Love Returning Love

Love Returning Love

(“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3)

All I see when I gaze your way is
love returning love.
Your eyes seeing mine are the same as mine seeing you.

I’ve left the mirrored lake behind that caused Narcissus
such blindness. The reflection was flat and deceptive until
I saw the image of every human infatuated the first second
the rippling vision hit their eyes. We are static at the reflection
pool
to fool our inconsistencies. Echo helps by answering back
every elegant name we beget staring into water that
has no devices of its own. You are not you in the mirror,
you are not the royal we or the enthroned epitome. You
may need to walk a while, down the trail, toward the cavern dark
where bats and dimness breed forgetfulness, where damp silence
leaves you outside camera lenses and microphone intentions.

But in that motionless moment,
if you will let the watery image die,
you may find yourself seeing in the dark,
fascinated by mossy green and iron reds on the
cavern walls. You must go there alone, though, once
alone,
you will never need to venture into the darkness again.
If only you find the companions that wait outside,
that guard the entrance from intruders,
and watch it for friendships that have been stripped
of illusion
and, though mildly confused, the man is a child again,
the woman a toddler hopping in wonder.

All you will see when you gaze divine is
love returning love.
Those eyes seeing yours are the same as yours seeing them.

The Same Song

The Same Song

(“There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” Luke 15:7)

The invitation was sent straight to the last address we knew,
the postage licked upon the upper right-hand corner and
the envelope sealed with hand-fashioned card inside.

How could you miss the dancing? We nearly had the police called
on us
for all the noise! We could not help the raucous shouting;
it was no time for doves cooing or kitties purring,
this was straight up Wild Goose honking, the Geadh-Glas
inciting the high-step celebration. One more lost one
found their vacant seat again.

You pulled up, but could find no place to park?
The Shepherd strode the high hills of the mansion rich,
the cul-de-sacs of well-heeled pretense,
the clackboard boxes six-per-block,
and the tumble down trailers unscreened windows and doors.

He called for years, the name of the loved one, never forgetting
the way it first sounded upon the tongue. He whispered softly
in crowds,
sprained His voice as He ripped echoes across voided canyons,
and every day, the same vigor as at the first, the same
heartbreak, the same desire to reverse the pathway which took
the lone lamb away from the rest of us all.

You would have stayed, but did not enjoy the music?
Did you forget already, the same song was sung, with
the same passion and abandon, the very second in time
you turned on a dime (not quite so far from home, but
just as absent); has the taste of the finest fare already
been erased from your tongue?

There is time to return, however late. The dances begin
upon the hour, upon the minute, upon the moment
the front door opens for anyone who changed their mind,
deciding a party thrown by God leaves no time to
ponder the propriety of it all.