The Space Between Us

 

The Space Between Us

(“Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good.” Romans 6:13b)

I would have shown up, I think you know that.
I would have given you everything you needed,
everything I have that could heal your broken heart.
I would never hold back,
never blame you for the uncured wounds you carry
like hastily written plans for a defensee strateghy to
keep you from being hurt again.

You knew I would show up. And that is why
I wonder where your words for me have gone.
I would walk as long as it takes to be by your side,
to write the letter that sets it all straight, to
line up the sights so you can see the distant
daylight again. I would point you toward the full moon
filling the wintery darkness with new light.

I know it must still hurt for you because it
still hurts for me. Oh for that one last conversation
where we hug like it means something and we walk away
with tears or smiles. Oh for the open words that
salve the wounds that cripple us like walkers on the road.

Here is my hand, offer my yours. Here is my heart,
still pained over things I can never change. Share with me
your own heart
and pernaps that days will shine brighter

We are both beautiful, you and I, and have been
since before we met and we doubted our worth.
I, me, thou and thee. We are pronouns to everyone else,
but given names to each other. I call your name and you
speak mine and we get closer to resolving the unhappy
nature that led us to doubt the intimate cradling
that surrounds the universe, that invites us all to
discovers the space between us immeasurable.

You Tend Your Garden Well

You Tend Your Garden Well

(“Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” Zechariah 7:10)

Did you offer them bread from the loaves
decorating your kitchen? Did you pour them wine
the moment it seemed the time was right?
Did you hear them knock on the door and
did you happily open even though you knew
they would leave you more weightless than before?

I know you’ve ached before, haven’t you?
I know you’ve slaked your thirst, didn’t you?
I know it’s been years for you, but for them
there is no setting sun to disappear their cravings
for necessary food. I think you knew that chapter
before you opened the book.

I hope you believe their stories, I hope you listen well.
I hope you believe their inventories of pain. I hope you feel well.

But what do I know? People call me political when
I make any noise for the hurting and neglected, and
they aim for my head telling me it’s not my place.

The moment you close your heart you dismantle the possibilities
that could feed the starving at least through tomorrow. Fire up
the hearth in your heart, let the liquid warmth of the sun behind your back
take you tears and make them heavier than you can bear.

You tend your garden well so that no red rose petal
goes unaccounted for.

No Regular Work

No Regular Work

(“You shall do no regular work, and you shall offer a food offering made by fire to the Lord” Leviticus 23:25)

My mind has done all the heavy lifting,
and now will not stay silent, filling my earth and sky
with visions of places decades of spaces away.
I may rest, I may recline,
I may spend my time adding movies to my queue,
but my mind races ahead. I cannot spend any time
alone without it rehearsing something I
wish I had not said.

I would take a sabbath now, but I tow every mistake with me
to the lake, to the river, to the isolated pew
in the tiny chapel where the dew is still on the roses.

I suppose it does not matter, this muscling of my thoughts,
except they scatter the melodies that angels sing here and
only now (not then) and I begin again with days so long they
move backwards toward the dawn.

Yes, my brain is more energetic than my brawn, but it also
is befogged and hears the basso horn sounding the alarm
(but I cannot fathom the depth of the beach that surrounds the island)
sounding the alarm
as my chest vibrates with its imperceptible voice. I forget
why I came here and where my body belongs.

It remembers songs I used to sing, stages I boarded,
music I played outside on the square or inside in the
ballroom repeating a second set of jazz after people
finally began to dance.

My brain fills my days like a dirty martini,
unclear and wet; the dreams unmet leak from me
in brackish streams.

So, no, I will do no regular work today, and,
if I may,
I will offer (like a cantor) memorized words
and pieces, sentences and phrases, jigsaw pieces
of incompletion. My conceptions have gone
astray.

So, yes, I will write these words today, and,
I still pray,
they will speak to every love and friend who
knew me well enough to keep the
day tremors away.