I Let My Hands Hang

 

I Let My Hands Hang

(“But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” Matthew 5:39)

The long dark night gave way to the
floating sun and the light of day.
And I remembered why my sleep was so restless,
why my breakfast was so careless
and the memories of a singular slap to the face
replaced the peaceful dreams I could not recall.

I woke restless but the perpetrators were long gone
and all I had was a bruise below my eye.
I was proud (is that the word) that my hands
stayed at my side, that I did not answer back nor
threaten with stinging reprimands. I was not a
wholesaler who bought my offenses at bargain
prices to sell and release my hold on them.

The bruises quickly fade; the memory reaches
so far back it is ingrained like a limestone cave.
I should have counted to ten more slowly and then
back to one again. But the picture is finally floating
down the shallow rivulet toward the deeper water where
it falls below the waves whipped by the wind.

I cannot control my dreams. I have sometimes allowed them
to control me. Some I have dismissed with hasty fear,
others I wish had come true throughout the soundless breeze
of the day.

I would learn a better silence in the face of mistrusted words
that flew toward my mind. I let my hands hang.

To Know the Deep

To Know the Deep

I want to know the deep and long of you,
The all and song of you.
I want to give you the true and same of me,
the peace and frame of me.
I want to know the days you cannot sing,
the nights that keep reminding you of everything
you wish you could not remember.
I want to sit with you for hours
just watching the river run.
I want to walk with you, hand in hand,
slowly like love that rises from the roots of
trees in the forest, like the warm earth below
our feet.
I want to hold you the way the sun holds the sky,
the way the clouds hug the hills with questions.
I want to be one with you, our hearts answering the
call of soft birdsongs resting among the cedars on the way.

I want to know the wide and fear of you,
the why and tears of you.
I want to give you the love and end of me,
the sighs and bends of me.
I want to know you like a slow turning
ocean below the azure blue. I want you to
know I’m there before you say a word.
I want to spend days and days with you
unfolding everything we’ve forgotten about
dancing when no one is watching.

I want to show you the corners of my heart
that I’ve kept in the dark. I want to soothe the
hurts you never speak of and hope you will speak
of them more to me.

I want you to feel my hands upon your face
when the tears silently trace your cheeks.
I want you to know you are beautiful when
the tears pool like pearls in you eyes.
I want to know the hurts and pain of you,
to give the soothing grains of sand on a
warm stretch of ocean sand.

I want to be silent while you tell me everything.
I want to hold you while you tell me each
chapter of your story and I will memorize it
and protect it within my heart for you.

I Want to Take the Long Way Home

I Want to Take the Long Way Home

(“He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will bring you quietness with His love. He will delight in you with shouts of joy.” Zephaniah 3:17b)

I can’t help it,
these thoughts of dancing,
these images of your eyes flashing,
these songs with words only you will understand.
I can’t help it;
I want to take the long way home.

The moon loves to light your face,
the stars cannot wait to shine,
the sun has reserved you a place
where no one intrudes. I can’t help it;
I want to tell you everything.

We were plopped down on the water,
we learned to swim on the fly.
We were left here almost forgotten,
we found each other swimming for shore.
We had no one to tell us what all the excitement was for.
We thought the river would be deeper,
we thought the current might suck us under,
we thought we might not make it to the sandy beach,
we thought the night might come on us too soon.

But we were mistaken, weren’t we, even before we
knew each other’s names. Even before the morning
rose from the foothills we learned we were not meant
to be alone. We were not meant to fear the touch
of a newcomer’s hands. And the river hugged us
as we camped where the trees met the water in
a private circle enclosing us like love. Sleep
evaded us,
we were learning each other’s songs.

We were a kiss and breathless,
we were stories we only told each other.
We were laughter, we were hot tears,
we were puzzled, but we were not alone.

And that is why, this day and every day,
I wanted to take the long way home.

Our Long Journey

Our Long Journey

(“Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” Luke 18:7a)

It felt like we had stood in line
for more than the circumference of time.
The asphalt melted our feet,
the tears evaporated in the heat,
the rush of muddy water, the river, the boundary
between journey and sojourn,
was our salvation, or our final destination.
We cried out for days to heads of state
whose ears were tickled by impoverished views of
unwashed throngs who left footprints behind them
a thousand miles long.

We immersed ourselves in suffering, we did not choose it.
We crossed horizons, we crawled when the canyons fell
below us. The songs caught up to us; we moved slowly enough
to carry them in our chests like anthems and amens,
the beginning and end of our petitions for
a hearing before we reached the border line.

There were rainbows hiking with us, the colors proud
as we took them into our fold. There were eunuchs and
pagans,
priests and variations of supplication. There were the
silent. There were the opalescent. There were the angry,
the defeated, the determined, the babies, the children,
the ancestors and all the rest. We all were seeking
a place among
the rising tide we were promised by the ancient
declarations,
the independent proclamations,
the handbills dropped from the sky that promised
a rebirth of unity.

It felt like we had stood in line
far longer than the foundations of nations
that fancied themselves beacons upon hills.
It felt like we would be waiting until a greater
Justice
would be our Advocate. We waited, and knew,
if only micro-dots per day, soon or late, we would know
slowly
our long journey was no longer wandering. Our long
journey
was stumbling upon the
New
Creation.

Long Before

Long Before

(“The people continued to sacrifice at the illegal places of worship, but they sacrificed only to the Lord their God.” 2 Chronicles 33:17)

We celebrated where the guns thundered and the
flags waved in the fiery sky.
We celebrated when the muskets when silent
but built monuments to remember our might.
We wear our uniforms to church,
we build chapels with crosses shaped like
fighter jets.
We sing god-and-country and cannot understand
why god has not declared a
winner yet.

We always had the better gunpowder,
never relied on spears or arrows,
wrote our language down for centuries;
poetry and science, medicine and odes for
the sorrows others inflicted upon us.
We were destined for these amber waves of grain.

Yet upon purple mountains there are still caches of blood,
there are cloaks of misery trodding the fruited plain.
How many times must the sun go down
before we reject religion that sees no difference between
animals and kin?

And still our monuments stand. Still our hollow statues of
hammered copper green with the age. We honor the killers,
sing of the rebels, send our missiles with prayers attached
to their tails.

But we have braided the stars and stripes so tightly with
the stripes and wounds upon our savior’s back that we salute the
flag and expect Jesus to answer early and late. 

Come to a monument without a statue,
settle in around the table of peace.
Break the bread where the only allegiance is
God toward his people. Find Jesus on the streets,
and bring our hidden guest, that we may begin again,
find rest again, proclaim glory again that shines the moment

we descend the mountain to the spot on the foothills where
feet walked, mothers gave birth, fathers hunted, long before
we touched the earth.

Long After

Long After

(“Most of all, have a true love for each other. Love covers many sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

Mostly I hear the printed word in tones full of objections;
a growl, a frown, a scowl, an upside-down offer to set me straight.
Lay aside your weapons and I’ll lay aside my wounds;

It’s fascinating the way the mind
inserts moods into the minuscule scribbles on
the back of a napkin or
the screen of a phone.

Happen upon our long history, friend,
not the two or three minutes that have fueled our silence.

What I would really like, you ask?

I would like to still smell the roses
long after you’ve left the room.