Letters Flying Everywhere

Letters Flying Everywhere

(“You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith, for they trust in you.” Isaiah 36:3)

Days before the latest dawn
the thunderstorms snuck in under the blue.
They left the sky cleaned and calm.
We could breathe again, unsullied by the
rain that washed the dread away. The breeze
was easy.

There were echoes of war, distant booms of
violence that crowded those who were listening.
We heard what we had never heard. We begged
for streets free from combat boots and full of
summer sandals shopping for new colors to wear.

I want to write with words wrapped around bombs
exploding purposefully with letters flying everywhere.
I want a conflagration of vowels spinning between the
pages and consonants so crisp they smell of burnt bacon.

After that I’ll write about trees and flowers again,
about bees and buzzes, about sunlight and breezes.
I find my mind so occupied like an overpour at the bar,
that I barely can mutter intelligent sentences.

But look around me and scout the extravagant lyrics
unconnected to the chorus or bridge. Please excuse the mess;
I was just given the arrangement a day ago and my fingers
haven’t traced their melody long enough to make sense.
But once I get my cadence down, once I memorize the breaks,
you’ll be able to dance right up to the final coda and laugh
that the night was over so soon.

Until then, we need words that ignite over night skies to
keep us in line. We need more rhymes to teach us the
daily grind for peace we never knew we would fight.

How it Sounds

How it Sounds

(“I, I am the one who comforts you. Why should you fear humans who will die, mortals who are treated like grass?” Isaiah 51:12)

I know it often sounds as if my life is in the shadow,
the night has blanketed my hope for the light,
and I know you would rather hear flights of faith
than the grainy verse I write.

How can I be true and not publish the truth?
How can I believe and not admit my doubt?
How can I heal unless I admit my pain?
I will not know one thing within and show another without.

From a thousand miles away you cannot taste
the tears that have dried upon my face.
From twenty-five years away you cannot feel
the spears that have left their jagged traces
of scars and fragments of flint still stuck deep
within my heart.

Do you want my words to trumpet mountains
when there are none within sight?
Do you want my poems to scatter friendships
like seeds in a garden with a sleight-of-hand
that produces fake letters I’ve written myself?

I don’t blame you. If I heard me, but did not know me,
I would sound like Job’s comforters too. I’ve quoted the verses,
pointed their faces to the sun and blue sky, only to, bemused,
wonder why they never told me the truth again.

If you cannot bear my breakdowns, you cannot help me heal.
If you are scared of my meltdowns, you need to turn around now;
or seal our friendship with silence and presence,
not lectures and menace.

I know you’ve done better than me. I know you can quote faith
higher than me. I know your certainty alone guides you;
but I cannot bear to lie to myself, no matter how that makes
me look when it comes time to pray.

And truth, if you were oppressed, I would never expect you
to get over it. And truth, trauma posts its sadness whether we
invite it or not. Syndromes don’t come asking for permission.

So, I write what I write, and it will burn some day before
or after
my body is gone. They are only digits on a screen,
graphite from a number two yellow pencil

And will last no longer than this season’s dandelions
on the lawn.