Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

(“Rest once more, my soul, for the Lord has vindicated you.” Psalm 116:7)

Pressed inside the corner, kneeling beneath the latch,
his heart ran faster than his frightened thoughts.
He was all alone and that is what he feared;
no one’s eyes for reassurance, no one’s ears to hear his pain.
He did not live on an island, but if felt that way.
He inhaled the foggy air and felt the drizzling mist
slowly wetting his t-shirt and jeans.
He would not need to change them, the air would
dry them on his lengthy stroll. He was walking,
cross-country,
home.

But even there the solitary day cinched his throat,
made his chest feel heavy, his feet weighted with lead.
Do you know how long it takes for
scars to heal while you sit alone waiting for the
ideas to form. He fancied himself an artist,
a sculptor of words. But the pages, always emptied,
demanded he scrape the edges of his soul with a
spatula to find just enough words to share it halfway with you.

Let’s go find him, I’m sure he is home.
Let’s bring him coffee, apologies and shalom.
Let’s sing his words back to him, let’s play
the music his soul absorbs.
Let’s get out his old records, I think he’ll
like the swing bands or some funk.
Let’s let ourselves in before he invites us,
let’s leave only after the last song is played.

He sat in the corner, his favorite recliner,
and slowly allowed the light to coax his verses.
He had always feared unannounced visits,
and was stuck for words. But this time he
was ready,
and he could not put his finger on why;
but this time he was open,
and he laughed in dotted lines across the room.
He laughed because ancient times are not nearly as old
as he assumed.

Unison

Unison

It’s a sort of sorcery, isn’t it,
untimely spells cast across the imagination
that subtract joy
from the souls of the innocent.
They make jazz feel like the ultimate
sin.
But their incantations contain nothing
but vacuous screeds disguised as melody.
Their long-form compositions only
repeat
hearsay
they say they learned online.

Most of us recognize the serenade
when we hear it. It sounds like manna,
it sounds like New Orleans and
powwows. It sounds like romance
and winding trails across the seaside dunes.

Only the still heart can read the music.
Only the graced embrace the truth that
that flies from heaven but takes root in
the deepest soil of earth.

It’s the pinnacle of reality with no
invocations needed. I hear the first two notes
and know,
if we will listen,
we can sing the rest together/
unison.

I Would Wear Paisley

I Would Wear Paisley

(“I will tend My flock and let them lie down.” Ezekiel 34:15a)

I have always like paisley,
beginning my teens in the 60s and
ending them in the 70s.
I could always rest for minutes on the
vinyl couch the color of early evening
forest green.

I am weary, not just today,
but annually.
I failed you, you failed me.
You fooled me, I was a fool.
I fooled them, other stood silent, the
words stolen from their mouths.
I still understand what I stained, decades of
carrying a burden and a mask.

There was energy in the backstage conversations,
the lead-up to the construction of
stories we only had begun to understand. We held
hands, sometimes kissed,
were always shy,
and never caught the caution that age and weariness
would bring.

Did I mention I am fatigued, did I rehearse the weight
I carried but could not name? I have declared my guilt,
I have fastened my shame to every bit of interest I have paid
trudging through wounds that shoved me like gravity
into late night drives that let the ghosts breathe for a while.

I always thought they would leave. Tears were my exorcism,
while I left the specifics open to interpretation.

Every time I speak now,
every time I wish for those eyes that saw through my disguise,
I feel the weight all over again. I deserve nothing more than
 days on end befriended by silence that breeds only more
weeping at my unreliable resolve.

I would lie down, I would find the sweat rolling from my back
on the old couch on a summer day. I would open the book
and let you read every word anonymously.

I would go to the party and now, so lately,
I would wear paisley.

Embrace My Soul

Embrace My Soul

(“For those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:10)

It is true,
the trailer won’t unload itself,
the house will not build itself.
But what if the soul grows in one
single embrace?

I get it,
the dishes won’t wash themselves,
my room will not clean itself.
But what if love is the effortless act
Of simple dying?

I cannot work,
my body won’t allow it.
I can barely write the words on the page.
Not that my fingers are stiff or crooked,
my mind has been seared by pain like a desert
and words like arrows telling me I just need more
jesus.

