Like Leaden Headbands

Like Leaden Headbands

(“And her Son was taken up to God and to his seat.” Revelation 12:5b)

When the pain imprisons like leaden headbands,
when the darkness terminates the journey just begun,
the rainbows flee,
the sun hides like a child in trouble,
and the thoughts in your mind have nowhere
to escape.

Rains may clear it,
winds steer the day to a neighbor’s flower bed.
Or your body, empty as the tin man,
listens to the echoes of the jail keeper alone
on your bed.

Friends do what they can do and send
a sentence or two. But from their mouth to
my mind
the context is scrambled and I can never decide
when the seasons may steal the inchoate words away.
Steal away to Jesus.

I have no doubt Christ is alive. I have no doubt about the
Spirit who imbues my lockdown soul. And why
I
should exist with the thumb screws tightened around my brain
escapes my reasoning.
I have no answers,
though some tell me I do. More to the point,
some tell me they have the answer. I only wish their answer
included donuts and coffee,
or soup and wine,
or a rollicking good time playing folk songs again.

I am glad for prayer. I am thankful. But you cannot lay
hands on
someone from behind a computer.

I know one day the locks will be opened,
and I shall wait as I have. On second thought,
could you please,
send someone,
to open,
them,
now.

Grief is Slow

Grief is Slow

(“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’” John 11:23)

Grief is slow like the summer sludge in desert spring-beds,
grief is fast like yesterday’s clouds,
grief is heavy like muggy midnights,
grief is light like Christmas memories.

But death feels permanent, stiff and dry.
Death smells of the end of a long season
rather than a grand finale.

Death sneaks up on us though we’ve known its name
from the first last breath that did not return.
Death is sudden, a phone call after lunch or
crumbling on a tennis court.

And we look at the dirt, we stare at the sky,
we turn to every compass point, we cross our fingers
and hope that dying is not a forgone conclusion.

Though the seasons spiral around us, they are not the same.
The leaves that fall do not rise but turn to dust while
the branches sleep until spring awakens the sap again.

Traveling sailors return to port, children come home from school,
dogs sniff their way to owners who moved a hundred miles away.
Memories stay like tent pegs, the canvas ballooned by wind.

And yet, though this world is built upon clay--
monuments, palaces, armaments and warriors all decay--

There is more to say than someday. There is more to hear than
questions unanswered. There is more to see than lets the light in,
there is more to hold than our heart’s capacity.

So rise, love and grief, meet together at the moment of hope,
when, in the midnight of despair, behind the backs of everyone there,
life spoke to life like
deep speaks to deep
and gave death its expiration date.
More is here than skin can touch,
but in its touch knows the air is full of
living even after the breath has gone.

From There

From There

(“Together with Christ Jesus God also raised us up and seated us in the heavens.” Ephesians 2:6)

Unheated and numb, the fingers burn urging broken windows
closed in prairie midwinters. Patched as well as we can, the cold
still sneaks through the threadbare attempts at warmth.

Our world is white and crystal; it is cotton and silk.
Our world is cottonwoods bare in December, stark solos
waving black against the blue sunsets in ice. Our world
is sundogs and coldstars; it is barren and waiting.

Warmed all day the windowpane burns the fingers against
HVAC attempts at beating the heat. Midsummer sun draws
its arrows, amplifying the boiling point; potted plants
have lost their bloom left on the sundeck alone.

Our world is sand and muddy; it is linen and wool.
Our world is apple trees full in September, offerings
and reminders outside the perimeter of bonfire songs
that match the orange dusk. Our world is heatstroke and
corndogs; it is burden and winsome.

Above the atmosphere and
outside planetary rotation;
height and time expand our view. The farthest stars
may have winked their final gasp long before our eyes
perceived it.

Above the galaxy and
outside the creation’s beginning;
within time and space the New Man came
to transfer vision, sit us down on the highest mountain,
and let us, darkly, review it from above.

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

(“Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.” 2 Timothy 4:12b)

The leaves twirled on the winter grass like
sparrows dancing romance. The final rosebuds nodded,
the summer campfires have turned to woodheat inside
winterized homes. Morning does not break in the Northwest
autumn, but sneaks up slowly from late night’s dark insistence
to the day obscured by couriers of rain. Even the dog barks
at the fallen log that lay there just the same day before,
and before just the same. And the cat stretches, winking
at the careless movement toward afternoon.

Those mornings carry more weight, though far less sunlight;
this season asks for reckoning, extra apparel and friends
spending
an evening watching the children play, begging to
go out into the rain.

These days suggest the joy we left behind at summer’s end,
this life asks for memories and names and daytrips and old friends.
Old friends, the ones we saw every day when we were young,
and spent the duration of every day playing like night never comes.

This time reminds our eyes, our state of mind, that young love ages,
friendships are memorized in stages, and every book eventually ends,
the few back pages we slowly read, hoping for a sequel,
longing for another childhood recommended to take us on the
last several seasons home.

Today the horizon is broken by hills and changing trees,
if not, I might see you coming. If not, I might hear your footsteps
on the sloppy leaves wanting to know if, one more time, just maybe,
I could come out to play.

Autumn to Spring

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” John 6:53

I love Autumn. For some reason it inspires me even more than Spring. I’ve always been “earthy” in my favorite colors, ask my kids. Yes, it’s sure as anything, Dad will be wearing brown or green, maybe blue occasionally. It doesn’t hurt that I grew up during the hippie era which probably spoiled my fashion sense for the rest of my life.