The First Thing I Noticed

The First Thing I Noticed

The first thing I noticed was the vacancy
at the table, the chair you used to sit in,
the door left unlatched, the void where your
voice once filled the air.

You were no longer invited after taking your fall;
your name was forgotten after your honesty took the stage.
You lived putting it all together and leaving your mind
behind.
You could not accept the constant dissonance any longer;
your ears needed the chords to resolve. You had pinned your
hopes on the lyrics you heard earlier in the day.
You trusted promises that were left hanging like
torn sheets in the wind. You looked for the hand
that once carried you through the riptides of
bewilderment. But they had withdrawn to find their
own place in the sun.

You started the song again, this time all alone.
You played all the instruments because everyone had gone home.
You could no longer sing, though, like you had decades before.
You wondered why you even recorded anything anymore.

Doctrine had caught up with you. Creeds had kept you
bound to the chair at the table where only the most exclusive
were invited. You spoke too soon and were deconverted
unnaturally. Your place at the table dissolved even
more once you mentioned the poor. You were resolved
to live unnoticed like a seed underground.

The first thing I noticed was the way you
turned the tables
and lived again in the margins. The first thing
I heard were the words you said unleashed from
the strain you used to bear of living up to the dogma
of yesterday.

Words in Single File

 
Words in Single File

(“They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Jeremiah 32:38)

Hungry and breathing on our own,
we played darts in the low-light bar.
We never saw the bullseye, never scored
a winning high. All our research had come to this:
The water was green as jade and the air puffing
like tobacco ash.

Walking and waiting in the sun,
we looked for frisbees on the browning meadow.
We never threw it into the brambles, though
we picked some black berries to share.
Nearly winter now and our thinking came this:
dogs are the perfect companions for Autumn
afternoons
when we saw winter looming high above the hills.

We adopted new languages we all could learn,
angelic saying and quotations of the sages.
We came out of the corners when we heard
the sun raise its head; just a single ray
piercing through the clouds.

Forgive my for being here before,
I don’t think I had learned the lesson.
But no one offered me a beer when my
thirst is all I could feel. Some stayed around
for a few more orbits, some jumped off at
the first stop of the sky wagons we flew.

We can be family; we can be sheltered.
We can withdraw the blame that rose from
the words of those helter-skelter ones who wore
gloves to sanitize the entire procedure.

All he wanted, (I should write in the first person)
All I wanted was words in single file,
inviting me to the party again. But, with their
enhanced theology I never stood a chance.
I am guilty, I’ve known that longer than the
accusers’ memory. But that does not exempt
(you or me) from covenants of siblings, of
celebrations of family.

The Breeze Can Turn

The Breeze Can Turn

(“There are those who are last now who will be first in the future. And there are those who are first now who will be last in the future.” Luke 13:30)

The breeze can turn the day around,
it can move flags and leaves to their own devices.
The earth turns and the winds swirl
and we try to predict it all with instruments of sound.
The sand hill that you built your life upon,
no matter how high up the cliffs,
will not stand when the winds of time shift.
There are fewer days than when we started,
fewer moments to freely pursue the dreams of
salvation. You’ve fattened yourself like
a calf for the slaughter and do not realize
the days are racing forward.

Step down before
it is too late,
stand on the loaming ground before you fall
from the top of your precipice. Carry your
proclamations under your coat,
turn your speech around,
you’ve got more to confess than the
limits you’ve put on yourself. Failing
to flourish, you just pretend your boxes
are filled with more money than you can count.
Go look again,
the mice have eaten half of it. The rest are
necessary to pay your debt to humanity.

Poverty might look good on you. Poverty might
turn your words around. I’d befriend you
if you spoke honestly. I’d share a meal with you
if you lay down your presumptive power and
eat slowly the supper made by humble hands
born across the border.
The breeze can turn the day around,
if only you will listen to the wind and let
the Spirit fill your vacancy with the
cries of the walkers only wanting a chance
to work in the sun.

The Same Sun

The Same Sun

(“Therefore love your enemies, do good, and lend, looking for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be the children of the Highest. For he is kind to the unkind and to the evil.” Luke 6:35)

Stand a little closer so you can see
the eyes that open like a morning rose.
Every sunrise blossoms,
every petal has its day,
every flower offers its nectar
for the visitors who come to stay.

