The Words Came Slowly

The Words Came Slowly

(“Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.” Psalm 105:19)

Perilous sounds like a good word to start a poem,
Unaccomplished might end it.
Sold like a slave and bound like a trapped rabbit,
we sometimes are fettered by our own lack of imagination.
We hope to find our future buried shallow in
our back yard.
We never expected to be at the cliff’s edge
with no way to turn back into who we once had been.

You can say what you want,
you can seek however long you will,
but my story will always stay the same.
Unaccompanied in a land I did not recognize
I stuck my claim on the lyrics hidden between
each note and time signature.
I memorized the songs of my youth and
sang them solo while I waited for a door
I could not open
to allow me entrance into the next level of
my dreams.

Affectations may be the words you find snuggly
tucked away mid-poem,
lingering may be the jump-off point to the final
verses. There were strange sounds that sifted between
the cracks of my catalytic walls. There were unfamiliar
songs teasing me to spend my spare time learning them
like they were my own.

Renovation began the moment I entered the
dimly lit room.
Patterns emerged like dust dancing in the sun.
The words came slowly and I learned them well;
the tempo was off, but I sang them sound.
Completed sounds like a good word to end a poem,
Unharmed might begin it.

The Soul Goes Slowly

The Soul Goes Slowly

(“Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32)

The ego races to every spotlight to show off
its jeweled watches it won in the last skirmish.
The soul goes slowly, walking through the rain,
feeling the widow’s pain, taking it all in and standing
in the quiet of a Dream imagined before the world began.

The ego is a laser, burning off every resistance until
they are hollow, deaf and dumb.
The soul opens fully, hearing the stories of days
when nothing happened and knowing there was
substance in even those silent hours.

The empire land grabs sovereign entities, claiming
them and spilling blood. It will pay any cost for its victory.
The dream invites the newly arrived to enjoy a
slow summer day,
and puts burgers on the grill. The dream cannot imagine
a world without warm bonfires and warmer conversations.

The empire occupies the highest hill, overseeing its
next conquest. It is ready to alienate anyone who thinks
the world is not centered on their pronouncements.
The dream looks for the next person sleeping on the street
and gives them food, gives them hope, gives them room
to become. And so the dream is unseen. The dream is
not boisterous. It is subversive.

The dream is a gift,
empire is a theft.

Spirit/Manna/Water

Spirit/Manna/Water

(“You sent Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.” Nehemiah 9:20)

I didn’t choose to take the long way home,
though some of the detours were cause and effect.
I didn’t pick the silence of isolation,
the pixelated memories,
the texted correspondence that
still defies expectation.
The explanation would take longer than
the moments we have left.

I’d rather wander with you, friend or friends,
and not talk, but share water from the spring,
a loaf under the pine,
and the Presence that, in spite of the winding,
or perhaps, because of the wandering,

Still whispers the name that captured me helpless
at the beginning of the day.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but friend or friends,
if you will go with me we’ll
take it slowly and feel each ray of sun
lancing through the branches to
touch our faces the way every face
should be touched.

I didn’t choose the long way home;
but, walk with me awhile.
Sing your song to me, I will not interrupt.
Or speak of pain buried beneath the years.
I promise I will hear and stop our walk long enough
to see the tears fall near the single-file ants along the trail.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but I need your time right now. I need your shoulder now,
the very weight of your presence, the very warmth of your voice,
the vulnerable quiver just before the words we speak when we
do not know what to speak at all.

I’m taking the long way home, will you come with me?
We walked the hills of Contra Costa, the tundra of North Dakota,
the mud and beaches of the evergreen Northwest, and now
I need the company of every piece of bread we’ve shared,
every sip of water or wine,
and every transcendent moment when we divined
there was more to the Northern Lights than science
can define.

I Will Sing of the Freedom

I Will Sing of the Freedom

(“Always give thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:20)

It was sometimes the precise language that bothered me,

like indigestion after too many doughnuts. I cannot seriously
thank God
for detention camps and quarantined families.

And to offer gratitude in the name of the authorities who put them there;

who do not see the dark-haired mothers scorched upon the road of escape,
who refuse to hear the broken candles of prayers cut off before the answer

who defy the cries of wrinkled notes with grandparent's phone numbers scribble inside.

You tell me to give thanks, and I will, for families with such life that dare our borders
for refuge and asylum from the eardrum-splitting violence of their own homes,
their kindred villages, to seek a hand to help them across the border
to air with less smoke and more invitations to join the
purple majesties and and golden grains. No one told them

half-way through their journey

that families no longer matter in the land they heard was free.

I will give thanks for mother and fathers, for older brothers and sisters,
for baby girls and boys. I will utter praise for the progeny of the Father
who come to our borders and scale the wall if the must, to find just a speck
of justice on
the other side of the fences.

I will sing of the freedom seekers, I will write the songs that urge them on.
I will thank the Father who loves them forward, the Son, the refugee whose long
and ancient Days are full of families who sought a better home, a greater city,
a place where a woman could decide, right or wrong; and where a man could choose,
up or down; until the seeds took root or the boss cut the check

or until the new land of their sojourn
joined the song and thanked the Father of Life
for the spice, the dance, the song, and perchance,
the greater nation that opens its heart to families
like our families
that once upon a time

placed uncertain feet upon the shores of an experimental nation
that hard-pressed, learned the love of freedom as slowly as a toddler
following its mother home.