Truth Like a Midsummer Day

 Truth Like a Midsummer Day

(“Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no.’ More than this is from the evil one.” Matthew 5:37)

Are you going to say the same things as before,
or have you changed your tune?
And how can I trust you when, late and soon,
your promises are mirages, your words subterfuge?

When you speak, all you say
falls through my fingers and fades away
with no weight,
no gravity,
no import,
no impact,
and no honesty at all.
(“I’ll be with you in spirit” are the coveralls
you wear to disguise your vacuous indecision.)
We all know you had decided five years ago.

I may as well try to shoot down asteroids with
a bb gun.

The day can still be saved,
the friendship resurrected with
honest words without blame. Fill the close air
between us with
substance that cannot evaporate by noon.

While you consider your answer, the pain of waiting
is amped up in nervous energy. And when you
finally
show up
how is it you have the answer for everything we are
doing
when
you never met with us before?
I don’t mean to be this sharp (knife or blade),
but how can you pitch your ideas when the
project is almost done?

Deposit your “yes” and let us keep it for future reference.
Or
Speak your “no” and leave and we will continue nicely.
But please, next time,
find a way to say truth like a midsummer day.
We will doubt you less, and though we wish you were here,
we will paint and pitch, roof and stitch the
project together, boundless.

I Need a Getaway

I Need a Getaway

(“I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.” Ephesians 2:8)

Yes, it’s true; I need a getaway.
I need a gateway to another lane.
This one has become narrow and the end
is impossible to see.
I just need to get faraway.
I need a fairway with easy approach shots.
This one is hilly and constricts
my point of view.

Yes, it’s true: I have wandered far;
far beyond my better welfare (or so they say).
This globe has become slippery and my shoes
squeak like spaceboots on the moon.
Look how easily I’ve squandered
the content I acquired from garage to alley
and back. There is little room remaining
to add another point of view.

Yes, it’s true: I shouted:

“I don’t believe in God anymore.”

And if it is any solace to you, it was
at the tail end of a dream, but still,
everyone I’ve ever known could hear the
honest scream like it was streaming
through every device upon the planet.

I hope you will not fan it into flame,
I hope you will not forget my name,
I hope for one, maybe two, who will take the fall with me,
will let their life stall with me,
bent just like me, bent just like a question mark;
front and back. Oh, the mockingbirds on the lawn
have not inquired about my faith.

It was only a dream, but it pushed open the pressure valve
that I kept closed and sealed so no one could see the leak
and puddles
of my doubt.

But now you know; I need a vacation;
I’ve heard all the explanations;
They are imprinted on halfsheets of scratch paper
And in every synapse firing through my brain.
Just the same; I need a holiday.
I need a holy day that doesn’t make me
darker or stab me sharper than
than the lightning that stings my devoted
attempts at piety.

I need a getaway; a merciful respite where,
though unaware of the divine at all,
I am cared for personally hidden from those who
thought my gauzy revelation (my god, my god, why?)
was surely my downfall.

Words We Cannot Place

Words We Cannot Place

(“All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.” Romans 10:13)

I wonder what colors a child would see in the grass
if she has never learned the word “green.” I wonder what
name he calls god who has never heard
the word “hell.”

I wonder how we carve such narrow paths
when navigation is wide upon the sea. I wonder
how we tattoo people we never knew with “alien” or
“illegal” when they have children who
wonder about grass and moons and stars and god
and unicorns and pinatas and cakes and candles
and freeze tag and ice cream too.

I wonder about those who receive lavish gifts
and simply pre-sign postcards for the poor.
I wonder about the gospel that sounds like
venom and preaching that looks like war.

I wonder what color a child would see in the milking bucket
if he had never learned the word “white.” I wonder what
name she calls god who has never heard
the word “death.”

If you must, tag my forehead with grace;
If we will, bring everyone to the dancefloor;
the tall girl with braces, the boy with thick glasses,
the boy in the corner hiding, the girl in the bathroom freezing,
the group outside smoking, the class president and
her entourage, the late arrivals from shanties and mirages.
Invite them all, their call is clear, though foreign;

they appear and then are departed before they
ever get a taste of the unnamable grace

That bathes the universe with words we know by heart,
words we cannot place, words wholly apart from memory,
but seen in the face of Love that will not let the tiniest atom
escape the resurrection of the New Name by which
every family on earth is traced.

Taught by the Best

“This is what the Lord, who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to do what is good, who leads you in the way you should go.” Isaiah 48:17

We get into a great deal of trouble when we start listing everything we have done for God. For one thing, compared to God’s perfection, even our best work would be far too shoddy to brag to God about. When we consider that God truly needs nothing that we have to offer, it becomes a bit presumptive for us to keep a list of any sort of “good deeds” done for Him. Beyond all that, it simply misses the point about our relationship with the Creator. He does ask for our work, for our cooperation with His plans for the universe. But our “work” is not the primary objective; that that is what we often miss.