Raising My Hand

Raising My Hand

(“God’s grace is multiplied even more for many people with the gift—of the one person Jesus Christ—that comes through grace.” Romans 5:15b)

I used to be the first to raise my hand
and ask leading questions in search of agreement.
I used to jump through the opening sliver of windows
to explore the meanings I had already defined.
I could take them like mountains on the skyline,
I could refine them like new words unsigned.

I never contemplated long, it all was a bore;
but I filled my head with information and could tell you
what all the thinking was for.
I could take the voices, I could sing the songs
much longer than the epochs would allow.
I could see the heart of the matter inside the
walls that held every cautious belief safely inside.

I kept it up for far too long. I was certain I would
coax the applause of the redeemed by my well-reasoned
monologues and time. But the sand moved
quickly
beneath my feet and the heat of a thousand suns
pushed me down until the launch party I had
dreamed about burned on the sinking ground.

I heard silence and it was frightening.
I had no more questions to ask.
I had no defense. Everything felt recent,
every turn of the road another foolish move
meant to find the meaning of my vanishing words.
There was one breath I could not escape,
one song, one tune, one lyric of grace.
So I walked softly again and tried to apprehend
the way the sand felt between my toes and the
sun toasted my shoulders.  

Time Hugged the Curves

Time Hugged the Curves

(“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:20a)

Time hugged the curves and could have turned
bitter (the over-brewed tea in the bottom of the cup.)
The ad libs did not come as easily
and the faces of everyone I’ve ever loved
met my thoughts through the fog.
I have auditioned new recipes, new shortcuts,
new days walking to school a dozen years old.

Today you know what I know,
another hit and the engine sputters to the
bottom of the hill.
It will not climb another, overheating and
coughing, I watch behind me for a ride
up the road.

Today I’ve told you the news,
(though the headline might read differently tomorrow)
I would rather cruise through your world and mine
hiding the wear and tear. Repaired or not,
I hear the voices of my children and Dad
is the sweetest syllable. The generations mix
from memories of floating sticks in the gutter
to the times I muttered my apologies too indistinct
to matter. (The headlines are not always honest.)

Wait for me at the top of the hill,
I’m not there yet, but I can see it from here.
You are my exclamation points; my friends,
my loves, my family. My unmapped
meander seeks an endpoint, a place where
we all can gather. A picnic that will not end
with sunset, a week of improvisation,
a year of touching the skin;
sound waves only wear out the heart.

No matter what I uncover, no matter lost or won,
no matter if my movements are slower than when
I began,
I still watch for a ride up the road,
a split second when everyone I’ve known
sparkles with the wink that says,
“I understand.”

Matter

Matter

(“Tie them on your hands and wear them on your foreheads to help you remember my teachings.” Deuteronomy 6:8)

We need no further instruction, we are full, we are satisfied;
We do not need the signs along the boulevard, and please do not
bring them to my neighborhood.
My Life Matters: that’s all you need to know.

My Life Matters, but has never been mistaken for a felon.
My Life Matters, and I can trace my relatives back to tobacco and cotton farms,

bogs and peats before crossing in hope, the Great Blue.
My portage was paid, my travel discretionary.
My Life Matters: where would you be without me?

Your Life Matters? Of course, but only as it relates to me.
Your Life Matters: And your relatives crossed the same Tossing Sea, though
I grant you against their will. But the climate was better, and jobs awaited you
once you brought the right price at auction.
Your Life Matters: but I just don’t see why you are making such a fuss.
Weren’t you freed? Aren’t you living the Dream? I know the school
where you live sits like an abandoned air force base; sand in the bubblers,
weeds between the crumbling pavement cracks.

Black Lives Matter, and after letting time rush between our feet, the
river we never catch,
and after letting reason have sway over the reflexes that make our mouth
into a muttering mass of artillery rounds, we pause

And honor your suffering without cause.

We will only say All Lives Matter when we put, at the head of our line,
those forced to the back and beyond empathy’s reach. Until then

I (cannot speak for “we” now) will honor the Meaning of every
sorrow, every grief, every cloud that should not have perched above
the barrel of a gun too quickly squeezed by an officer of the Peace.

I will honor the Uniforms who embrace the best wisdom, who
sit at the feet of the inner city father long enough to hear,
who let themselves weep at another neighbor’s pain,
who, along with their tears, look humbly in the eyes
of a black man’s grief, and lead the amen, the rhythm
of brotherhood alive again, and can repeat the humble refrain,
the quiet unison above the foolish chatter;
“I understand now, and with you say, without doubt,
without deceit..

Black

Lives

Matter

Beyond

Beyond

(“You are wonderful, Lord, and you deserve all praise, because you are much greater than anyone can understand.” Psalm 145:3)

It is not so much that I have waited too long,
or that you have been late in arriving (the very last thing
I would consider). It may even be that I waited to see
the unseeable. I listened like a recording technician,
faithful to the layers and bursts, the measures and rests,
as well as the melody the composer invented on paper.

And now, just as I was blind for looking too dimensional,
I must admit I was waiting as well for the unhearable.

Your light is not so dim that we only see its faint glow
against the darkest black on the market;
Your voice is not so faint that we only hear it when even
the crickets have lost their nerve.

Your light is higher, and, though the word is understood,
even the word does little good, and yet, I will say, you are

Brighter.

But it is not a matter of lumens or wavelength, it is our limited
perception. We see, and are blind. We point out the sparkle upon the river,
the diamonds overrunning the waterfall and the rainbow in the mist.
And, thinking we have seen it all, we measure glory, for which
there is no measure,
we measure glory a factor above the daylight cast upon our
favored view. We even saw what few others viewed.

Neither are you too faint for our human ears. We know by rote
that dogs can hear what we cannot. But your language comes
to be heard, sometimes by the singing bird, others the crash
of the river as it diverts its flow upon an ancient boulder in its path.

Those are surely your notes, your memos, the table of contents
for Creation’s greatest novel. And perhaps the silence is your language
full. For we confuse the silence with emptiness, and go searching for
another poet to sing our blues.

Beyond and above, greater and below, in radial love like
a circular embrace, what we do not hear may be the best of

All we have heard.