We All Live in the Mountains

We All Live in the Mountains

(“But many who are first will be last. And the last will be first.” Mark 10:31)

We all live in the mountains,
we all live in the valleys,
we all live by surging streams,
we might live in yellow submarines;

We all sit in the same sun,
we all watch the river run,
we all stand in the deep sand,
we all buy the same name brand.

If you think that’s silly,
imagine anyone ruling from the ground up or
the sun down.
Imagine anyone commanding from situation rooms or
abandoned tombs.

We all flunked the test,
we all passed the rest,
we hoped to do our best,
we all only guessed
at the good that kings and queens could do
when so few lived where flowers perfumed the vale,
so many gave wrong numbers, so many lives were for sale.

We are all poets,
we are all painters,
we are all dancers,
and we cannot wait for
the show to begin.

If you think that’s dizzy,
imagine watching from the last row, imagine
waiting from the outskirts of town,
imagine excusing the harshest blows, imagine
kneeling before the circus clowns.

Suddenly a world that cannot turn
upside down when nothing is over and nothing
is under,
nothing will ever be split asunder;
can you imagine, will you wonder,
that our puny vowels mean much when
all the world is aching for the touch of anyone
with an ounce of breath to
step out of time,
to step into the sublime moments
when metronome beats are suspended,
inviolable rules upended,
and caution is thrown to the wind.

I Will Listen for the Streams

I Will Listen for the Streams

(“They will not be hungry or thirsty. The burning heat of the sun will not trouble them. For He Who has loving-pity on them will lead them. He will lead them to wells of water.” Isaiah 49:10)

I think I might do my best trying to find God
as a monk in the wilderness,
a hermit for half an hour among the sand
and spiders without a page to read,
without a pencil to write,
just the hard floor the sun baked,
and a stick to etch meditations on the earth.

I think I might be happy for half a day
sitting by the dock of the bay,
no tunes in my pocket,
no guitar in my lap,
just the squeak of dolphins playing
while waves clapped against the pilings.

I think I could construct something simple in the forest

given wet mud and pine needles
and a survival expert as well.
Without a tent or a cookstove I know
I would starve before the sun was one quarter done.
But I’d still watch the blue jays play
and the fawns leaping after their mothers.

I know I’ve seen the face of eternity in my best friend,
in the toddler whose laugh fills the room,
in the longest hug I’ve ever received that felt like Jesus
was squeezing all the hurt out of me.
I know I’ve seen the king in the face of children swinging
at recess. I know I hugged creation when
I greeted my friend in rehab,
and when I hugged him after he failed.
And when those who knew all about me
kissed my cheek like a prince. I winced before
and after, but still saw the sun brighter that day.

The suburbs seem so much farther from imagination,
my meditations do not fit the square corners of intersections
and property lines.
But the same love dwells in this silent weekday afternoon
as does in the constellations, the red sand, the wild waves,
and all the affections that have led me to this place.

I will listen for the streams.