I Wander Less Lonely

I Wander Less Lonely

(“May he be pleased with my song, for my gladness comes from him.” Psalm 104:34)

With open arms I master the song that pools through my mind.
Every breath is full of the divine,
every step so much closer to his abode within.
I throw off the apprehension that keeps me a child of fear.
I create unedited psalms for the king who occupies my ways.
The words from my mouth, the lyrics I write are
meant to be
full of gladness and running over with praise.

It is the little things, after all, isn’t it? A grandson
who wants to play tag with his Papa, who wants to sit in
his lap to read the same story three times in a row.
All this, and more, directs my heart toward the Creator
of my song. Children occupy the altars of my mind,
the spaces left open for celestial celebrations of joy.
Every playful invitation to play is seen as God’s invitation.
Every giggle another reason to breathe fully the depth of creation.
Wouldn’t it be right to take the funny language of toddlers
as the holy voice of God? Wouldn’t it be healing to believe
every unequaled squeal as the instigation of faith?
And when he insists I share his popsicle,
how can I seen it as anything other than the generosity of God?

And so I search the atmosphere for more clues of
the ways of God in the universe. So I take each birdsong as
an invitation to sing like I belong to the continuing creation
and nature’s own symphony.

Taken together, the songs and the words, the play and the giggles,
the unending repetition of his favorite things, I wander less lonely,
I carry my burdens more lightly. And I send words toward heaven
like the flight of the swallows over the fields.

The Date is Wider Today

The Date is Wider Today

(“You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.” Hebrews 10:6)

The date is wider today; do you feel it.?
The air is fuller just now; can you know it?
We could have ridden all afternoon on the offshore
breezes the cooled the summer sun.
We could have spoken all evening of the
ways of children who haven’t learned our foolish
myths and rituals.
The magical sound of water on rocks reaches us here
above the river a quarter mile away. The playful sound
of children’s voices freeze-tagging each other in the
front yard makes the evening open up like the entrance
of a princess who giggles.
The boys play H.O.R.S.E. sending the basketball through
the summer air for hours at a time.
And not once did any of us stop to ask
why we deserve these unicorn moments. We live in
so many dimensions at once it is impossible to discount
a simple encounter with someone,
battling cancer,
humbled in body,
and a voice lower than he once possessed. It is simply
a question without an answer. And so, we hug,
and hope,
and pray the days will stay wider as the road
winds before him unknown.

I’d rearrange so many things if I could convince anyone
to give me a chance. But time moves on like a runaway
train
while we, curious, wonder how to begin again.
Tonight the aroma from neighborhood grills will fill
the dinner hour. We will stop, if we could, and give thanks
for air so full of summer incense and children’s games of pretend.

Like Accidental Wine

Like Accidental Wine

(“The Lord is pleased with his people, and he gives victory to those who are humble.” Psalm 149:4)

Borders, landlines,
phonelines and shores along
the cliffs: we want to define the
boundaries
for all time.

But the waves break and move the sands,
tsunamis send ancient landmarks inland. Angels
fly between our certainties and
alight where death occupies space
we’ve allotted to the proper dimensions.

Sometimes the wadis run full,
sometimes the lakes run dry.
Often our rhymes are indistinct,
our metaphors too precise.

Let us spill our language like accidental wine,
let us find the wink of summer as sparrows
mind their business in branches outside our windows.
Let us celebrate all we do not know,
let us sing like resurrected minds.
Let the mechanisms unwind,
let our spirits imbibe the inaccuracy
of it all.

Seasons are not divided by graphite fences,
our senses shuffle between bitter and sublime.
We can hear,
once we lay our words aside,
the faintest ions of wonder being born.

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

 

The Trees Seemed to Ignore Me

(“God was pleased for all of himself to live in the Son.” Colossians 1:19)

I.

Don’t ask me how I am,
there is something crumbling from
within my heart today.
The foundations are cracking,
the mud walls are melting,
the roof is leaking,
and this has sent me into a panic.
full.
stop.

I used to feel chosen,
don’t ask me how I feel today.
I once felt cozy and ready to sing
for anything that came to mind.
Now my fingers cannot find the chords,
my feet stumble over the rhythm,
my heart only knows the lyrics from
love songs 50 years ago.

I used to love exploring,
don’t ask me where I’ve gone today.
I once followed the Tuolumne River,
I once climbed Sunset Crater,
twice I sat at the annual folk festival
in Manitoba, finally dancing in hippie earth
tone fashion.
Two decades behind me, the festival has
moved underground, or perhaps
disintegrated into.
thin.
air.

I’ve driven through blizzards to
deliver a teenage daughter to her father
70 miles away who was dying of cancer.
I once tried to dig to China with a
tablespoon in my backyard SoCal.

This is exactly how I’ve been,
the slow crumble of stumbling years
and the trusted signposts no longer useful.
So, hollow within, and losing my bearings,
the emptiness unleashes its harshest poetry
within a brain that already is quick to hear
the distressed and aged wood of blame, regret,
and failure.

II.

Even the trees seemed to ignore me.
The mourning doves only stared at me.
The breeze deceived me into thinking
the next day would be easier.

But, finding only a speck of golden silence,
I heard the footsteps of god in the
easy branches and blooms of the apple tree.
I heard the whisper of god in a cat
meowing from behind the brush pile.
I heard the song of god in uneven time
in the wind that changed key so often
it actually sounded like me.

Kenosis. Emptying.
Filling. Completing.
Incarnate. Proximate.
Are the earth, the moon, the sun,
the mud, the ducks, the rabbits, the planets,
the roses, the snakes, the thorns and
rivers all
the generous emptying of god into all creation?

And pain, will I find the divine there?
And suffering, from top to bottom,
god has not rationed suffering,
has not risen on a jeweled throne above it,
but entered into, nailed his very body to
the angriest pain and stayed until cruelty
was finished.

If this is the god of the universe,
then perhaps my crumbling heart is
the perfect sanctuary to meet the
enfleshed one.

A Letter Sent

A Letter Sent

(“When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace, ‘Joseph’s brothers have come,’ Pharaoh and his servants were pleased.” Genesis 45:16)

Every poem I write is a letter
sent
to the ones I’ve loved. They are meant
to diffuse the confusion of past
clowns and charades;
to clear the dusty air from my overnight mind
that awoke hugging a sliver of the bed.
I write in the hope the sky will be surprised
because I’m stuck in the moment,
riveted to the chair,
wanting to stop crying and laughing alone.

This is why I write,
in the hope my words will fold in on themselves
and, like a paper airplane in freshman English
sent from the back of the class,
will land in a soft slide upon your desk.
You won’t even need to read it once you see
it is from me.

Every word I type is a plea,
(I shall not beg)
that someone will recognize my face,
my time, my sweat, the footprints I left
when I only wanted the best for you. Sounds
I haven’t heard in decades
fill my silent isolation.

Did 12 years mean anything? Were 40 a vapor?
Are the cell towers dead? Did you run out of postage?
Is your bank account empty? Have I used up all my hugs?
Am I too weak, too needy? Even just a plaque with my
name spelled out small is something I could hang on the wall.

Unlike Joseph, I stumbled more than I want anyone to know;
still, did any of my days matter? I am sorry for sounding morose,
but couldn’t Pharaoh at least offer a toast and mention
that, though I did not finish perfectly,
I finished pretty well?