A Day Without the Sun

A Day Without the Sun

(“In days filled with trouble, I search for you. And at night I tirelessly lift my hands in prayer, refusing comfort.” Psalm 77:2)

There is no way to explain why the hole I dug
is so empty today. I meant to fill it with artifacts
for the next generation to unearth. But all they will find
is a pamphlet full of words signifying less than a bursting
shovel of dirt.
Don’t misunderstand,
I wanted to be handed truth in a dozen handbags,
but had trouble finding what I insisted existed in
heartfelt utterances of pain.
They laid hands on me to cast out the final vestiges
of insanity. It was instantly regarded as a complete
waste of time.
I can’t forget about the heat I felt when
healing spiraled around my catastrophes. I refuse
to give up on deity in all its idiosyncrasies. I’m
under the thunder of a dozen shovels of earth.
I waited for a new sentence that would outline the
reasons
everything feels empty today. I spoke the words that
I thought I believed and was left
flat on my face underneath a day without the sun.
I love you, that is all that remains of every
statement of faith I’ve ever believed. I hoped to
bring you better news; I hoped I could read a letter
sent in a scented envelope that convinced me to
believe anew the through-line from heaven to earth.
Sandwiched between serious and hilarious
I’ve come to believe all that matters
is the love that comes through the door unbidden,
like a caisson containing the weapons
we swore we would destroy once we followed the
Prince of Peace. But they still are guarded
in our gun cabinets like gold. I wish I could speak
one hundred words to melt the ammunition hoarded by
songs of unbelief.
Today I wished god was a genii who waves a wand
and restores the days I have lost by my misbehavior.
Today it has cost me a little more sanity and my
brain is numb because the words have come to mean nothing
but now grow like poppies in the field.

A Garden with Poppies

A Garden with Poppies

(“He joined them at the table. Then he took bread and gave thanks. He broke it and began to give it to them.” Luke 24:30)

I would let you stay for free.
I would start the fire and sing the first song
that came to mind.
I would announce it quietly, like candles
entering the stage for the second act.

I might not recognize you. I might think
twice
about the facts of your existence.
Sometimes you are a conflagration;
sometimes you are a whisper.

I should take a walk today along
the road where the tar inscribes cracks
in the asphalt.
I should turn where your driveway ends
and see if you have time for
a leaden heart today. I should experiment less;
I should make the most of my time.

I remember when we first met. Do
you?
It must have been winter when our footprints
turned the snow to ice and children used the
crosswalk on their way to school.
My heart has always had an empty space.
My eyes tear up within minutes of being alone.
My face is far older than the person I replaced.
My songs do not come easily. But I would sing
them anyway,
if only you would stay well into the afternoon.

My intentions are mixed like wine at the
bottom of the barrel.
My last night home might become my first
look at a portrait I haven’t seen since we
learned each other’s names.

I would set a place for you.
I would create a garden with poppies.
I would decorate my face so you could not see
how much I fear that you may not stay.
I would say all the things I wish I had heard.

With all that I write
I still cannot empty my mind of
words etched upon wet cement.
I am too old for another breaking.

Sometimes you are a fire in my bones,
sometimes I sit at home and waste hours at a time.
My words scatter like yearling rabbits,
my thoughts like toy magnets clack against
the inside of my head.

If you receive my invitation,
if you think of me at all,
say the words I fear to say, tell me
everything you have never said.
I will listen.
I will listen,
if you would only call.

Perhaps It Was the Poppies

Perhaps It Was the Poppies

(“I will answer their prayers before they finish praying.” Isaiah 65:24)

It was in the shape of a tree, an evergreen,
pointing beyond the skies and dreams away from
the magnetism of dirt and earth.

But there was not a guardian angel in sight. I know I knew
his name,
I thought we were personal like that. But, for now,
the name was locked deep inside my brain, and maybe a
mini stroke had hidden it forever.

It was the color of wind, a gale warning; the offshore flow
dropped heavy clouds with bullet rain driving us inside
except to make a run to the mailbox.

But there was not a ray of sun in sight. I longed for happy rays
that pierced my retinas, tanned my forehead and sent me safely
playing with my chihuahua. She doesn’t like the cold or the
precipitation. She hesitates at each drop.

It was the rhythm of fear, the heart rate, the paralysis,
the constant analysis of things that could go wrong. (Things
had gone wrong so many times before.) It was the wall that
calcified the heart and challenged anyone with soft enough
words
to tear it down from the outside. I had learned to hide; with
raw bruises where I had torn the fortress wall down before.
I looked in his eyes, told him my shame,
and years later everything changed. I sat with him for hours
when he cried about the love of his life. But I understand;
so my wall grew thicker by the year and higher each season.

Perhaps it was the sunflowers that reminded me of the power
of light.
Perhaps it was the poppies that buttered me up to install a
window, a small one, to peek at the days. Perhaps it was the
half dozen friends who never went away. But none of them
knew my shame, and I was not ready to risk it again.

So I walk where the shapes point to the sky,
I ponder inside darkness, I wait in frozen expectation,
and wish for one or the other kind of companion:

A new friend who knows nothing about me and wants to
know it all.
Or a friend who knows it all, and still craves my company.

Today I will travel between dreams and magnetic earth,
I will let the raindrops do their work to wash away the limestone
whitewash on my well-aged wall.

These Silent Days

 

These Silent Days

These silent days can be interrupted
by
a woodpecker rehearsing for the Spring.
And then, more often,
they are punctuated with sobs from the
hollow of distant grief and aches.
Life can turn cruel without our knowing,
a decade passes and chop block houses line
the field where mustard and poppies once grew.
Life can be sweetened for an hour,
a meal, a hug, a dog nuzzling at your elbow.
The air is heavier
the fewer people in the room.
Half a day later and the dishes are cleared,
loneliness creeps in uninvited
but is so familiar you put out a chair for him.
And though the buzz of life once flew like geese,
like bees,
the silence now hangs over the hours.
Before, now, and after, it is the way it always
has been.

Morning Glories and Poppies

 

Morning Glories and Poppies

(For every friend who never gave up on me.)

(“I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger. My emotions are in turmoil within me.” Job 19:27)

Please don’t turn away,
my health depends on it.
Talk runs circles and sometimes out of bounds
but I promise the campfire in the center holds
both the secrets and the potion
that makes friends nod at the silly jokes
and laugh at unpleasant memories.

I’ve been a joke, I know it. I’ve smoked the place out
with my long-winded stories and half-witted heart.
But starts are better than endings; noon is still long enough
to walk among morning glories and poppies.

I do not care to win; and do not want to lose,
I only wish to erase the words that made you cringe.
I only wish to hear the voice that makes me smile,
that asks for more music when it’s been a while since
I’ve sent a mandolin lullaby. It’s this friendship that,
like others,
makes me feel I have met with God.
Met together, and left the day lighter, for laughter,
tears, nods and empathetic cries
are the best prayers I have ever uttered.

And I shall ever laugh or cry or keep my silence
for you were sent by God
when I felt I did not have a prayer.