When the Silence Invades

When the Silence Invades

(“’Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God.” Isaiah 40:1)

When the silence invades your disquieted heart
find a place where words are weightier than
the solid rain that preoccupies your spaces of pain.
There is Spirit that speaks to the troubled fields where
chariots once charged. There is clear sky where the
clouds of thunder once erupted. There are donors of
friendship to open the ears deafened by muzzled
quiet withholding conversation.

You could read aloud, turn the volume higher.
You could strum the strings of so many spare
instruments lining your room. But something,
(a broken brick wall?) something keeps you from
standing to tune them, sitting to practice,
swaying as you play them. And the silence only
infiltrates your uneasy understanding.

There are songs I used to sing for days on end.
I would sing them to you if my voice hadn’t aged.
Some sound like cabernet,
some sound like whiskey,
some sound like babble,
some like unending rhymes.

There are phone numbers that I remember from
high school. No one lives there anymore, no one answers.
Nothing lasts forever, nothing sleeps all day.
Nothing hides unbidden, nothing knows the time.
Everything is within arm’s reach,
everything is sadder when the quiet is unrelentless.

The good news is, the Spirit whispers,
and keeps me company through the afternoon.
I’ll share the words, I’ll pour out my heart,
I’ll take some of the silence that has muted your day,
and turn it into words on a page, and turn it into
rosemary and sage.

A Missed Phone Call

A Missed Phone Call

(“For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants and my blessing on your offspring.” Isaiah 44:3)

I heard you called while I was out,
that you had left a message for me. I fumbled
with the phone, misdialed the number and tried
again.
But my fingers slipped and,
too
tentative to re-call, I thought of
dropping by.

You know already how unsteady I am
when I do not know the subject at hand.

But I have not forgotten how to dream.

While others talked of visions, told in great
detail and
filled with colors like Van Gogh,
I was myopic. An ant carrying a leaf
was glorious to me.

I did not understand that until now. I did not
know how majesty invades a dial tone or
a grain of sand. Could it be,
scratching my head,
that becoming less is a better vantage point
than flying with the fireworks across the sky?

Anyway,
what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry I missed your call.

I hesitate to write much at all,
(you know my missteps, my wrong turns, my downfalls)
and you would be right to mention them, though
I carry them heavy. I carry them deadweight. I carry them
inside my body and outside my dreams.

But I will meet you. Give me a time and place. We can
sit by the river if you like; the seals swim by this time of year.

Just no place too crowded please; the noise compounds my
dis-
ease.

But I will meet you.
And exchange an hour of our time, and
let quiet talk replace the pathology of imagining
the worst. We can watch the streams tickle the
pebbled banks.