The Bathroom Mirror

 The Bathroom Mirror

(“His miracles are unforgettable. The Lord is kind and merciful.” Psalm 111:4)

He stared into the bathroom mirror,
the one with 1970s décor,
the basin was avocado, mirror framed in
wood masquerading as bronze, with even the hint
of varnish turned green.
He had looked every day for nearly seventy years,
20,000 times in his life the image appeared behind the
mist he had just toweled away after shaving and a
shower.
The hair was whiter, the face fuller, the eyes bore more
sadness than he desired. And, reversed as it was,
he rarely saw
himself as others did,
and negated their compliments when offered.

But, one Thursday morning, waking late, he opened the
bathroom door, put the dot of toothpaste on his electrical brush,
and ran it over teeth more rugged than he remembered. He rarely
used the mirror for
dental hygiene.

He took the shaving cream, a can of green and white circles,
and put a dollop in his hand. (40 years ago he filled his palm with
a snowcone of cream. It only created a beard of tiny bubbles.)
He learned the tiny amount was sufficient and massaged it into
his warm cheeks and chin and neck. He took the razor, now
five blades. He wondered, if he lived another 70 years, would he
heft a shaver with an even dozen cutting surfaces. And laughed
within. Applying the razor to his left cheek he checked the mirror

And his hand refused to move.

It had not been like that yesterday. He had never noticed it before.
Today, glancing at his image, the mirror was cracked, deep cracks,
long cracks, leaving large pieces of glass looking like continents
on a sea-less map.

He had also felt like that. He thought this was the truest
reflection yet. There were four of him, or were there five?
One had two eyes, one had three. One cut off his chin,
one enlarged his mouth. He never liked his reflection,
and now liked it less.

He never replaced the mirror. He had the money, but
maybe not the time. And he did not cry over the broken image
he saw now, each morning. But, for the next 3,000 days found
new things about his face. And picked one to show the world each day.

Call Me with Coffee

 Call Me with Coffee

(“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12)

Today light was handed me through a clouded sky,
and so my confidence lies partly awakened
and partly shaken;
life is like that.

Egos are like that.
A flash in the night, a comet out of gas,
a star you saw yesterday hides behind
a hundred moons.

I’ve given up my toys, but not my play.
I’ve given up my chums, but not my friends.
I’ve given up my pretensions, but not my dreams.
I’ve given up the timeouts, but not my curiosity.

Today was wet like yellow raincoats,
and so my letters melt slowly on the pavement,
partly faded.
Memories are like that.

Today is like that.
A wish for the past, a vision that did not last,
a story, a song, a friend beyond arm’s reach
and a hundred years long.

I’ve given up award shows, but not my creations.
I’ve given up tattling, but not truth-telling.
I’ve given up flattery, but not greeting cards.
I’ve given up standing in line, but not patience.

Today could be like that.
I have not disappeared at all. I live within
the chemical flashes of your brain. But your
voice is hidden from me,
and your warmth escaped like the first frost of autumn.
Some fences are like that.

I would have kept you in my field of vision,
I would have revised my strategy until you knew
there were no reasons for walls or silence
or u-turns of offense. Only friends who, like the
molecules of water,
sometimes are drunk from cups and
sometimes empty into the sea.
Today is like that; today, if you think it,
call me with coffee on your mind.

Of Reflections, Tears and Treasures

 

Of Reflections, Tears and Treasures

I never see my own heart well. Mirrors seem useless,
reflecting my previous view of darkness.
And though I’m told that mirrors never lie
I question the reflection that saddens the image I see.

Though I am troubled by what I view, yours shines
perfectly and brightly to me. (do the photons that ricochet
off silvered glass change shape as they pass our perception?)

It must feel like a carousel minus circus horses,
or like the icy bite of winter. Yet,
all I’ve ever seen is a fawn and innocent beauty
frightened by the slamming doors of the city.
I know the sort of tears you cry, and they are
priceless, purified.

I do not overrate it, the light in your eyes.
I hope you’ll celebrate it, even when the morning cries.

I’ve been lonely just like you
(well, not just like)
you are purer than me.

I have devised my own dark madness;
yours has been forced upon you. And still
you love
while the sounds of war whir round your days.

As I lay praying that my dreams would not feature
the meanness I have known (some I rented, some I owned)
I thought of you and wondered
if you see your reflection as clearly
as I see you.

The hours can be giants, the shadows crouching lions,
but they defy the glow and fire
in the heart of one
whose pain rearranges the mirrored perception. So plainly
I will say,
I see the pain, the tears, the rain that seems unending.

But clearer than that I see a soul who wears a pendant
hidden from the storm (a jewel, a treasure, the color constant
against the crashing thunder). Believe my eyes
if you cannot believe your own;
the image I see often comforts me
for I also rarely believe my own.

A Mirror to Mine

A Mirror to Mine

(“Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production.” 1 Samuel 15:22 [The Message])

While the corners are piled with the world’s castaways
we play wise men and Herod, Pilate and centurions,
enacting ancient stories with smoke effects and children’s choirs.

Give me a single day of passion. A cloudless vision of the womb-love
of God. Give me lace with mud, scratched silver and old pennies found
at the foot of gnarled apple trees determined to offer their fruit against all
odds.

While the borders are crowded with castoff peasants
we buy better security to protect our audio-visual equipment in
our not-so-sacred places. We dig to the bottom of our blue-jean
pockets to give our last dollar for this year’s software update.

Give me a single year of housing. A flag refurled so the colors bleed
into each other. Give me huts and haunts, swollen knuckles and young babies
brought to the foot of our fears. Show me their faces, and hold a mirror
to mine.

Put the nation on pause, please. Give the pastor some time, this time,
to meet Jesus again. And unlock the doors we closed when we feared
politics might enter and become converted. We have one too many flags
in our churches.

“Give us this day our daily bread”: we’ve forgotten how You broke,
and blessed, and gave Yours away.

“Give us this day…” for our mercy seems to have evaporated away.

“Give us this day…” and we will put it in our knapsacks and give it away.

Give us some time, this time, to meet Jesus again.

Whispers Home

Whispers Home

(pour une amie)

Never trust a mirror distorted by blood words;
by one-vowel epithets like sword-thrusts to the brain.
Your image is befogged by the hot breath
of boiling sentences cracking upon the lava dome
sealed over and over, (a blind eye’s slap on the hand,
a fuming heat, molten sand) so that scar and wound
explode too closely. The eyes

Once soft with love, the man you found to
take you (a piece here, a piece there), a man
you hoped would astound you; he saw the
finished work while you were still shattered;
shards on concrete and lawn.

But he churned instead; his eyes
crimson red and not staring. His gaze looked ahead,
behind, through and over, but never
at the beauty he could behold if only
he had not boiled over, scalding the love
that could have made his own debris a
creation of love, degree after degree.

You are love, and listen; you are loved.
You are beauty, and behold; you are pretty,
appealing; worth gold fired twice,
worth translucent jewels; a renewal that hears
the better Word, the truer Names that
princesses carry; that have taken everything the
hateful sounds could muster, and waited,

And prayed

And waited, and wore her beauty
like Spring’s first clear morning; the fog
dispersed overnight, the roses bedewed
at first light, and her eyes shining the way new
mothers do, at the first sight and sound of
the tiny life she will love with embraces and
protective glances;

The richest and deepest brown, her eyes were
beauty too, for each happy acquaintance who,
with lost bearings finds her the welcome that
whispers “home” over the ocean’s explosions.

She is beauty; and she will still be from day,
to year, to decade and again. Call her daughter,
sister, mate or friend; she is beauty, then and now
and to the end.