If just once they would sit in a chair next to me,
if just once they would share a bottle of wine,
if just once they would keep their mouths shut,
if just once they gave no advice this time.
Do I live too far away,
does my countenance frighten you?
All I know, I was just a stamp away and no one
ever wrote to me.

Are my tears too heavy for you to lug around,
do you fear my doubts will somehow undo you?
Are my words now too concrete for you to swallow,
do you pray for me while I cry invisibly?

I never stopped working and maybe I should.
My body will allow it no longer.
I no longer work, hear no voice on the phone,
no tone that enwraps my soul. “I love you” rings
more true than
“you need more jesus”
or “I will pray for you.”

Do you see my words, how artless they’ve become?
When I write in the middle of the pain
how can I ignore the silence I never heard from
Just one visitor, one victim of my hard labor,
or (maybe this is too crazy) one person who spent
a whole day imagining how a body like mine
could still house a healthy soul. 

I want to point to Jesus,
the suffering he took, the dying he imbibed,
I want to think of him with eyes that enliven
my hope again. But is it too much to ask,
too much to explain, that I wish his followers
bring him by when they came?

Forced Me

Forced Me

(“So I thought, ‘The Philistines are going to attack me here in Gilgal, and I have not tried to win the Lord's favor.’ So I felt I had to offer a sacrifice.” 1 Samuel 13:12)

You have forced me to this.
My veins pop from my skin as I
arm-wrestle God for His favor.
My brow pulses after waiting so long.
Surely He knew my obeisance was uwaxed.
My anxiety drove me to this. I do not offer
a tariff or a tax…I am certain He knows my acts
and my heart are one.

And yet at every impulsive devotion I feel my
thoughts mocking the next in a number of deals
I thought I could strike
with the King who heals the stop-motion method
of my appeals.

Twenty words written; half are unbidden while the rest
grip the hardpack of my mind, refusing (unkindly) to
form cogent portraits of what I cannot see.

The ravens cackle twenty feet from my window,
the seals bark a quarter-mile away,
and I still wish there were better ways to play.

Three deer bounded across my lawn last night as my
dog, with fading sight, caught their movement like
beach balls wedged in the breeze. She barked as well,
and would have given chase if not for the knees that
addled with time.

You have forced me to this.
For all the tiny vibrations of joy I still feel
I must grapple to find my place, my home.
My temples ache. Surely, though I cannot shake
the ennui, You know I aspirate prayers like cracks.
My anxiety guided me here. I no more offer
a deal behind Your back…I am certain You know my acts
and my heart are dung. Buried and done.
Alive in the nothing and the whole I have become.

Like Falling Asleep

Like Falling Asleep

(“The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.” Isaiah 32:17)

I heard someone say she fell in love with him like falling asleep:
slowly at first and then all of a sudden. This sleep has been my
waking,
and the silence of my dreams the making
of grains of sand tracked into the bed
by the dogs after their romp at the beach.

Yet the more I sleep the more dreary I become,
repeating weary mistakes I made before the face of one
who picked out each misdeed like cat hair on the carpet.

There was never peace as long as dander remained
on the surface or on the air. There never was quiet
as long as one word, deemed out of place, remained
in the apprentice’s vocabulary.

A rest remains. An assignment blinks--low focus,
high fidelity—upon the fog which remains on the
bogs of faint light’s later life.

A rest remains. Destiny framed by a loving call,
(not strict equipment code after all). Though first and much,
or last and minute, much waits the dreams of those who,
sleeping unoccupied by regret’s dark ride,
awake to begin,

Again.

Each Intermission

Each Intermission

(“God rested from his work. Those who enjoy God’s rest also rest from their work.” Hebrews 4:10)

In the heat of the day, or frost overnight
the mind examines inch after inch of each dimension,
correction its direction, usually sighting a familiar look
or the spark from some other’s eyes that insists it is
safe to turn in there for the night.

In the single second or the long of the year,
the mind can hold episodes and events in one grand
moment
that happened years ago on the Texas desert and others that
may yet
befall the man who suffers over tomorrow’s fear.

In the laugh of a daughter, or another unknown suicide
the mind combines tear after tear of each intermission
begging to be fully seen and feared to be held cleanly
without excursus or at least a lucid synopsis.

In one single Word God called the world Good,
in one quiet Day He did not hesitate to rest;
labor put upon the shelf, hammers and saws stored
until the final bell captured all the silence and stored it up
for days just like these.