Slowly Leaking

Slowly Leaking

(“You will be righteous, Lord, even if I bring a case against You. Yet, I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the treacherous live at ease?” Jeremiah 12:1)

When will you let the iron hammer fall on the
plywood boxes of hypocrisy? When will you
lower the boom for the sake of the dying?
It used to bustle along the streets, the avenue
markets
were full of mothers and children.
When will you blow away the smog and smoke
that chokes the tiny lungs of these little ones?
Now the markets are dust and crumble and the
appendages of hope have disintegrated.

When will you judge, when will you answer?
When will you capture them, trapped by their own words?
Why is your timing so slow, so different than mine?
Why have you not destroyed the backroom plans
of the wicked? Why do the billionaires float above
it all like space rats escaping gravity?
Where is the moon on the nights of gloom;
hidden behind the shrapnel that exploded this
afternoon. The day is fading and we
fear the night when the sirens will bid us
to our bunkers and wait to next wave of destruction.

How long will the grass wither, how long until the
healing rains come?
How long until the unrighteous are taken
to task
who hide the truth behind spoiled facets of
sacred words?
Show them what their end will be, but do it
sooner before more are shot down in the streets by
icy masked men hunting for game.

Why do you take your time? Why do you delay?
Why does it take so long for you to drag them
with the dividing line of justice? Hear our petition;
act before we are all taken like a helium balloon
slowly leaking.
Take these words and give us a token,
hear the aches that we have spoken
and turn your face away from them who
pretend to speak for you.

Leaking Grief

Leaking Grief

“Help me, O Lord my God! Save me because of your unfailing love.” Psalm 109:26

I have been leaking grief, not all over the place,
not puddles at the bottom of my feet;
but focus on the drips from the driveway to the
front door,
the seals have grown brittle and I can’t find
my bearings.

If I keep my thoughts at bay, I think of nothing.
If I allow my thoughts to stray, all the disrepair
straddles each side of my brain.
If I keep them away, they invade my dreams in
failure (no one shows up for my choir practice);
anger (no one defends the obvious loser);
losing (climbing cliffs with my fingernails);
bankrupt (running out of time and too many die.)

I have been leaking grief for years. You can mark the trail.
Gaze, for more than a moment, my eyes are redline,
oily, the tread is worn to the nub. I will no longer listen
to a single word that suggests

Anyone can overreact to unexpected death.

Take your high words and tell them to the hills;
I need the silence that heals, the fawns and does
that do not roar in the woods. I need the waves
that steal the sand and carry it to islands where survivors
know grief is sometimes a way of life.

Oh, Man of Sorrows! Become acquainted with my grief.

Take your complaints to the county courthouse,
I’m tired of being an eternal caregiver.
Come wrap me in a shawl, light candles for me,
sing the songs from Ireland or Lakota, beat the drums
that let the tears and tongues trickle, the faucet is
broken.

Someone wrote that you cannot support abortion and
be a Christian.
I wonder how you can lock the eyes of mourners,
(“don’t cry” is a lie) when your Leader wept between
the mystery of death and rising.

I am not lying; I have been leaking grief and sighing
for decades. Tomorrow I shall seek the comfort

Of unbelievers who know how to hold my tears in their tissues.

Oh Man of Sorrows, acquainted with my grief.
Oh! grief.