These Days I Rarely Understand

These Days I Rarely Understand

(“All scripture is inspired by God...so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else prophesies about dead end days.
How many days on the calendar,
how many decades in the rear-view mirror,
how many centuries of waiting in caves,
how many isolated on mountain peaks with
their stashes of canned goods and guns?

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else preaches about conspiracy certainty.
How many people does it take
to keep a secret from the rest of us?
You swear everything you see with your eyes
is invented by newscasters and forecasters of death.
But everything you find in your head,
or is invisibly said by unmasked hatred
you swallow like chocolate cake.

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone divides the garments of the poor
and casts lots for the leftovers to carpet their bedroom floors.
How many lungs without breath
until you put on your boots and join the rest
who cannot stand for one more chokehold in the name of
law.
Remove the blindfold to see what is in front of you,
and sell all you have to join the hidden,
and tell how long it took to find the forbidden words
that set the prisoners free. Don’t speak of equality
until you can imagine traffic that accelerates the moment
you become a pedestrian. Watch the crosswalk son.

These days I rarely understand a word you say;
but love. I’ll scrape my knees for love,
cross the street for love,
eat what you eat for love,
take the heat for love.

I remember every face that said Christ was a white man’s
religion,
and when I tried to convince them otherwise.
Today I would listen. I don’t know how, but he has become whiter
in this stolen land haunted by its ancestors who knew grandfather better
than we think we know his son.

Please dream with me about undivided skies,
plains that grant us bread,
rains that soften our beards and faces,
and streets that bear the names of original blessing instead
of original sin.

Listen with me and let us understand (grandfather, son and holy ghost)
if we will not love, we have not listened. And if we have not listened,
we have not understood.

But Your Words

But Your Words

(“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away.” Mark 13:31)

My magnificence, my manuscript,
my masterpiece, my sheets of handwritten lyrics
and longings double spaced on the old Underwood
were boxed away once I left home for the first time
and from the time until reminded what words meant to me
once I inked them out of mind; it was 20 years.

Sometimes I bragged about them, sometimes bereaved over their loss,
sometimes remembering them, my tour de force, other times
(considering the source) I knew they were derivative,
clunky as bricks and cheap imitations of the poetry gurus
who always caught my breath.

But Your words, paper or heard, can still bring tears
where other words quickly incite new fences around
my acreage.

But Your words, always and now, know the corners of me,
better than the mourners of me who have conditions for my improvement,
who have eyes fixed on my every movement,
who never dissent, but with a turn of phrase, a well-placed accent
distort the courage I crave.

But Your words, spoken unfeigned, wash over craggy blocks
of desert cliffs, the heart held siege by drought, until
shadow and sun, until green leaves appear. The tears
are merely the heart’s irrigation.

I have lost more words than I have written, but never
have forgotten the face that inspired them,
the planet motions that conspired slim volumes of day.

But Your words, laughter or sad, are truer than faces I’ve forgotten,
tracing hope like a halo, a love so fearful I sometimes shudder
and wonder why I think even one word I’ve uttered
is worth remembering

When Your words, thunder and still, find the wound
and without lecture, pierce the callous and soften
until I hear better what I have heard so often.

God's Words: Our Heart's Delight

God’s Words: Our Heart’s Delight

(“When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, LORD God Almighty.” Jeremiah 15:16)

One of the delights I look forward to each summer vacation is tasting food I might not ordinarily eat. Whether in ethnic restaurants, a gem of a hole-in-the wall we simply stumbled upon, or the home cooking of good friends, we often get to share unique and uncommon meals together.