Another Piece of Cake

Another Piece of Cake

(“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you should answer everyone.” Colossians 5:6)

Once the table is set and the soup is poured
we talk between sips of warmth and hope.
We haven’t talked this way since they siphoned off
the last bit of joy that once ran like honey.
Between sustenance and governance we stubbornly
held our ground even while our ground was sinking.
Now, with no more arguments left, we sit nervously,
almost bereft,
and our emptiness opens us to rounder words that
fit our hearts more evenly. Food makes us family,
the first course was served before we knew each other
at all.
And now,
perhaps the last course,
can be shared with no expectations at all. There is
always another chair at the table.

The next day we just might
sit outside. I watched, looking down my gravel driveway,
to see if you liked my invitation.
I peered through the knothole, the question mark
in the middle of my fence,
to see if, after our Monday evening repast,
we could paint a backyard portrait on Tuesday,
carried across the street on the
grill smoke from a half dozen neighbors.
There is always room for you on the patio.
There is always another piece of cake.

When the Sparks Began

 

When the Sparks Began

(“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.” Colossians 4:6)

 

They had been transparent days until then,
skies full of space, dewy grass with the fallen
petals of camelias carpeting the places beneath
the trees.

They had been joyful evenings until then,
rounds full of laughter, guitars with the chosen
chords of folk songs measuring the pace of memorized
ditties and reels.

A careless cigarette dropped from the traveler’s mouth
into a ditch on a day when all burning was banned.
He noticed, he looked
and exhaled again as he hurried to his destination.

A thoughtless epithet dropped from the minstrel’s mouth
into the circle of fifths on a night when choral odes were planned.
She heard it, she laughed
as if that would soften the blow of a word misplaced and unrationed.

The day became opaque for hours to weeks,
the sun was burnt orange, the sky soot black and weeping,
ancient tree roots and newly budded roses were burned
at the stake
along with farms and meadows and houses.

The night became static, claustrophobic and silent,
the guitar cases clicked as instruments were laid down to sleep.
Songs sung for generations, songs sung for solidarity were mute
at the way
unsavory words sucked the joy from picking and strumming
and singing and humming.

Wildfire and iced hearts. All we needed was seasoning to grace
the moment when the sparks began.