Unexplained Lunches

Unexplained Lunches

(“So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” John 4:26)

We wondered and pondered our way around the fields;
nothing escaped our pierced view. Cannily we knew that
just a few moments ago there were unexplained lunches
on the lawn.
We walked the aisles between children and easily
saw the sun in their eyes, never going down too early.
We were unprepared to serve the crowds sitting on the lawn.
Voluntarily we moved among them,
we had read the books before, memorized the scripts
and repeated them like expanding ideas etched on the sand.

Some were meager, some were scarce, some were simply
the median expression of daily hunger. But all showed up
to hear something like an invitation to the biggest dayclub
ever known. We sat like sundials measuring the time across
eventual horizons. We recognized our names in the
phasing of everything we remembered and some of what
we should have forgotten.
We thought of antique monuments erected while we
waited for the closing prayer. We wrote poetry in the mud.

Every basket was filled; every mouth was smiling.
We noticed the atmosphere had changed and so
midair
we promised we would gather without waste;
we would serve without fainting and would remember the
stories that fully adorned the day.

The Tunnel I Traveled

The Tunnel I Traveled

If you had known me earlier perhaps
you would have seen the tunnel I traveled.
No compass, no sun to steer by, no stars to
navigate my way. If you had seen the cavern
I thought was home
I have no doubt (but then again, I do have some)
that my way would be clear to you. I might not
find my way out in the ashen dark. I might not
know where I arrive.

Sometimes I feel I must apologize for
the things I write. Sometimes my mediocrity
gets the best of me.
I’ve visited caves once or twice when they
turned out the lights. I could not see my hand
in front of my face, but I always hoped for one
person
to tell me the darkness was not my fault. The turning
of the tunnel with no light at the end
was a trajectory that was not part of me.
Or someone to tell me that, though I could not
find my way,
that it was still okay to feel, to cry, to misbehave,
to slip on the slimy stone path of the cave.

Why do I tell you this? Can I trust you?
Will you hear me? I know you will. I only hope
you don’t harm me or misinterpret me. Some day
all my anxieties will fade as the lights open for the
first act of a play.

I’ve discovered very little. I know less than I did
a decade ago. Some friends know everything.
I can hear them preach faraway on the
everyday hills.

Listen my dear one, my beloved two, my three who
will not be surprised that I write this way; I’ve lost
too many
who knew me well,
I do not want to lose another.

I’ll wait just inside the cave and hope for a visit
from just one
who will light a fire between us,
warm up my late life heart
and listen the whole night long.