Red Ink on Blue Paper

Red Ink on Blue Paper

It was fate, I have no doubt about it.
There’s not a damn thing I can do,
I’ll never stop loving you.
I could tell you, every day and more,
the well is bottomless, the supply eternal of
the elixir that intoxicates me.

I wondered how many times I will drink of it,
will my thirst ever be assuaged? Or
will this liquid that has transfixed me
keep my feet walking to you. I’ve stammered,
perhaps because there is a place I want to dwell with
room enough only for two.

I’ve seen the surface of you, and I’ve sounded the depths.
And I keep exploring, new, yet, and next. I know I have
layers
I’m still afraid to lay bare. I have words to say, and then
I run away, leaving only vowels behind.
I could write a note, red ink on blue paper,
and leave it where you would find it. And leave it
behind for you to read after
I’ve long since departed.

I’ve held back in too many conversations. I’ve
not asked the questions, I’ve not made the declarations.
But one day, perhaps late before the sun goes down,
I might take your hand,
kneel on the grass,
ask the question you asked me a lifetime ago
(and tremble, not knowing what to say).

Other lives, next life,
and still it is this life.

The same way you adore the sun,
the same way it warms your skin,
is the same way I adore you,
the same way you warm me again.

Living is so lovely now, even if it’s dreams and
imagination. But the pain leaves at
the very thought of you.

Doubt Is Not an Ink Blot

Doubt Is Not an Ink Blot

(“Calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” Luke 7:19)

Doubt is not an ink blot,
not an erasure,
not a final forecast of gray.
Doubt is not blindness,
not soulless,
not a symptom of falling away.

You can go around the same block,
this day, under the sun’s rays, watching blue jays,
or wishing you had stayed a hundred miles away.

The forecast says rain,
the daisies and daffodils, intoxicated,
sway with the barely breeze, and beg us to notice
their debut appearance. Doubt I’ll miss them
this time around.

Questions no longer frighten me, thinking is my
favorite pastime. No longer cast inside plaster,
beauty is the language I crave. Why would I
want
a warrior shooting blood from a lily-white cannon
when there are
sheep in the fields that turn my thoughts to
feasts for enemies and goodness surely following?

Faith is not certainty,
not an iron rod,
not a rule that is cast in stone.
Faith is not foresight,
not tap dance,
not a promise of simply whole tones.

You can take the same walk again,
this day. 

I Will Lay Them Down

I Will Lay Them Down

(“At daybreak, Lord, You hear my voice; at daybreak I plead my case to You and watch expectantly.” Psalm 5:3)

I rarely see the sunrise these days,
and my offerings are tiny relics of dreams
that braided my anxieties and hopes in a fantasy of shadowy light.

I rarely see the dawn break these days.
More than anything else I sense the rays sneaking
up on me, stripes upon my eyelids, beams broken up
by slits in the window shades.

Before the fog lifts, before the moon shifts below the trees,
before the sun kisses everything, before the morning breeze,
I awake, no longer startled by the images that haunt my nights.
But I do not rise,
I do not speak,
I do not pass from ink to light
until the pain has squeezed the reticence from
my groggy mind.

But I will lay it all outside my room,
I will write it all before the looming day
has its way with me. Here is my fear,
my façade, my vibrating heart, my outlawed
conscience and hopes as thin as smoke.
Here are my beloveds, here are my wounds,
here are the missing places at the table,
here are the my mother, my father, my sister, my friend;
here are all I dream of who have left this world too soon.

I will lay them down and listen. I will lay them down until
the fire of love inflames my soul again to weep or laugh
with the wind in my face. I will lay them down until
the waters have wings, until, like eagles, they take flight
into the bosom of the Uncreated One.