Once and Now

Once and Now

(“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:9)

Once and now sometimes, hollow is my
experience of daily rain and fog. Then and
here sometimes, empty is the word that
flies in and out of my mind.
Like underneath the rocks and mud there
are moments that disconnect me from golden sayings
I want to know.

But your love filled the fellow passengers who
glide rotating on sacred places. Every step we take
is an Edenic memory. Every day another awakening;
a rising sun to replace the dirge of dragging night.

Some days feel like decades, some hours like slow
motion riders. Feeling the mainlines through the years,
casting cares across the centuries, waiting became my
posture. I struggled for clarity, a calendar with appointments
full of destinations I would never visit. Come to think of it,
most of my travels were time-bound, turned around placements
of carousel dreams.

But in a single point of time, you met me stripped of
your glory
and walk the dirt I walk, weeded the ground I weeded,
breathed the late afternoons that had me catching my breath.
You capture me with a glance; you showed me your humanity
that carried your divinity and I was amazed. Your hands, like
my hands,
You are a king in peasant garb, a royal in old denim jeans.
I am astonished with a meteor bursting through the atmosphere,
and I release my doubts, realize my jump-starts, and restore
the opening sentences that tell your story broad.

Only Once

Only Once

(“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and his heart was stirred with love and pity. He ran to him, hugged him tight, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20b)

I have only once been kissed by a man,
a big black man,
10 years my junior,
6 inches higher.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
save my father as I bobbled saggily in diapers,
but I was kissed by a man in
the last church my dad ever attended.

I had skipped several meetings, the table talk,
the bread dipped in wine. The last time had been
weeks beyond my memory. But he saw me
as my feet fell into a carpet covered Sunday.

He is boisterous; he thinks everyone is wonderful.
He is full noon at the beginning of the day.
His wife, not quite prim, but proper, shines
more silently.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
black-suited, like a heart-seeking missile he
saw me enter and
wrapped his huge arms around my receptive shoulders
and kissed me on the cheek so quickly
I had no time to think and no place to run.
I was stunned in the most gracious way.

Sometimes our hearts are towed from squared
basements and foundations
toward a horizon where the sea mist caresses us
like the first time I ever
was kissed by a man.

For Once

(“I was eyes for the blind person. I was feet for the lame person.” Job 29:15)

You took the lives that were broken eggshells,
the eyes that had not slept in weeks,
and rocked them like a lullaby, and sang them
like a hymn.

You took the ears assaulted by spears and arrows,
and listened to the sparrows for them,
heard the promises of lovers and
danced for them to the tune of children’s laughter.

You took their feet, shrunken with time,
and walked the forest among the pines for them,
marched in the parade and plunged your toes in the mud
for them. You massaged the scales and the brittle nails
that displayed their age too soon.

You took their soul, fragile as a soap bubble in the wind,
and flew it like a kite for them,
despite the unpolite words of those
who do not understand how love can take
the saddest of them. You took their soul,
crumbling like desert clods,
and rained for them in tears that,
(let no one know) for once
were not their own.