My Heart’s Thin Veneer

My Heart’s Thin Veneer

I’ve stood at your doorway, my toes tickling your threshold,
wondering if I should knock, if I should see if you are home.
I know you’ve told me to come over any time, but I still feel
it is such a risk
to let you see me out of my element. You may ask me to
leave early,
or not to come inside at all. It’s almost like a wedding where
the groom has only heard of the bride and
worrying what she will think at her first look at
the one who has written the words line by line. His
face might betray how afraid he is that the door will stay
closed
well after rapping softly on it asking for entrance.

I’ve told you about my heart, maybe a half of it, maybe more.
But now I stand at your door knowing this time you will
see all of it. The falls. The lies. The uncomfortable way
it shies away from dropping the façade it wears. So far
you only love half of me, and the other half remains in shade.

Would you dare to embrace the darkened shadows
I’ve hidden from you? Would you let me in the door
not knowing? And yet some unbidden hope tells me
my heart may be already welcome inside your own.

I’ve protected it with words as thin as onion skin,
I’ve ventured to this door with a resolution to say
all I am afraid to say. You may think I have said
it all
already, and that may be true. This time I’m knocking
like it was the first time we met. This time I’m hoping
you and I both know what it’s like to be lonely. This moment
I might be brave, or I might slink away. Would you invite me in
once I dared to hold out every thought of my heart?
Would it be like the start of a song with every stanza
unrehearsed and every note belonging to you?

Here it is, my anxiety on display. Here it is,
knowing all I want to say, and knowing the
risk there is in unveiling everything.
Still, I cannot wait to hear your footsteps coming
to open the door.

Maybe God Is a Wedding Singer

Maybe God Is a Wedding Singer

(“And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It was prepared like a bride dressed for her husband.” Revelation 21:2)

Maybe God is a wedding singer
with down-turned lips that remind you
of Elvis.

Maybe God is a caller for square-dancers
learning their steps weekly on
Tuesday evenings.

Maybe God is a redheaded child
wearing her jeans with rips in the knees,
looking like a spinning top in the rain.

Maybe God is a swarm of bees
looking to hive and
start up with nectar and golden honey.

Maybe God has been here from the middle
working out to the edges of our
limited imaginations.

Maybe God is sitting next to the toddler
taking his first turn on the swings
in the park.

Maybe God is in the shadows while
I sit like a dog
in the sun.

Maybe God is in the light while I
walk in the shade of
cedars and firs.

Maybe God is in a
lover’s first kiss or
in an elder’s last sigh.
Maybe God doesn’t think about this,
Maybe God couldn’t care why.

Maybe you’ll call me mad,
maybe a heretic,
surely I can stand under the protection
of all the kneeling I’ve inherited.

Maybe God is a welder
sealing joints that are broken.
Maybe God is a dozen words
that sound from the songs deep in the canyon,
the lyrics silent and unspoken.

Maybe God is a waltz,
maybe a grass dance,
maybe God ignores our faults,
maybe a second chance.

Maybe I’m talking out of turn,
maybe I read too much,
maybe you don’t understand yet
that this is poetry and maybe
God is the eternal rhyme that teaches
lions and lambs to play together.

With The Shadows Chased Away

 

With The Shadows Chased Away

(“They will not be hungry or thirsty; the sun’s oppressive heat will not beat down on them, for one who has compassion on them will guide them; he will lead them to springs of water.” Isaiah 49:10)

One day we will lay down the bricks we used to build the walls,
one day we will dance until the tyrants fall,
one day we will plow the fields in sun and rain,
one day we will give away every crop and every grain.

And so, we watch the clouds swallow the hilltops,
loading up for more showers to paint the skeletal trees
with life again. We hear a single drone inspecting the
fields where the cattle graze.
We remember the voice of a friend who
wasn’t sure winter would be over soon enough.
And we wanted to rush the season along.

But as soon as the sun shines again
we will see it all. With the shadows chased away
because the throne is the light in the middle of it all
there will be no hiding in the dark,
no shadows to conceal the harsh asides,
the cruel remarks,
that bruised the sweetest fruit waiting to be vinified.

One day we will picnic again like we did on cloudless days,
one day we will sing until the dead are raised,
one day we will reap the grace sown with our tears,
one day we will give away all the pain and all our fears.

Tap You on the Shoulder

 

Tap You on the Shoulder

(“Jesus told them a picture-story to show that men should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1)

It is love silently, eyes closed in an open field
letting the birdsongs carry every ache (the fullest love
feels the most pain.)
And when the sky is clouded with iron gates (like mining
ore from the shadows) that is when

I don’t know why I think I should
tap you on the shoulder when
you are already
looking at me.

I have so many habits I cannot explain.