The Breeze Can Turn

The Breeze Can Turn

(“There are those who are last now who will be first in the future. And there are those who are first now who will be last in the future.” Luke 13:30)

The breeze can turn the day around,
it can move flags and leaves to their own devices.
The earth turns and the winds swirl
and we try to predict it all with instruments of sound.
The sand hill that you built your life upon,
no matter how high up the cliffs,
will not stand when the winds of time shift.
There are fewer days than when we started,
fewer moments to freely pursue the dreams of
salvation. You’ve fattened yourself like
a calf for the slaughter and do not realize
the days are racing forward.

Step down before
it is too late,
stand on the loaming ground before you fall
from the top of your precipice. Carry your
proclamations under your coat,
turn your speech around,
you’ve got more to confess than the
limits you’ve put on yourself. Failing
to flourish, you just pretend your boxes
are filled with more money than you can count.
Go look again,
the mice have eaten half of it. The rest are
necessary to pay your debt to humanity.

Poverty might look good on you. Poverty might
turn your words around. I’d befriend you
if you spoke honestly. I’d share a meal with you
if you lay down your presumptive power and
eat slowly the supper made by humble hands
born across the border.
The breeze can turn the day around,
if only you will listen to the wind and let
the Spirit fill your vacancy with the
cries of the walkers only wanting a chance
to work in the sun.

We All Live in the Mountains

We All Live in the Mountains

(“But many who are first will be last. And the last will be first.” Mark 10:31)

We all live in the mountains,
we all live in the valleys,
we all live by surging streams,
we might live in yellow submarines;

We all sit in the same sun,
we all watch the river run,
we all stand in the deep sand,
we all buy the same name brand.

If you think that’s silly,
imagine anyone ruling from the ground up or
the sun down.
Imagine anyone commanding from situation rooms or
abandoned tombs.

We all flunked the test,
we all passed the rest,
we hoped to do our best,
we all only guessed
at the good that kings and queens could do
when so few lived where flowers perfumed the vale,
so many gave wrong numbers, so many lives were for sale.

We are all poets,
we are all painters,
we are all dancers,
and we cannot wait for
the show to begin.

If you think that’s dizzy,
imagine watching from the last row, imagine
waiting from the outskirts of town,
imagine excusing the harshest blows, imagine
kneeling before the circus clowns.

Suddenly a world that cannot turn
upside down when nothing is over and nothing
is under,
nothing will ever be split asunder;
can you imagine, will you wonder,
that our puny vowels mean much when
all the world is aching for the touch of anyone
with an ounce of breath to
step out of time,
to step into the sublime moments
when metronome beats are suspended,
inviolable rules upended,
and caution is thrown to the wind.

The Last to Leave

 

The Last to Leave

(“He had promised to give a lamp to David and his sons forever.” 2 Kings 8:19b)

Do you remember when you were the last to leave?
I wanted to show my heart, but not all of it.
Music wafted in from the next room
while small talk about big ideas
melted the distance between us.
I wanted you to see me clear, but not the corners.

Do you remember when you asked me where I bought my clothes?
I wanted to tell you thrift stores, but the best ones.
The places I shopped for t-shirts and 3-piece suits
smelled of dampness and sweat. You might not
have minded I guess.
I zipped my hoodie tighter, but not all the way.

Do you remember when you asked the last time I cried?
I wanted to be perfect, and so I lied. It was just before
we started our conversation.
I could write a thousand things and still not plumb the depths,
the reserve hidden at the bottom.
I wanted to cry when you asked, but got up for a coffee.

Do you remember when I returned with your espresso?
I wanted to impress you, show that I know you. Unlike
my silent self which I hid beneath poetry and song.
The dissidents in my brain claimed my last bit of resolve
and so I evolved into a domesticated animal.
I wanted the dark and light to be equal, but served the froth instead.

Do you remember when you were the last to leave
and I sat in the corner watching you lean into a new friend?
I wanted to die. I had denied myself and moved into
the shadows alone.
The very thing that frightened me, the thing that kept me caged,
was the thing you drank deeply as I watched your conversation.

And I had aged far too quickly. I lit my lamp partly.
I used up my energy deadlocking a room that consumed my thinking.
And I watched him, the same age as me, unleash his hiddenness
like a summer cloudburst. You were drenched while
I covered myself from the rain.