When the Noise Has Scattered

When the Noise Has Scattered

(“Perhaps the Lord will see my affliction and restore goodness to me instead of Shimei’s curses today.” 2 Samuel 16:12)

When the noise has scattered,
when the sky is shattered,
when the paths that mattered now seem
unfastened from the hillside,

How do we hide our fear? How do we regroup,
(circles or pyramids) outside the doors that
once invited us in?

When the songs are deployed,
when the prayers are employed,
when the chants we enjoyed now fall
unwritten from the towers,

How do we hid our grief? How do we refine,
(ignite or liquefy) inside the walls that
now all box us in?

When fire is rewarded,
when love is reworded,
when the priests discarded the low
unwelcome from the banquets,

How do we hide our tears? How do we resolve,
(theses and discourses) above the debates
that lock us all out?

We waited the way patients do,
simply hoping for some good news.
We tasted the honey, imbibed the perfume,
we drank the new wine, dined beneath the blooms.

And still we wondered why,
despite every well-oiled presentation,
so few wandered in, and when they did,
why they never stayed long.

The Seeds Live in Silence

 

The Seeds Live in Silence

(“Solomon did not want the noise of hammers and axes to be heard at the place where the temple was being built. So he had the workers shape the blocks of stone at the quarry.” 1 Kings 6:7)

The seeds live in dark silence through the cool days
of early Spring. Dogs and deer and rabbits and humans
walk over the dirt of the tiny graves.
Tombs are always quiet places; filled or empty,
embodied or embalmed.
The first hour of the morning, while dew rests on
new grass
and the breeze has barely awakened,
you can hear the respiration of the world
as the last star fades before the sun.
Daybreak rarely shouts its glory.

As the sun arcs across the sky, we count the days
by dying and reviving; a cycle of seven and the
calendar mentions we are back to the same day again.
The seeds find photons of light and, still quiet,
stretch their shoots up like worship. Before the next
solar circle the buttercream blossoms will smile at the morning.

The hammers fell so loud you could hear the crack of wood and bone
all the way down the hill and to the outskirts of town.
Three more accused, three more collapsed with the grain,
not against it. No one held their tongue; it was a Friday
night fight
to the death with wagers placed by soldiers with
nothing much to do. They offered cigarettes to each other,
gawked at the naked shame and hoped the dying would be
over soon;
dinner was waiting at home.

Tombs are always quiet places, especially the first hour
of the morning.
But one tomb, borrowed; a gift really, held more than
broken bones or punctured hearts. One tomb rebirthed
us all as the angels spoke that

He had risen and paved the way for them to meet him
later in the day.

The women who approached the silent grave left to follow,
to tell what they had seen and heard, and yet,
in their silence,
were unsure exactly what to say.

The Pain Took Over

The Pain took Over

(“The path of the godly leads to life. So why fear death?” Proverbs 12:28)

There are days for sitting outside the tent,
leaves and needles scattered, pinecones the squirrels have
rattled, and the wisps of last night’s fire are faint smoke
in the midmorning warm. No one offered, before I turned 20,
that days like these might cease, that age would counter the
delight of waking in the woods.

There are days for waking before the children,
vacation opens the door, the chivalry of open-ended mornings.
Those days, having found a grassy patch, mom and dad
have the grey cabin tent to themselves. Two young boys giggle
in their two-man dome tent next door. Dad was always gone
before they awoke,
and returned by the time coffee was on. He had discovered
his anonymous café. No one suggested, before I turned 50,
that I would rarely wake before 10.

When the pain took over, it was a downhill coast across weeks,
(allergy, infection, spinal fluid, immune reaction), and had to end
at the bottom of the hill bouncing with only an annoying start.

When the pain too over, it was a nonstop careen down the months,
(rare disease, unknown cause, no cure, relief a mirage), pinball
crashing from specialist to specialist; each appointment a
half-hour dissertation of the physicians’ reputation and an empty
jug of answers: $150 per hour please.

When the pain took over, it was monotonous train clacking down the years,
(same song, same verse, more drugs, no cures), pinball machines
attack my pain like a steam-engine demolishing meditative retreat.

No one told me, an hour, two at the most, is all, before I’m 60,
I can focus; read, paint, write or sing. Set up camp: out of the question.
Run down a forehand: leave my head on the baseline. Take
my darling to dinner: lay my head upon the table.

Cry and hope, question and sling the quiet out the window;
I’ve heard the answers, the air, the acquaintance, the songs,
the patience I am told inspires the bold.

If I could choose one afternoon, it would be, soon please,
to live from then till dusk without a single grimace at all. 

Noise and Hammers

Noise and Hammers

(“Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys his servant? Whoever walks in deep darkness, without light, should trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.” Isaiah 50:10)

Late the sounds we've held in memory careen
on waves like storm fronts in battle array. A song
we danced to and background conversation meet
in the middle above the microwave beeps and beneath
the four year old screams; no one seems to notice,
staring at the shared-screen movie with sub-titles on.

But one hears, each noise echo off wall and floor at
the same level, the volume building as each source is
added; punctuated by pain above the temples which has
eaten through the filter. All is loud, all is equal,
all is surround, each voice a crowd, every whisper
a personal intrusion into the life that once
played in sound like

a child in a bathtub with water running.

He goes downstairs before his crinkled brow betrays him,
staying as long as he can with each noise that families never
live without. It is the mix of yelps and lapping, the puppies
clicking their nails on the hardwood floor. It is the
“Dr. Who” gladly, the granddaughter proudly, the son returned
from Guatemala, peaking his Peace Corps stay upon the highest
volcano. It is the oldest son with wife, the youngest daughter
wrestling for the place on the sofa with both boys she tells
the entire universe about. Every vibration is celebration;
a family as comfortable as Christmas.

But for the one whose head has become anvil for the hammer,
he hopes no one thinks he loves the noise any less
than former days when he shouted the loudest at guessing
the winning answer late into the night.

Buzz or Thunder

Buzz or Thunder

“The proud religious law-keepers said among themselves, ‘Look, we are losing followers. Everyone is following Jesus!” John 12:19

Sometimes the sounds of crowds are just the buzz
like ocean breakers
to lull me back to sleep, deeply completing the dreams
that never appear upon waking.

Just like the scrum after a fumble, with blues and whites
rolling on the green; no one can tell who the ball belongs to,
no one can see the possession, it takes so long to
wrestle the padded combatants from the leather ball
that looks as if it landed here from Mars or farther.

The noise at the endzone, winning or losing, would wake a baby
finally nursed, sweetly breathing. Sticking everything in the infants’ mouth,
from cheerios to fingers, pursehandles to jacket sleeves;
the thunder shakes the earth discordant. Though, if the child
grows up with the barking of partisans, she may enjoy the rumbling
the wakes the dead and keeps the dog shivering under the bed.

Success sells, they say, but my way of thinking is to sell the best,
and the rest will likely follow.

I am sorry, my Savior, that today we would rather cheer a
pink limousine, and hope that Christina A. or Britney S.
is riding in the back reading a magazine. It’s a story
for cafeteria talk, and the room would be ours once.

But, like Jesus disciples, we want the children to keep their
little mouths shut, walk quietly and properly around the house
we call His,
for reverence must outweigh enthusiasm, and so we have learned
to cheer at the far end of the endzone

And whisper at the end of every Amen.