Backtrails

Backtrails

(“And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29)

It wasn’t a refund I wanted; I had cash enough already.
I could exchange size for color, color for capacity, capacity for brand name
and still be equal to where I started.

I want to posses what no one has sold,
to dwell when no one has lived;I want to dream what never was created,

to hear poetry just like

The first words I thought I heard like sunlight on
Mount Diablo’s golden foothills.

I awake and want to return home. I pass asleep and know
that when the phone rings tomorrow the voice will sound
nothing like
the friends who hiked the backtrails and shared dried apricots
and canteen water.

The home I own is old; the home where we played password
from midnight until 2 slipped from my hands 25 years past.
The floor was our game table and donuts the morning’s food.

I feel like returning; yet places pass through new owners and time,
the siding is replaced, the trees uprooted and, now that I remember

I longed for another place when I occupied the place I long for today.

Who will cash me out now, I am tired of bargain-hunting. Fulfill
my hollow hungers a hundred times over. I want to walk the
dusty paths of undistilled exposure; heart to heart we follow
the old road just like the out-of-town visitors we are.

Tears and Claims

Tears and Claims

(“Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: ‘What kind of backing do you think you have against me?’” Isaiah 36:4b [The Message])

On one side of the road they pass me by in cap and gown,
dissertations glowing on well-laid classic or wove;
on the other side they barely notice me,
stuck in the corner of the switchback as I am.

No one taunts me anymore, (except my own thoughts,
oh that they would stop and let me breathe),
no one taunts me anymore, nor ignores. I am
simply the driftwood that landed on the side of the road
days after the flood receded to go back home.

I crutch in the solitude of my own making,
though I did not choose this isolation;
and limp alone (I walk upright and straight in the
presence of life’s companions)
uncertain the destination.

I heard a 90 year old dying, oh so slowly,
ask for her mother so breathlessly
you might believe she mother was just in the kitchen
bringing cookies and afternoon tea.

I am not alone in my loneliness,
travelers left and right watch the daily traffic,
the world passing us by on both sides of the road.

How can the wife of a husband like me
understand my tears and claims of ennui?
Is she not enough, she must think, and more so
she is; enough and more.

And Lord, oh Lord, how can the path wind in sorrow
with the Joy of the Universe my Companion? How, then,
my faith, my heart, my goals burnt like a mildewed map,
will I find the laughter along the journey again?

One Song

"One Song"

(“No matter where I am, your teachings fill me with songs.” Psalm 118:54)

Advice weaves in and out of consciousness, word and words
looping like barn swallows, swooping upon the pages we would
write our next memoir. The syllables from well meaning acquaintances,
the sentences from lastly friends, are all meant to ease the layers
of questions tangled about our legs, blankets in midsleep.

I would rest longer, or next time fight through the pain,
I need more fellowship, friends around my grimace,
I should take time off, work longer, seek solitude,
find new voices to tell me how to find the final fork
before I see home from the last lonely hill.

With every meeting I miss I kiss peace goodbye
because I know I should have attended, and those attending
know it better than I.

With every day I put my words into the blender
adding hints and spices hopefully hidden in the puree,
I wish I would come up with just one original recipe,
or at least ingredients in a different order from the cookbooks’
command.

One song has remained the same, I recognize it when I can
hear nothing else. It is like the birds before dawn who know
spring is awake well before snow has receded. It is the newborn
whose cries create smiles, the lullaby sung by a toddler to her doll,
or the kitten whining for her brother-dog let outside without her.

I would let past-tense go if I knew present-tense would pay the bills.
I cannot guarantee applause or tears; the song never plays the same way twice.
I can hear it just around the riverbend, but today I can get no closer than
the whispers heard between the words in my suggestion box; or above

The lull that comes between easterly blusters.

The Territory

The Territory

Uncertainty is the territory I’ve inhabited
for half a decade now. I love the Lover better,
(or should I say, to be true to the letter, I think
I do)
But have more questions in the face of so
many
who fancy themselves arbiters of answers.

If a salary was assured me, I would lock myself in a room
overlooking the River,
and half the day read and write, or write, or read,
or talk on the phone to friends long in my heart
and far too far away. Their territories are separated
by years of success and certainty; promises kept longer;
homesteaded sojourns of generations.

I would spend the other half
wandering the River, while talking on the phone
to everyone I’ve ever offended, one more time,
to be sure my amends are certain.
Then I would do what I have never done,
and call the ones who offended me. I would make
certain they understood, and, without threat of
salary’s loss, I could speak freely until the moment
when the light went on, without the urge to hide
getting the best of me. And, for the one who said
I want grace for me and judgment for the other,
he would finally see, if he apologized to me,
how much grace I truly yearn to offer.

Uncertainty is my zip code, if you desire to visit me,
take off your self-assurances and tell me you’ve struggled
lately in life
a lot like me.

Be Seated

"Be Seated"

(“I will take my stand on my post, station myself on the tower, and watch to see what He will say to me; what answer I shall receive concerning my complaint.” Habakkuk 1:17)

I have waited faster without hearing the wind bring
a lasting balm to grant the answer

I must have already known.

Feet raised upon the end of the couch,
head sunk into the pillow,
the quiet must be cut by tv
to dot the self-talk, the dialogue, trialogue,
self-cast reruns of regrets I cannot redo or
fewer away.

I need someone to dry my eyes,
I need to know everything’s alright,
(the tears have evaporated since)
I need a word to match the actions,
a lifelong flash in the darkness that opens the
corners to view.

I hate to complain, to sing the blues to a brilliant Master
of dis-Illusion, but I’ve felt for sometime my racing radio plays
crisscrossing in my thoughts height and length-ways

Need a better match than where my bony feet lead me
these days.

So, punctuate me, please, so I know when my first act ceases
and Your intermission:

New paradigm please!

Speak to me, I can’t figure it out anymore.
I’ll say, “If you say, ‘let the vision wait’, I’ll wait”
But I’m rock-sure I’m uncertain which is Your vision
and my screenplay.

Strike the set, already!

I’ll stand stark on the black paint stage floor,
won’t call it a monologue with nothing to say;

a listening play.

The cast is now seated, legs up on the couch,
ready to vouch for every word You might say.