The Hole in the Sky

The Hole in the Sky

(“…love one another earnestly with all your heart.” 1 Peter 1:22b)

I must apologize; I mistook the hole in the skies
as sabotage. But it looked like a hole on the frozen lake
augured for ice fishing and attracting northern and walleye.

But I looked again and there it was, a square, directly above my head,
where the azure had been sawn with equal sides. I would not have
noticed it,
but I was watching hummingbirds hover just opposite my face
and ascend like tiny bottle rockets to the uppermost limb
of the old walnut tree in the yard. Then two flakes
of cottonwood snow
drifted higher by and I followed their floating trajectory.
One dipped and circled the tree and rose again toward the logging
road behind my house.
The other rose on the currents like the ascension.

That is when it appeared, this grave dug in the sky.
How was I to interpret such a vision? Who would explain
such a thing?
I waited for an angel, I waited for a messenger,
I slept and waited for a dream, I woke and waited
for a vision. But none would come.

And the sky stayed punctured. And, afraid the whole earth
would leak through the hole, I panicked and turned up the heat.

I am only alive to describe this to you because
nothing happened to deflate the blue above or the
green below. It was just a hole and nothing more.

The few who saw it too presented their theories and
dissertations to a panel of judges at a table strewn with
flags and bibles. The first said the moon had broken the sky.
The second said it was the end of rainbows as we know it.
The third, oh the third was persuasive. An act of God,
to be sure, (except, the author interjects, wasn’t the
pre-hole sky an act of God too?) An act of God, he said,
dropped the mic, and put up a tent just outside of town
to wait until we all got sucked up through the hole or
fell into the one next time that would take us to hell.

I am still unsure why the sky was punctured. I am not sure
it has stayed that way.
I know what I saw, and my testimony is true.
I do not know its significance, only that I wanted to
share it with you and
maybe call some friends to talk about it over drinks tonight.
None of us know much anyway.

Could There Be a Portal?

 Could There Be a Portal?

(“He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also weak in many ways.” Hebrews 5:2)

Could there be a portal,
a black hole framed with teak or ivory
that would take my thoughts directly to you?
I know I am weak in so many ways,
I know my words get scrambled worse that hurricane waves.
I know, because I talk so much, that the words can combine
to mean most anything.

Could there be a machine,
a blue-tooth thing,
that would transport my heart to yours?
Could it help you feel what I feel,
even if you think I shouldn’t feel that way in
a hundred years?
I want to hear your heart, and I want to feel your fears,
I want to know what is behind the words that
suddenly steered the voyage in a new direction,
or at least a different speed limit.

Oh, if you knew my words, understood them, definition and
implication, and still closed the door just a bit tighter,
I would stay outside until I knew if you would change your mind.

But, if my words, misunderstood, undefined and simplified,
entered your beloved psyche, I would wait forever in hope.
I would not knock on the door, or ring your bell,
but I would tell you where you could find me when the
words finally rang true, rang in tunes we both could hear.

You’ve asked me about my past, and I would tell you.
But I do not want to belittle anyone else who may have been
a part of my story. Can we leave it at this: I am ashamed of
wrong turns I took on several roads. I am weak in many ways.

I know your heart, without a portal or black hole,
that you are sometimes frightened, but always loving.
I hope, if we need a portal, you will find me weak (yes, so weak)
but good.

It is my turn to open the door wide, even if yours is closed a bit,
and invite you to sit before the hearth that is always lit with
warm fireglow, the grace of love learned in sand and grit.
I will not hide the cracks along the walls, although I do sometimes
still feel shame. But they are part of me, the places that earthquakes
took almost everything.
I would serve you tea, or iced coffee, I would read your favorite book
or listen to your silence. But my door would never close, the locks
were thrown away long ago.

If I could show you the future, this is what it would be.
Two friends who cannot wait to share the mornings together,
the direction of the wind, the slant of the sun,
two friends who have beaten the odds and are closer
than anyone deserves to be.
Two friends, unafraid, weak, sometimes shaken,
but ever carrying two hearts as one when one heart is
too heavy to bear.

Backed into a Corner

(For all my good friends, I am fully aware how raw this bit of writing is. But, that is my poetry; my cleansing, my therapy. It is my soul on a plate.)

Backed into a Corner

(“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26)

I’m certain it would have happened before now if I
didn’t still have children in the home,
if I didn’t have a wife who would die inside,
when I finally let all the pieces gingerly glued and taped
finally fall apart on the floor. Jagged and dust,
blood and the musty smell of old spells uttered by
everyone who knew better,
who behaved better,
who danced and sang and worked and slung
their words so much higher than mine, that they
reached the people in power before mine,
and were believed by rainbow chasers before mine,
and were repeated more often than mine,
louder than mine, until finally, in quiet desperation

I dug a hole where I intended to spend my remaining time.

Some see a miracle, with the truest tears I must tell,
I am no longer sure miracles exist. Whatever the dust-up,
the fog lifted and I landed by the river, near the ocean,
where gray meets blue water, green meets yellow sun,
and where the nutrient-rich mud is pudding for every
evergreen seen from one crest to the next and in the valleys
between.

But what no one has seen
is how
two weeks ago I looked at the wreckage and decided

“i am broken”

Not

“I’m sick” or “I’m hurting” or “I’ll get over it”

Because I’ve taken the cure, I’ve talked the therapy
and I’ve tossed every rock with the offenders names
into the water to be forgotten, along with my anger and shame.

And yet

i am broken

Almighty (who I always loved to call Father), this is addressed to You now,
my friends may be frightened by these words and how
I want them to know I am empty, not complete, dry-boned, depleted.

I favored “Papa” for my God, but, following for 40 year I’ve chosen everything
I thought You wanted. And in one flash of insight realized, for 40 years,
I never chosen what would make me happy. I took the smallest churches,
I stayed with the angriest supervisors, and when I did show pain,
I was a target again. Blasted as if I should have lasted longer
standing blindfolded before the firing squad (smoke ‘em if you’ve
got ‘em, and my mouth was empty).

You can’t draw lines in the sand with God, that’s what makes
Him so frightening and unfair. But my line is finally drawn, my
bits of flesh and bone wait for the final answer in my

S
C
R
E
A
M

for

Redemption!