By the End of the Day

By the End of the Day

(“Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy.” Jonah 2:8)

Fascinated by the worship of dreams we focus on
specters manufactured by our minds. Contemplating what
is in it for us,
we cannot get enough of the thin air surrounding us.
We put crosses and American flags on the same platform,
insisting our every instinct is the tide-turning revolution
just an incantation away. We don’t even need to pray
because we have determined the outcome from the beginning
of the day.

If you could listen closer, quiet the demands of sharp-toothed
politics; if you could leave the masquerade behind that
quotes verses to keep everyone in line; if you could
quit your addiction to strong arm tactics and endure the
withdrawal symptoms, then maybe
you could join the small family of a dozen or so
who prefer a doubt or two over your unholy
attention to certainty.

I was stuck in the narrow hallway where there
was room for only one voice at a time. No place
to hide,
but no place to open my arms to embrace the
voices that were canceled by such closer quarters.
I tried to do what everyone suggested, I tried to
stay in the limits, coloring inside the lines.
But my hands shook and my paint ran;
I fell to my knees before the proclamations that
took their authority for granted. Who knew that
religion was an idol as sure as any leaden god
perched upon a window frame.

My head is finally above the water, at least for today.
Dismantling the careless way I believed every word,
I can find a way less self-assured. I can find the
new Creation by the end of the day.

Stop Now. Sounds.

 

Stop Now. Sounds.

(“Or do you have so little regard for his rich kindness, his restraint, and his patience, that you ignore the fact that the purpose of God’s kindness is to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4)

Stop now.
Sound out the top of the silent suns
wrapping the grand, warming the sand
while the tides ebb unconsciously.

I can hear myself growing older,
years like wind, like sails, like friends
who streak across the night sky. Shooting
star
how I wonder who you are.

I would rather borrow your eyes than
rewrite our conversations. I would rather
drive by the coast as the cliffs twist by.
I would rather squint in the light than to
strain to see you appear in the dark night hallways.
I would rather let the questions go unanswered.

Stop now.
Sound surround us. I’m up for a night of repentance.
Nothing is wasted in this universe,
everything is borrowed. It was all here first.
But your story, your spiral, your skying face and
your carousel feet carry my mind to better places.

We can light the candles, break the bread,
sweep the sidewalks, plan ahead,
fasten the nails so the pictures don’t fall
on the floor.
We can feed the poor. We can read some more
until
our shells are broken, until every unspoken story
is written across the sky.

Until we all

Stop now.
While the sounds of undancing whistle like morning,
like handfuls of birdsong with lyrics hidden within
the center of everything.