Much Further than Yesterday

Much Further than Yesterday

(“Wake up, sleeper! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14b)

My thoughts can scatter like marbles
out of the bag
rolling across the floor with some lost
underneath the couch.
My thoughts can darken like fog forming
on a late night downtown
blearily luring me to sleep.

But I can see straighter, eyes opened,
and light filling my miscreant mind.
I can find the sun I had lost track of,
the moon I had forgotten existed in the
middle of the night. I search the stars to
keep me awake with patterns drawn over
eternity.

I could go out for a ride while the smog
chocked my lungs;
I could turn back and find the coordinates
for the home that had challenged my dying thoughts.
I could order the same food as a day ago
and think it was the first time ever.
I could let my brain get some rest
and see things anew once the sun rose again.

I could wake up like a baby waiting to be fed;
I could go outside and feel the dew on my feet
while my eyes became accustomed to the light. I could see
much further than I did the day before yesterday.

The Ride of a Lifetime

 The Ride of a Lifetime

(“The only thing that matters is this new life we have from God.” Galatians 6:15b)

He mentioned baptism again and
everyone who heard grew restlessly quiet.
Anxious to prove their fidelity,
scores etched their names on the cardboard notecards
and passed them on down the aisle.

He mentioned prayer with fasting again and
so many feet shuffled they wore down the boards
where they sat.
Anxious to prove their holiness,
a dozen dug in their heels and wished for
one more steak before the week began.

He mentioned worship again and
those who sang loud, sang louder. Anxious
to prove their piety,
others hid behind the hands that waved so
exuberantly and hoped God did not mind.

But there was also a gentle wind that,
barely brushing the cheeks of the assembled,
filled in the gaps of the absent,
spoke in accents discernable to the
few with
ears to hear something both
foreign and familiar, and some followed
the breezy narrow way.

But some stayed behind, wanting to
be washed by the water,
heard for their fervor,
seen for their song-styles;
truly they had their reward.

The barely audible breeze led the few
inside out, foolish and pacific,
down streets with no names,
where the residents had no houses.
Down roads without p.o. boxes,
where the sojourners had lost their fame.

Some saw the chance for sun and rain
outside the domain of wooden walls and
concrete doctrine. Some were not sure
where the wind would take them,
but mounted inside it like a basket
under a hot air balloon.

And so, all were offered the ride of a lifetime.

He mentioned that it was time
to begin again.

Come Ride with Me

Come Ride with Me

(“A voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Luke 3:4)

I’ll tell you a secret from the mud bottom of Spring,
I’ll whisper the honesty of gravel where I’m scrambling,
I need a road trip,
a route 66 trip,
a Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Navajo Nation
and curio stand trip.

I need a sedan without air-conditioning and keeping each
other awake
across the long stretches, whining across the deserts,
curling up the mountains with
tires
that should have been replaced thousands of miles ago.

I want to hear your mix tape,
your stories, even though you’ve told them
to me before.
I love to hear the story, morning by morning,
and at the rest stops where we pause for two hour naps.

I know your music well and hear it for the first time
every time we travel.
I’ve memorized your sagas, down to verse and dogma
that cement them too familiar to be surprised again.

But you surprise me even though I’ve know the road since a child,
you sing along with AM radio, crying and laughing before the song
is done.
We pull in stations from Mexico and wonder why FM
was ever invented. We keep it tuned until the signal sounds
just like the tires across the inky asphalt. We turn the wheel,
we tune the knob
searching for another list of night songs to take us home.

It seems I’ve always been on the road, and now I sit
in a tight rectangle, wanting the sun to burn my face,
the wind to wake me as the white lines hypnotize me,
and feel like the first time I ever ventured out alone.

I never feared a wrong turn, never wept my failures;
always watched for the screen doors that looked
on like lemonade stands operated by children. We were
the proprietors
of a season that leaves a hat blown into the desert,
a heart that watches for midnight dwellers in the
air from afternoon until night.

Come, let us ride. The highway still needs construction,
the scenic route awaits your company. Though you have
always been with me,
I ask you

Come ride with me again.