Of Prayer and Song

Of Prayer and Song

(“Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing.” James 5:13 [The Message])

How long the day when the sun refuses to shine
on the dark pain you carry like a bag of sand.
I know the weeks are molasses crying in the night,
and the months struggle by as time strangles your
every word.

And now we pray. Will relief come? Set the weight
down on the ground
and see what answer comes. The Father is fond of you.
The Mother creates comfort for you. The Son soothes the
disquieted heart that runs apace of your mind. And now we pray.
Quiet. We wait for the word that empowers us for later in the day.
The day passes and we turn to face distress with renewed promises.
And now we pray. Within. The Spirit within takes our embers
and turns them to incense; an aroma of good things to come.

How light the day when the sun peeks from behind the clouds
and the flowers seem to wave to greet you as you bend over them.
I know the weeks fly fast, laughing until sunbreak,
and the months are filled with coffee with friends and a
few songs we’ve known since we were kids.

And now we sing. Will we remember the words? We pick up
the first note
of our earliest songs. The Father dances to our music.
The Mother harmonizes to set the song ablaze. The Son improvises
to prove he is still human just to remind us. And so we sing.
Lustily. We sing the first words that enter our minds.
We whirl like tops, dancing and transforming our heart-songs into new tunes.
And now we sing. Again. The Spirit pays attention and carries
our songs like afternoon wine; a vintage better than we had ever known.

To Know the Deep

To Know the Deep

I want to know the deep and long of you,
The all and song of you.
I want to give you the true and same of me,
the peace and frame of me.
I want to know the days you cannot sing,
the nights that keep reminding you of everything
you wish you could not remember.
I want to sit with you for hours
just watching the river run.
I want to walk with you, hand in hand,
slowly like love that rises from the roots of
trees in the forest, like the warm earth below
our feet.
I want to hold you the way the sun holds the sky,
the way the clouds hug the hills with questions.
I want to be one with you, our hearts answering the
call of soft birdsongs resting among the cedars on the way.

I want to know the wide and fear of you,
the why and tears of you.
I want to give you the love and end of me,
the sighs and bends of me.
I want to know you like a slow turning
ocean below the azure blue. I want you to
know I’m there before you say a word.
I want to spend days and days with you
unfolding everything we’ve forgotten about
dancing when no one is watching.

I want to show you the corners of my heart
that I’ve kept in the dark. I want to soothe the
hurts you never speak of and hope you will speak
of them more to me.

I want you to feel my hands upon your face
when the tears silently trace your cheeks.
I want you to know you are beautiful when
the tears pool like pearls in you eyes.
I want to know the hurts and pain of you,
to give the soothing grains of sand on a
warm stretch of ocean sand.

I want to be silent while you tell me everything.
I want to hold you while you tell me each
chapter of your story and I will memorize it
and protect it within my heart for you.

Barefoot in Autumn

 Barefoot in Autumn

(“The prince of Yahweh’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place on which you stand is holy.’ Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:15)

Walking barefoot on the early autumn dew
and the ground gave slightly between his toes.
There was a place within that was as bare as the
fading grasses as the days shrunk a little each hour.
There was power, there were flexible moments,
there was thunder, there was cotton candy snow.
The sun was bright and never obscured, the stars
burned right where they had been appointed eons ago.
He wasn’t sure if angels attended his devotion,
or if God walked the same short path that day.
He just knew nothing should come between his unshod feet
and a few square yards of pure creation. Although he did cry
to think
of all the consumables that, tossed out of every home, now
in microscopic detail permeated each place he stepped.
He heard no voices, but did think a song would be appropriate.
He waited for the birds to begin, the robins and doves that
shared a tree just over his head. They were busy collecting berries
for their brood and paid him little attention. Some of the birds
hung upside down on the branches just to reach the diminutive berries.

He had fasted before, hoping the holy would fill the
empty places. He was not wrong. But the visions were drab,
dull green and gray. He prayed until his eyes stung; He knelt
and asked the same thing each time. His failures always were
the first order of business. The dissonance between what he believed
and what he could never control; he could write a book, but then
everyone would know he wasn’t who he hoped to be.

But that day, standing in the chilly autumn with his feet
naked and flush against the ground, he thought he heard
the silence speak. What was the language? What dialect?
Could the thoughts that came to his mind also be the thoughts
of god? Could his heart beat truer while the cold earth
seeped between his toes? He would go back inside,
pour a cup of tea, and finish reading about the climate crisis.
He would do all he could do and bottled the moment as an
elixir to fix his backlog of failures and his fresh open-mouthed
questions about sanity and sanctity.

The air was warm just inside his front door.

What Has Happened to Our Song?

