Only Vagabonds

 

Only Vagabonds

(“He answered, ‘The foxes have holes to live in. The birds have nests. But the Son of Man has no place where he can rest his head.’” Luke 9:58)

Is there a space in this world for my kind
--he sighed.
Adobe or stucco, bamboo or thatch; a place where
a heart can feel at ease, though the feet may obey every decree
that sends them homeless and walled.
--he cried.

Is there room for my story in a town this size--
she sang.
duplex or guestroom, fireplace or furnace; a simple cube
with a window where guests can visit one at a time and
I can watch the doves coo and chortle alone.
--she sank

Into the only offer that stilled the curses that made her nerves
shout like carpet bombs,
her thoughts grind like
catacombs of dead words that kept
living inside her mind.

--he lied
every time someone asked if he was happy, if he was content.
His house was warm, his family free of charge,
and his rent was paid. But blue sky or hardwood floors,
his shadows hung heaviest at midday summer. He
relied
on visits from the Homeless One
and others who offered only the comfort that
vagabonds provide.

Why the Quiet

Why the Quiet

(“Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’” Luke 9:58)

There were times I waited all night just for a friend to call,
for someone to open the door to my heart.
There were nights I watched the time move,
a minute, a click, an hour, and the glitches crawled
between hellos and hugs.

Did You ever get lonesome with humanity as your posse?
Did You ever climb the hill to pray at night and wonder
why the quiet
was so full of noise and thunder?

There are days I pose like a model for students,
holding my face serene as they trace its natural wrinkles.
Why won’t they draw the inside? Empty. Full of salt and tears.
Why won’t they put down their brushes and join me
clothed only in sheets? Why do they leave once the class is over,
while I hover wanting just one to return and offer me a home?

Did You ever sigh along the lake watching us scramble for a living?
Did You wonder why the talk of the day never swaddled many
for more than an anomaly’s hour? Is it a flaw in our wiring,
a bug in the crawling measurements we know we cannot attain?

There have been years I never felt a home,
30 days, 54 days, 300 days, and a quatrain that felt like
a desert without rain, a forest without sun, a seeker without
someone

To follow.

Did You ever wonder at my lack of faith?
Did You walk into my thin wooden trophy case,
take inventory, and reconsider your choice?
I’m sorry the achievements are so scarce and
that creation (in your image) scares me somehow.
The northern lights, the soulful eyes, the cinnamon delights,
the chords and harmony, the memorized lines and poetry
are old hat or stale. I search the mail each day for a word
to make me feel at home.

There was a day, maybe two, when following You
was more than alright. And You still enchant me, romance me,
remind me and even confine me in Your love.

But home is elusive. My feet long, not for a mansion,
just for the touch of long distance that reaches deeper than
“I wish.”

Then Thawed

Then Thawed

(“Jesus touched the man. He said, ‘I want to heal you. Be healed!’ Immediately the man was healed from his leprosy.” Matthew 8:3)

When I sought you out I never imagined we would talk,
though I did ask a favor.
The thread that runs through everything was so invisible
I had forgotten the fabric.

Do you know what I want? How can I imagine yours? And, still
the spindle turns to plait the threads I cannot see.

Do you feel my distance? Do you reach beyond the pedestrians
who never ask my name? Whole, I would ask for nothing. Perfect,
I would not lack a thing.

But these scars and holes prevent the laughter of shared stories
and assent. I am absent from their memories. I am alone on the dust.

I found a lounger, an old television, a quiet dog and a selfish cat and,
after 10 years, found I had sat so long no one noticed I was home.
And now I’ve forgotten conversations that once bloomed like
a cottage garden.

Words are given, not shared. “Sorry” and “hope”; I spell them
in my sleep. A touch that speaks the misspelled notions that we
both remember the silken strand between sick and dying; the
quick compliance to mortality’s relentless decay.

Yet the filament runs from dark, through the mud, through the blood,
to the cold slab of borrowed cave. And overnight, just before sunlight
the thread is pulled from morning’s insistence. Life will not let the
joke die.

My fingers borrowed the gloves, the bony knuckles piercing the knit;
and that is when (I expected Your word) you touched the very center,
the very heart of it. Your hands, ungloved, were flesh warmed by blood,
and my nerves tingled again. My skin sang again. Human again,
touched the most human One, I froze;

Then thawed; then melted. Then settled on the next laugh I would share;
my next handmade memories and laughter.

See Her Better

See Her Better

(“If there are poor among you, in one of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be selfish or greedy toward them.  But give freely to them, and freely lend them whatever they need.” Deuteronomy 15:7-8)

What do I know, you know;
what have I seen behind the screen,
the half-closed eyes of the mother, (I assume)
the grandmother, (yes, once again)
those eyes, cleansed by the crying of endless
days sitting in the same spot above the boulevard
where passersby take the pedestrian bridge.
Yes, those eyes reddened by countless tears;
her face pulpy and sallow and barely seen.

On the Mexican winter she rides on the hopes
that those who know her will not miss her. We barely
see beauty of cascades tipping over rocky cliffs after
a month of walking by. So we see even less this
disturbance to our soul
after a week of crossing.

Does she pin her hopes on tourists in this fishing village
filled with spring breakers and old couple romance seekers?
Will they see her better, covered in her native best; hues
bleeding across the shawl and stopping at the holes worn by
constant wear? Or did they cut their budget so close that
dropping pesos in her cup means one night sober,
or one less souvenir?

Or perhaps, it is often true, there is enough left, but we
hear the religious impulse from our idols of self-advancement,
“You, get a job”. We are jesters in the court of
capital palaces and advancement.

But some, hearing the words of the better God, hear words
spoken to them, “Give. Do not let your left hand know
what your right hand has done.” And quietly,
they slip their hand inside their pockets, grab a wad of
what they will,
and slightly, and sleight of hand,
silent as they can, slide the bills into the cup
without breaking stride.

Milk, a roast, diapers, or one more week
with power; the hearts of an aged widow and
an unknown traveler meet once,
and only once. But again love has leapt
over hurdles and past benches of cultural inertia.