To Share Your Wounds

To Share Your Wounds

(“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22)

I’m surprised at how late I’ve shown up to some
of the appointments I’ve had for days. I should have
been there earlier; I should have greeted you distinctly.
It had been on my calendar; I transferred it from the same
date last year. How did I almost miss it this time;
how did it nearly escape my notice?

Some days my thoughts are spattered through a sieve,
they are scattered like dust in a storm. I think I have been
protecting the damaged corners; I think I am hiding
where words cannot find me.

I used to visit the hidden hearts who carried more pain
than I knew. I used to capture everyone I knew by name
and carry them to brighter fields in the sun.

These days I sit and listen; I do not have much to say.
Sometimes the words flow right past me and I turn to
see them fly away. I could not catch them with the
whirling motors of my mind.

But I’ll give you the few lucid moments I have saved.
I’ll make room for you within the dusty remains of the day.
I’ll buy you a beer and turn my ear to hear the words you
long for someone to remember. I know you’ve told the tale
a dozen times or more
and that merely says the story is not yet complete. But
will it ever be?

I have so many unfinished rhymes, so many leftover notes
for songs I never wrote. But we can dig together, can’t we,
to the bottom of the proverbs that have sunk beneath our
unknown perceptions of time. Today I will find a way,
if a way is presented to me,
to share your wounds if you’ll share mine, and we may laugh
before our time is over.

This Late in the Afternoon

This Late in the Afternoon

(“You are praised with silence in Zion, O God.” Psalm 65:1a)

Are the shadows similar to silence,
can I hear the shapes they imitate?
They intimate there is more here than
I first thought. Can silence be the same;
can it be a space that speaks of something else,
though it goes without a name?

There are three, maybe four people I know
whose silence is not awkward. We have not
run out of things to say;
we are simply digesting them, ruminating
to find the truth hidden inside
everyday conversations.

I found a snapshot of my father,
his father,
and me,
and my son. He was not yet one
and we stood on the lawn for a picture
of four generations. My son does not remember it,
so I think I will send him a copy, without comment.
Silence never insists on a particular point of view.

The shadows grow longer this deep into August,
I must find the sunny spots earlier than a month ago.
Clouds swim overhead and the sun ducks behind one
for a few moments. My fruit trees blink when it
peeks back out. Silence is stiller this late
in the afternoon.

Windingly I Will Arrive

Windingly I Will Arrive

I apologize for coming so late,
the traffic was schismatic, and, as has
always
been my custom,
I did what I was told right up until now.
I promise, though,
I will be there by the day after tomorrow;
I swear I will make up for the time I spent away.

The blame does not lie outside me,
the choices were all mine. And everyone who
knows me
can stipulate that I never meant harm to anyone.

But looking in the mirror, seeing the headlights on my tail,
the tears of my ambitions were wiped from the windshields,
and fell on the highway behind us all.

The thunder clashed with my intentions,
the storm wrecked every itinerary on the way.
My father used to say that shortcuts were only
the longer road to get somewhere fast. I never found
one.

But, windingly I will arrive, pennies in my pockets,
pebbles in my shoes, gravel in the tire treads, and,
slightly embarrassed and more amused that
I could have walked across the street 40 years ago
to see you the way
I see you
today.

Late for Dinner

Late for Dinner

(“He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel didn’t come to Gilgal, and his troops began to desert.” 1 Samuel 13:8)

When waiting is the worst activity,
and being late is the ultimate sin,
we are tempted to take life into our own hands
(as if we could ever take life into our own hands)
and miss the final ingredient to complete the recipe
sending the aroma throughout the house for days.

But we jump too quickly, we act like another hour
is stealing precious jewels from our life. So, we prepare the meal,
feed those gathered,
and finish the pie just at the time the honored guest
arrives tardily. We hardly know what to say.

