Near The Top of The Hill

Near The Top of The Hill

(“Because of our God’s merciful compassion, the dawn from on high will visit us.” Luke 1:78)

The trail was no longer visible,
time and rain and winds and snow
had scraped the surface down to
virgin earth again.

All anyone could see was the lone stranger
silhouetted on the hill and
no one
asked how he got there.

But he knew.
But was too far away for his voice to carry.
He knew the company he kept at the
trailhead years ago.
He knew the risks they took and the
trout they caught
in waning daylight.
He could remember it all

Alone

Near the top of the hill.

Only a few had left him,
the rest simply scattered to other adventures.
Now the only connections he had were
electrons--
and wifi--
though that was spotty on the solitary lightyears
where he dwelt.

All anyone could see was a foggy figure
on the gray days when mist
turned the mountains to mystery again.
Those were the moments that prompted
theories of myth.

He was only a man.

Some days it felt as if his heart was left behind
somewhere near the beginning of the trail.
One degree off course and decades to walk
led him to the lonely seclusion he
had not chosen.

Each day began and
each day ended.
And those who looked on

Wondered what they had missed.

Far Enough Away

Far Enough Away

“The Lord is merciful and righteous. Our God is compassionate.” Psalm 116:5

Spun far outside my tribal galaxy
I’d like a slice of dopamine
please.

I don’t know why, but someone noted that
we deserve nothing from the divine. Without mercy,
without compassion,
we are assigned only a fiery brine.

I reject that notion outright. Right-out loud now.

Far enough away to recognize the echoes from decades
of ingrown notions, my mind spins at those once close
who love the dictates concerning shithole nations, women’s faces
bleeding,
and blaspheming the life of Christ in wanderers who come to us
like Mary and Joseph journeyed to Egypt.
(notice, I have no ellipses.)

And while we leave them like fanciful dung,
there is a God who “lifts the needy from the garbage heap.”

There is sun for your face, beloved.
There are kisses of love.
There is fog, but blue above.
There is new for you in the circle that
embraces everything.

But some lap up mercy like milk,
and beg for more after the dishes are washed and dried.
Then refuse it those orbiting outside, beyond the walls,
beyond the rules and laws we write to control how many
falls we are allowed;
then, I fear, right out loud, the cupboard is empty and
the bowl is quite broken.

There are bluebirds for your ears, beloved.
There are waltzes of love.
There is fear, but mercy above.
There are myriads and myriads
around the throne
who speak a language never known.

And the kingdom will come (on earth as in heaven)
when we stop sanctifying gravity
and learn the lesson of unholy leaven.

False Portents

False Portents
(and failed importance)

So now some new prophets are spewing old judgments at
the new sins they think
the country is sinking in.
Where were they when brothers hung from trees,
their necks broken while their lynchers lit fires
and made plans to meet up for chicken fried steak
right after church and singing “Just as I Am”
one more time.

Where are your harbingers, you judgments of doom,
about how immigrants stole the first nations’ lands,
lying with pen and word about treaties and trading
and never warring again with the redman. The first
feet upon the magical land’s dirt carried the same
blood as the feet which disembarked from boats on
sand. There was no Manifest Destiny that blew
the bobbles across the sea. Where is your Great Judgment
of God
at the men who left bodies strewn across the prairie and
thought they carried orders as they rode away while
the blood seeped into sod.

Come now, you who forget your Father’s great mercy,
who ignore the greatest Command ever uttered by One.
Where are your words about buying people like firewood,
treating women like luggage and questioners like lepers
(which is silly, we know, for all we know, that even if
you could catch the dread disease for an east wind blowing,
from the west breeze slowing it all until it rested within
your next inhalation. And Jesus touched them, while all
ran from their bells and hid their children inside closets
where the foul air could not reach their impressionable lungs).

Where are your words about unreasonable force,
false remorse, religious bigots and bone-dry spigots that
once poured grace. Where, oh Seer, have you wandered
to perceive
the love so unrestrained it burns the arrogant in its flames,
returns the first blow with only stillness,
walks the second mile out of the sheer bliss of
obedience to the Son of His love

Who, better than your contemporary pronouncements,
announced the Father who rains and shines and invites
and designs the best way, the merciful way, for the

Wicked

and the Good.