What Has Happened to Our Song?

(“But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.” 2 Timothy 2:23)

Whas it because of the onion sky?
Or did the poles shift, east and west, just
before the apocalypse? Stand where your
feet are, planted on the earth. Take the poetry
she gives,
taste the fruit on the vine. Wake with the blue jays
who always announce the days the same.
There is no back door out of this place.
There is no one to blame;
only new mornings, only golden afternoons,
only seasons and half moon bays.
There are windows that record every vibration
like a bee wing’s buzz. There are whispers that
can be heard across the neighborhood calling out
from under clouds, from thunder sounds, and
stifled giggles from children being trained by their dogs.

You thought to write an anthem for the ages,
you hoped we would digest every languid rhyme.
You borrowed more than you created;
you migrated below the radar until the organist remembered
the tune was not yours to begin with.
We inflated your ego for two years too long.
We never wanted you to suffer,
we never called you on the line.
We watched the way you denied that you loaded the dice;
we waited until the end of the day to ask you simply
for an honest attribution. We pinned the notes to your
piano keys hoping they would remind you
the author
was the same as the melodist this time.

What is happening to our song,
what has become of our dialogue between
creation and performance? When we hear the theme
that accompanied our birth we can rehearse again
and sing until our voices are hoarse. We can
play like children in the water no matter who
provided the stream.

Fill My Heart with Song

 Fill My Heart with Song

(“I tell all of you with certainty, not even in Israel have I found this kind of faith!” Matthew 8:10b)

Fill my heart with song, teach me lyrics from
beyond the border/land. We will walk together,
we will bask in the sun, we will not notice if you are
immigrant or native son.

Teach me your language, let me hear the slides
and staccatos. Teach me your colloquialisms,
colloquy around the campfire as the waves come
crashing in.

Gale force winds/sing louder.
Sea gulls ascend/sing sweeter.
Sea lions play/sing abandoned.
Feet on the sand/sing magnetic.
Head in the clouds/sing ecstatic.

I would fill my pail with the horizontal rain,
I would circle each raindrop with a permanent marker.
I would paste it on the cliffs as an installation of hope.
I would surrender deeper, find the glint or confetti
and trade it for silly talk and sweaty debates until
their value increases. Did I mention the languages
that wrap the globe in miracles and melody?

Let my mind never be filled, let it always have room for
low-rent districts and the dialects that have been forgotten.
If you are the last speaker, I will walk with you hours
a day
just to learn to say
how loved you are, how your cadence shifted
my metrics decades ago.

A Song so Incomplete

 A Song so Incomplete

(“Embarrassingly I admit that next to them we must look very weak!” 2 Corinthians 11:21a [The Message])

I wanted to dash off a quick note to tell you
how sorry I am
I never brought the hammer down
or
embarrassed your misgivings on purpose.
Was I too weak for that?

It also has been brought to my attention that,
because I refused to force certain wanderers
to return
I lost a few sheep along the way.
Was I too silent for that?

Here and now,
as I look back,
I only wish I had whispered more often,
embraced the granite wills,
and let them find their way
among the walls and mazes of
uncertainty.
I hope I refrained and left no punched holes
in the pulpit.

I wanted you to see me without my disguise,
a fool, a clown, a brow with lines of doubt
even when faith was the word. I wanted to
unmask myself
before myself
became glued too far forward.

I hope you recognize in these lines,
not some guru eating gelato,
but another ant on the hill trying to
make sense of a world
far too large to paint in a lifetime.

The few I hammered only hid their
mask beneath more greasepaint and
shoe polish. The few who hammered me
never asked where I am living now.

Come, let us design a song so
incomplete it
leaves us nothing at all
to brag about.

EverySong

 EverySong

(“He has brought down rulers from their thrones. But he has lifted up people who are not considered important.” Luke 1:52)

You have been waiting for the miracle to arrive,
we have been waiting too.
You have been watching for the change overnight,
we have been watching too.
The skies crowded with blooming clouds and
the earth shook like the barrel of a gun
and we were all stunned that the end had not
begun.

You were aching for a new frame of mind,
we were aching too.
You were asking for further review,
we were asking too.
The grains of sand tore at your shoes
while the pains in your head shrunk every
thought of rescue. We were all hoping
for overnight lifeboats to arrive.

But the tides turn slow as leaven,
justice arcs less sharp than mustard seeds.

The foundations, our assumptions,
the ascension to the throne;
the notions, the oceans,
the VIP receptions; alone we
hoped to be seen by the mighty
and be changed in an instant
as proof we were waiting like
a bride for her groom.

But the healing arrived well after
all the RSVPs went home.
The relief was chanted like a solo
sung into the unknown.

