To Memorize Their Names

To Memorize Their Names

(“Whoever gives to the poor will never lack, but whoever shuts his eyes to their poverty will be cursed.” Proverbs 28:27)

After the doors closed, we
counted the coins
and divided them among
everyone assembled in the
backlit room. The odds were
less than even
that everyone received their full share.
We were nice to each other, but it was more
necessary that we remind ourselves there are
not races, no curses that keep us from poverty
when we need the food that will save our souls.

Even the Almighty cries for
the paucity that deprives a neighbor just
a door away from our prosperity.
I am another privileged one who figures
I’ve done good enough to deserve the amount
that has mounted up in my bank account.

After we drop off the canned goods, we expect
to be patted on the head like a good dog rescuing the
baby from the well. We didn’t even stay for dinner.
We didn’t even stay long enough to memorize their names.

Memorize the Faces

Memorize the Faces

(“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for well-being and not for trouble, to give you a future and a hope.’” Jeremiah 29:11)

Start. Why do you scale the walls of anger when
peace is within reach? Aim.
Cancel every subscription to insanity and seek
the places where
sunlight reaches every crevice, every imagined slight.
Why do you accept invitations to trouble
when
there are bridges the connect us all?
Place.
Did you make reservations for the patch of land
you so patriotically protect? Who was there
before you,
and after, who will own it then?
Send.
Write it down. Memorize the faces that cry
out,
(what a crime)
for mothers moments before dying.

Every bottle in the cupboard has been mislabeled,
the horizon is blocked by the mountains you’ve built.
Show.

Look around at Babylon, (do you disdain its idols?)
and send a letter home about the friends you’ve found.

Last, learn to love and
First.

To Memorize Their Song

 

To Memorize Their Song

(“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7)

I held the ticket in my hand as long as I could,
I boarded the train, the thunder shook, the rains
explained their course in fractals across the windows.
I sat in the observation deck but there was nothing to see.
I had taken the overnight,
and the plains passed blackly underneath my eyes.

The blindness increased the emptiness sitting
alone
next to the cold gray window.
Just a mom and a daughter sitting behind me,
sweet sixteen and the youngest of three,
their conversation was spotty, like the first verse
of a folk song. Then retuning for the next.
Or more like a Dylan song,
where you don’t know if the middle verse
is the first
and the last is the overture. The words were fast
to start with,
punctuated silence between the breaths.
High school, boyfriends, future plans,
cool mom, hair bands, and dance recitals
began before she was five.
I heard it all, the delightful duet colored
my blue night better. They did complain
(everyone does on a train. At night. Crossing the plains)
The seats were sore, the sights were boring, the food was
bland and not a teenage boy in sight.
But their song always ended with laughter or
the kind of sigh when two people know the rest
of the story
and the listener only knows the patina.

I held my ticket until I disembarked.
I walked past the singers on my way out.
Asleep now, leaning into each other with
a single blanket covering their laps. Two flowers
I caught at full bloom. But it made me wonder
what care it had taken, what nurturing, whispered encouragement,
notes left on the fridge, or rides to practice had
distracted them from all the danger that can drive
the best love away.

I kept my ticket to memorize their song.

Shoes on the Beach

 

Shoes on the Beach

(“The Captain of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take your shoes off your feet. For the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:15)

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no ones hears you coming on the cold winter sand.
You can watch the waves, foamy stars; you can stand
for days before time reminds you of the friends
who once watched with you.

There are no duties on the beach
and no one makes you take up arms against enemies.
You can breathe the mist, salty wine; you can leave
the future as you memorize the driftwood at your feet.
Smooth, white, gray and light; you wonder its origin
and family tree.

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no one cares about sand or mud-caked toes. As
the world turns the sun toward down humanity thins
as the horizon is crowned. Perhaps the unknown few
will warm the chill, earthy flames; perhaps they will
let the sea touch their ankles, the fire touch their hearts
and slowly discern the holy love circulated without.

Within.