An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

(“All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who disobey and oppose me.” Romans 10:21b)

There are things I used to see only
from the corner of my eye. There was dancing
on the next street over,
there were puppies at the construction site.
There was handwriting I refused to read,
there were songs I set aside.

I never locked my doors, but I built my
walls high to
support the roof, to protect my head from
anything falling un-alphabetically.
I had categories for principles, labels so
the contents would not surprise me. I knew the
names by the languages I heard.

With my door closed tight, I lost sight of
the way the soul shines outside my structured steeples.
(Did I tell you I built my walls? That is not true.
I moved into domiciles manufactured well before
I moved in.)
I was never a carpenter. I occupied land and
closed the door.

It did not take a hurricane. I’m not sure, but it
happened as the earth shifted below the floorboards.
Overnight, over time, over my head, leaning over,
my walls fell and met the wet ground, all four sides
around.

And I saw.

The dancing was an invitation to play.
The puppies were prophetic, the handwriting
poetic. The songs were
nursery rhymes and soap bubbles I had locked outside.

I had lived in a house of mirrors, seeing only the images that
glanced back to me.
I rebuilt a house, a home of windows.

Today was the last day in my well-paneled home.

My Body Hates Me

 

My Body Hates Me

(“Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters…and he moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob.” Genesis 36:6)

Tell me what it is you want me to choose; what is the payoff,
I am so confused.
It feels like a cartoon convention that might have
turned into a disaster if not for the intervention of bodies in the sun
making short work of a huge backyard chore left undone.
By the end of the day the brush pile had been chipped and sent
over the hill.

I should be grateful; more than I guessed helped with the
monumental task.
Instead I hated my life even more. My body
refuses to do what it should. The pain wraps my face
as I try to set a reasonable pace. The rented machinery
roars in my ears and I do not want to appear useless
as I take more breaks than anyone.

My body is no longer my friend. My body hates me.
Weekends once spent on the tennis court are
now spent in pain on the couch.

I feel guilty, I feel ashamed while this
ungodly pain
keeps me from seeing anything through.
I cannot work outdoors four hours with my friends,
and a single song takes me months to record.

Before the end of the day, I simply quit.
I went inside, drank cold water and tried to sleep.
I hate my body, useless on the couch. Who knows,
maybe I fake all this pain to get out of the hard stuff.
The depression creeps in like a fog thick as pudding.

And then the work is done. I face everyone. They know
I quit. Their eyes are on me, they care for me, but I feel
I must
plead guilty
for not holding up my end. I live as an invalid,
and I am not an invalid.

People are kind, some half my age,
spent half a day tackling a monstrous chore. My brain
knows more than my body will admit. I was blessed today,
but my tears rain on well into the evening; my ego took a hit. Yes,
I suppose that explains it.

So, help me make up my mind; is there a warm front to
dry my idiot tears? I am blessed, I am cursed; the worst
and the best
are ever at my doorstep. The pain has made my body
the enemy. But the friends, the family are
my remedy.