You have been searching for heaven’s reversal,
we have been searching too.
You have been schooling for the final rehearsal,
we have been schooling too.
The lame will walk, the blind will see,
the pain will be swallowed by nickname’s embrace
and the lowly;
and slowly the oppressed will see freedom’s
announcement in every song and
every story told of
the kingdom to come.

You Belong

 

You Belong

(“I will turn darkness into light in front of them. I will make rough places smooth. These are the things I will do for them, and I will never abandon them.” Isaiah 42:16b)

You belong to the earth,
you are a child of the sky,
though others may not see your worth,
your soul was made to fly
above the echoes that have exploded like
cannons in your mind.
You were made to walk in shoes that fit,
that shine, that warm, that find the winding path
where you belong. The beach cabin where
your mind is at home, where the waves echo the
beat of your heart, where the sun rises and speaks your
name
as more beloved than your ears have yet heard.

I would walk the solar system round just
to bring more starlight to you.
I would record the voice of heaven just
to bring more music to you.

The songs were written before your breath,
the lyrics are honey, caramel and cream. The
stars danced on the day you were born and
tonight will celebrate once more.

You belong to heaven,
you are a child of the voice
that spoke the worlds whirring in the void.
You are the first thing on heaven’s mind,
the last ever left behind. Your feet
leave prints on the sacred earth
for others to follow the way with you.
Your voice leaves whispers in the holy air
for others to hear and speak back to you.

I would collect the oceans just
to let them soothe your weary heart.
I would gather the sunshine just
to let it warm your winter hands.

You matter more, a princess, a daughter,
than you have ever been told, than
you have ever remembered.
And now believe (oh if I could embody the word)
Beloved is your title, your name, and has always been
the place you belong in heaven, in earth, in sky, in song.

To Memorize Their Song

 

To Memorize Their Song

(“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7)

I held the ticket in my hand as long as I could,
I boarded the train, the thunder shook, the rains
explained their course in fractals across the windows.
I sat in the observation deck but there was nothing to see.
I had taken the overnight,
and the plains passed blackly underneath my eyes.

The blindness increased the emptiness sitting
alone
next to the cold gray window.
Just a mom and a daughter sitting behind me,
sweet sixteen and the youngest of three,
their conversation was spotty, like the first verse
of a folk song. Then retuning for the next.
Or more like a Dylan song,
where you don’t know if the middle verse
is the first
and the last is the overture. The words were fast
to start with,
punctuated silence between the breaths.
High school, boyfriends, future plans,
cool mom, hair bands, and dance recitals
began before she was five.
I heard it all, the delightful duet colored
my blue night better. They did complain
(everyone does on a train. At night. Crossing the plains)
The seats were sore, the sights were boring, the food was
bland and not a teenage boy in sight.
But their song always ended with laughter or
the kind of sigh when two people know the rest
of the story
and the listener only knows the patina.

I held my ticket until I disembarked.
I walked past the singers on my way out.
Asleep now, leaning into each other with
a single blanket covering their laps. Two flowers
I caught at full bloom. But it made me wonder
what care it had taken, what nurturing, whispered encouragement,
notes left on the fridge, or rides to practice had
distracted them from all the danger that can drive
the best love away.

I kept my ticket to memorize their song.

Beyond our Reach

Beyond our Reach

(“He will once again have compassion on us; he will tread down our iniquities. You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19)

Yet my heart still yearns for more love than I’ve been offered,
and I cannot admit it to the faithful and devoted
for I should be content with the love they espouse,
the love they says is unending,
(and the love I know to be true).
Yet so few grew in their affection for

a stumbler who trips over mere gravel,
a bumbler who constantly unravels plans and acquaintances.

Still I’ve groveled to earn back the friendship,
the kinship I admittedly broke. But I haven’t dug
deep enough, I think. The smoke still hovers over
embers of anger and rejection. I haven’t shoveled
long enough to prove my grief is great as their scars.

Let’s all go for a swim on top of the ocean,
let’s all go for a hike on top of the world,
let’s all seek adventures on top of dunes,
let’s all skim the top of rivers again.

I fear I’ve let the cat out of the bag,
I’m not as confident as my weekly proclamations.
There are few who care about my daily palpitations,
my constant mental storms and wilted white flags.

Let’s all glide above the atmosphere,
let’s all picnic above the earth,
let’s all round dance above the dust,
let’s all sing as if our hearts will burst.

My feet are calloused, my eyes itch from sand,
my directions are misguided, my arguments are obtuse.
The journey has been painful, knocked all my certainty loose,
the navigation is not at fault, but the way is weary,
and every sense assaulted like moth-eaten quilts.