Did our stomachs grumble that much,
did we think we would starve for missing a meal,
did we think our guest would never show up,
did we think he was unreliable? Yet

It was we who rushed. It was we who could think of
no other way to spend our time in waiting
than to go ahead and eat the stew and biscuits,
drink the wine and water, serve the pie and cakes and
in the drowsiness after dinner forget we ever were
expecting a guest.

What do you say to the one you had gathered to honor,
what do you serve the one who had fed you well so
many times before?
What greeting can change the presumption that
makes previous arrangements the law of the table?

The dishes are not yet gathered. The family dog is licking
the plates.
We hear the knock on the door and are awakened from our
self-satisfied slumber to see
the one we had planned to feed. And we have

No excuse at all.

Waiting and keeping the communal meal warm
is an act of love, no matter how late anyone arrives.

Let us try again tomorrow night. We will wait,
we will play cards, we will listen to music, we will
tell jokes and silly stories to pass the time.

And when the last one arrives, we will serve
the meal with joy. With wine aplenty, we will sing
into the night.

Drink with Me

Drink with Me

(“What man is like Job? He drinks derision like water.” Job 34:7 as spoken by Elihu)

What else would I drink when you offer such bitter libations?
What have you offered me but your sour incantations?
When you sat at my table I offered you the sweetest wine,
when we sweat away the afternoon I always filled your water first.

You are false springs, for you make me false with what you
have attempted to offer me.
I will not take your sour wine, your vinegar, when I have said,
“I thirst.”

And, you, with a tongue red as fire,
never inquire once about the weight I carry, the burden I
cannot
unpack without
it being filled again.

Every morning begins the same,
every evening ends in pain,
and your favorite saying is “get over it’
and I would gladly do so if it would
get over me.

You are false springs, siphoning your poison into my soul,
you make me false with your projections, your supposed hologram
of my mental apprehensions.
What questions have you asked to find the reason my
love has turned to pain?
Oh, you asked them once, and never asked again
because it did not fit with your preconceptions
of what a man like me should drink in the desert.

If you offered a top-shelf gift poured in crystal,
I would drink slowly with you, never dismissing the distilled
liquor you sacrifice for a friend. But, in the end,
you’ve only brought the bitterest brew and accused me
of drinking it long before you.
Truly, I would offer you the barrel-aged best
if you would only stop for a moment, cease your
enmeshed arguments and breathe with me a while.

I’ve seen your millstone, the albatross around your neck,
but I have not mentioned it. And now, burdened as I,
you double the weight I carry by words too heavy to bear.

If I could transfer every fiber, every nerve, every misgiving,
every quiver of my words, every question of my faith,
and every battle I have fought to keep the demons at bay;
if I could transfer them to you, so you felt them. This time.
This space. This thirst. This heat. This dirt and disgrace…

…then perhaps you would drink with me something better than
sulfur springs. Then perhaps you would hold your tongue,
hold my hand, join me and either weep or sing for my agony
when you arrive so late to the party.

Personal Space

Personal Space

(“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.’” Luke 12:22)

The lines lie just below the surface,
the matrix of creation,
the embroidery of matter and space,
the unseen provider that protects everything.

What shall I wear until I die,
what shall I eat while “why” is
the most frequent word caught in the
woven synapses of my brain?

There are holes in everything, gaps between seen
and unseen. You can travel all day from the nucleus
to the orbiting electrons. And each syllable of thought
exists a moment and lasts a lifetime.

Today I will wear shorts, it is late June in Texas.
Today I will eat chicken, left over from Sunday’s meal.

But, dearest Jesus, how I miss collecting shirts from the thrift store
and discovering espresso in an Oakland coffee house with
a free mic for poets on Fridays.

Crammed into a baby blue vw bug
we graduated through the Caldecott tunnel to
Berkeley and beyond. Personal space was never an issue
but now these few lifetimes later we are scattered like
electrons orbiting separate nuclei.

But I shall eat today. I shall wear my t-shirt and sandals today,
but, dearest Jesus, I would love to meet today
just one friend who was a friend with so little personal space
between us.