has been a laboratory where
experiment and experience meet in unexpected
embrace. I theorize and record the results in
a journal written across my face. I still await a voice
that tells me my words are not insane. I still
await a hand
that helps me climb between earth and sky
where I walk foolishly and faint. Creation
changes with the tide; nature offers so little
insulation against the dark shades that haunt
the edges of my mind.

But you heard me. You let my distress arise;
you let the best of my poetry erase my first
draft of a life. I never belonged, or so I thought.
I dug my fingernails deep into the mud, squeezing
every pious word out of my undressed mind.
But you heard me, though no one patted me
on the back
to tell me I had finally gotten it right.
Prayer is not a magic formula learned in
lectures from experts.
But you heard me. And I walked assured on
the deep grass until I heard you as well as

You heard me.

So Many Miles from Home

So Many Miles from Home

(“From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me up onto the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2)

The horizon kept falling away the closer I came to
a new habitation. There were thoughts like mosquitos,
telephone wires draped across my existence,
curio shoppes boarded up since the 60s,
various buttes and razorbacks and gorges
and gray rivers knifing through the red clay
that left everything on hold. I had been here before.
But I could not place the name.
It seemed so far from where I had begun,
and farther still to my destination. I was
not
unlucky. I was not lost.
I was only miles from the end of the earth where
ships used to fall off.
I imagined the night filled with coyote howling,
I felt the warmth the earth still carried. The grass was
cool on my feet,
the dirt was warmer. There is no language here,
no signs to mark the way. I had heard there were
devils
along the road
but no one asked me for directions.
They may have climbed behind the rocks for the night,
they may have set me up for failure.
I don’t believe that, though;
I know my own behavior. Although I may have
welcome an imp or two
just for the conversation.

I stopped not far from where I started
and so my sojourn began. I stayed alone, though
I had not planned it that way.

Across another vast night the icy moon reminded me
that, sooner or later, I would hear a voice,
revamped, renewed,
an original version of
the first of me and the quiet divinity
that speaks to me so many miles from home.

Once Sweet as Eden

 Once Sweet as Eden

(“So Josiah removed all detestable idols from the entire land…” 2 Chronicles 34:33a)

When you pack your belts with bullets and
conceal your violence with bibles, amendments
and squandered chances to layer the generations
with passionate dance,

The images once sweet as Eden
become blurs of unlucky happenstance.

I will still walk with you,
but leave your fantasies in the yard.
What caliber is your copper
and iron,
what are the shredded shrieks,
the frantic aftermaths
of your crass obeisance to
deafen the voices that cry from the land?

Notice the skyline, the upward arc of grass leaves
and tree branches. Notice the poppies gilding the
untended slopes dotted with occasional daisies.

Don’t forget the warm mud, or the voice of Abel.
The masquerades of oblation and
retreads of weariness have blistered too many
old tires rolling through the desert
on old station wagons between cacti and dunes.
We need to master our AM playlists again,
we need to let the sanity come full circle where
heart, prayer, peace and human touch meet.

When you pack your trunks with lunches and
open your car doors with sandwiches, repentance
will be complete. Every layer of humanity will
find the words

To sing the songs of redemption again.

Tiny the Grass and Green

 

Tiny the Grass and Green

(“But as for me, justified, I will behold your face; when I awake, your presence will satisfy me.” Psalm 17:15)

Tiny the grass and green,
finally the sun and shone.
Dropping the death and doors,
hoping the waves and curl.

Closing obliquely fell along with
shadow the dusk and sigh.
Flowing the pray and knees,
slowing the song and final.

Lullaby me,
beside me chair your sweetest stare
at the scent of yellow, the rose and petal.
Inside the forest and tree,
reside the mirror and me,
stopping the wound and cut,
just at the moment, just when the shut
measured in and remeasured out,

The portrait and the face.

The Words Are My Breath

The Words Are My Breath

(“’Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,’ says the Lord.” Jeremiah 1:8)

One wrinkled brow could send me scowling away,
sunk in the debris of approval’s dregs.
The earth received my tears as often as
someone disagreed and split the infinite distance between
us into degrees of the absurd.
First to fear my failure (and my successes, I think)
I could plead for my life with the best of them
and then recalculate the trajectory of my words.

At the time I most needed a hand under my drooping head
the abyss echoed back every word that had curled back onto itself
and poked me in my dreams unsolicited. I saw myself.

I am troubled about the words that melt in the rain,
the promises spoken to air,
and bare ground with no promise of clumps of grass
or daffodils.

And yet I know the sun will have its way.
I know words are the spirit’s DNA.
I fear shallowness in my attempts to keep the
loneliness at bay.
Yet I cannot stay silent, the words are my breath
exhaled
and my spirit
unveiled.

The bruises of preselected subtraction
remain. I avoid certain domiciles and domains,
but have ceased to try to explain
the way spirit moves from Beginning Word
to beating heart
to breathing lungs
to tears and then droplets of words
that are silenced by some
and by others are heard.

I Do Not Want You to Know I Limp

I Do Not Want You to Know I Limp

(“Grass dies and flowers fall, but the word of our God lasts forever.” Isaiah 40:8)

I do not want you to know I limp, at least not
when you watch me walk.
I had a bone spur removed a decade ago
and now the joint of my big toe
grinds bone against bone.

I should have it looked at, I should have surgery,
but I walk my mile-and-a-half now, stride matching stride,
so you cannot see my pain.

I will talk to you about my toe, and complain,
but I do not want you to know I limp.

I do not want you to know my heart is darkness, at
least not when I’m alone in the night.
I had an old self removed nearly five decades ago
and the new one, still a seedling,
sprouts slow against slow.

I should have watered it, I should sit in the sun,
but I walk my life-and-a-half now, dusk versus dawn,
so you cannot call my bluff.

I will talk to you about my faith, earthy stuff,
but I do not want you to know my
heart is darkness.

It is late February and the daffodils have not bloomed,
the tulips should soon peek through their winter tombs.
The bulbs, all dirt and mud, have yawned across the winter
until long sun and vast days pull them toward the stars again.

All the world is waiting for the uncrumbling of nature
to reveal the limps we hid from fear,
and the hearts we coddled for ego’s sake,
when all that ever lasts forever is
the unseen Word, the Poetry, the Song,
the dance that limps with the hurt and
the heart that started the seedling,
the Alpha and Omega of everything.