Still I embark, never on time. Later than ever these days,
and watching my thoughts unwind. My destination has
always been the same; a tribe, a gathering, a clan,
a caravan, a band that loves to sing the same song

Out of tune because the earth keeps rolling.
The instruments enter and exit while the voices
find a common song,
An early song,
a folk song,
the music that encircles top and bottom
and leaves the air cleansed by the exhaled version of
the eternal song.

I Like this Song

I Like this Song

(“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7)

I can’t find the help I need, no one answers my call,
I’m stuck and I’m leaving, I’m famished and I’m grieving
over the cold feet that could be warmed
if you just asked one friend unalarmed, to find
the source you lost when someone Grasping for Life
held the door open so the winter cold would enter
and you would leave for the last time after time.

Your words are a string of letters flowing from immediate fingers,
not the dipstick pens of unresolved stories. Let the flurry
wipe your vision clear, the frigid blister steel your resolve
and look further forward this time than ever before.

I entered your story around chapter 16. I heard you recite
vignettes from six and seven. You quoted dialogues of two characters,
both with the same name, though their sentences were
of nearly equal length while you filled in the silences.
I knew you were future.
I hoped you were not fastened with invisible fishing line
to stories that would become ancient by the time your
narrative is ended.

The indelible ink has dried, the silent pillows cried
along with your unrelenting fears that played like
silent movies upon your sleeping cranium. But, with
chapters and dialogue still to be written,
seek the Muse whose style can match your
past unbidden

With a future unhidden, when
day becomes brighter from sunrise over the mountain pass
to noonday’s reflection upon the stillest river flow.

I’m out of predictions, used my last half a century ago,
but the story will be written, the lines like poets write
with jazz in the background and a favorite friend who,
each time the band begins, says again,
“I like this song.”

First Time Heard

"First Time Heard"

(“Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. When they got there, he told them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’” Matthew 26:36)

Carried along into the cave where olives branched to make
a cavernous ceiling, the worst dirge was sung with only
a Single One understanding the words.

Though the words may swirl around our heads when the
dying heart asks our attention; though we cannot grasp
which rhyme was chosen or why, the aching unto death
demands companions who will stay though the song
as perplexed as sitting at a Seder for the first time.
You know it is holy, and cannot perceive what each
cup, each herb, each prayer means. But you stay with
all attention; like hearing Leonard Cohen without knowing
he is a genius.

With the final Psalm sung, they stopped midway into the
grotto where sadness sank beneath their feet like mud
under the crusted earth. They were invited this
musty night and knew not why, trying to match their
mouths to the words their Muse had mastered.

Sad, frightened, agony and pain-till-death; these were
not words they had heard from the Joy of Heaven before.
They were absurd, their hearts bubbled like boiling,
in love’s strange attachment tonight to the Lover
leading them to their darkest encounter. They could
not
pray
but
slept.
And so would I, at the way the darkness made
the refrain a migraine unfastened from verse.

He stepped just outside their sight,
but they heard every word of His pain blasting
through the canopy to Heaven’s remote outpost;
and sleep only echoed the words in dreams as real
as their waking.

Sadness encountered sleep; sadness twice and then
the weeping was done, the will respun to symphony’s best
while others slept the words they could not forget.

One Song

"One Song"

(“No matter where I am, your teachings fill me with songs.” Psalm 118:54)

Advice weaves in and out of consciousness, word and words
looping like barn swallows, swooping upon the pages we would
write our next memoir. The syllables from well meaning acquaintances,
the sentences from lastly friends, are all meant to ease the layers
of questions tangled about our legs, blankets in midsleep.

I would rest longer, or next time fight through the pain,
I need more fellowship, friends around my grimace,
I should take time off, work longer, seek solitude,
find new voices to tell me how to find the final fork
before I see home from the last lonely hill.

With every meeting I miss I kiss peace goodbye
because I know I should have attended, and those attending
know it better than I.

With every day I put my words into the blender
adding hints and spices hopefully hidden in the puree,
I wish I would come up with just one original recipe,
or at least ingredients in a different order from the cookbooks’
command.

One song has remained the same, I recognize it when I can
hear nothing else. It is like the birds before dawn who know
spring is awake well before snow has receded. It is the newborn
whose cries create smiles, the lullaby sung by a toddler to her doll,
or the kitten whining for her brother-dog let outside without her.

I would let past-tense go if I knew present-tense would pay the bills.
I cannot guarantee applause or tears; the song never plays the same way twice.
I can hear it just around the riverbend, but today I can get no closer than
the whispers heard between the words in my suggestion box; or above

The lull that comes between easterly blusters.