The neighbor boy is outside dribbling his
basketball in the street shooting hoops like
he’s the last one on the court. The neighbor
girl rides by on her bike with the family’s
Labrador mix leading the way.

Listen a little deeper and you might hear
the paintbrush on the canvas
writing a rhapsody from margin to margin.
You might hear the colors, you might smell the warm,
you might realize the hues and shades
are laid down in layers. You might hear
the same song from down the street as you
did on your first day home from war.

Do not panic, but the same sun that seeks the horizon
shines for your antagonist;
the same rain falls for your adversary;
the same rose smells of dew and love the as
it does for you.

I can tell that doesn’t sit well with you.
I struggle with it too. I swear, though, the eyes
of my enemy
are the same color as at least a dozen friends.
And the children haven’t learned yet to
withhold love based on merit.

I think I’d like to learn to live again and find
every thread the has stitched my heart to yours,
every ray of light that brightens our eyes.

I Knew the Wound Had Closed

I Knew the Wound Had Closed

(“After the sun had set, people with all kinds of diseases were brought to Jesus. He put his hands on each one of them and healed them.” Luke 4:40)

How great is your power, your love, and your healing,
to touch mortal flesh like mine and leave me reeling
that I could survive so long without the warmth of you hands on my brow.
You cool the overheated wounds that still burst freely
like the first time they ruptured.

But in your touch, between your fingers, inside the hug
that lasted longer than any other hug,
there I found safety from the ways I only rewound my
wounds in moods of despair; I feared I would never
see the scars that reminded me they had once been healed.

It was under the stars, just as the sun was disappearing behind
the hills,
it was far away from a dark moon, it was dusky and chilled.
It was the time of evening when faces change. It was the time
that it takes longer to recognize friend or foe. That was when
I thought I saw you,
That was when I waited in line.

I never sang the blues, I know they would only cheer me up.
But dirges were on my tongue morning till evening, longer than
I spoke in the day.

I was marginally happy; I sat on the sidelines. I was invited to
parties I could not attend. I was unlawfully blind. But I knew
the touch the moment his fingers found my face and nearly
erased
every malignant nerve and thought. There, where the bats
flit above in the yawning light, I knew the wound was closed,
I was whole, and pain, though not entirely eliminated, might lead
me closer to the dawning sun.

A Day Without the Sun

A Day Without the Sun

(“In days filled with trouble, I search for you. And at night I tirelessly lift my hands in prayer, refusing comfort.” Psalm 77:2)

There is no way to explain why the hole I dug
is so empty today. I meant to fill it with artifacts
for the next generation to unearth. But all they will find
is a pamphlet full of words signifying less than a bursting
shovel of dirt.
Don’t misunderstand,
I wanted to be handed truth in a dozen handbags,
but had trouble finding what I insisted existed in
heartfelt utterances of pain.
They laid hands on me to cast out the final vestiges
of insanity. It was instantly regarded as a complete
waste of time.
I can’t forget about the heat I felt when
healing spiraled around my catastrophes. I refuse
to give up on deity in all its idiosyncrasies. I’m
under the thunder of a dozen shovels of earth.
I waited for a new sentence that would outline the
reasons
everything feels empty today. I spoke the words that
I thought I believed and was left
flat on my face underneath a day without the sun.
I love you, that is all that remains of every
statement of faith I’ve ever believed. I hoped to
bring you better news; I hoped I could read a letter
sent in a scented envelope that convinced me to
believe anew the through-line from heaven to earth.
Sandwiched between serious and hilarious
I’ve come to believe all that matters
is the love that comes through the door unbidden,
like a caisson containing the weapons
we swore we would destroy once we followed the
Prince of Peace. But they still are guarded
in our gun cabinets like gold. I wish I could speak
one hundred words to melt the ammunition hoarded by
songs of unbelief.
Today I wished god was a genii who waves a wand
and restores the days I have lost by my misbehavior.
Today it has cost me a little more sanity and my
brain is numb because the words have come to mean nothing
but now grow like poppies in the field.

Cenotes & Dreams

Cenotes & Dreams

(“The sun will no longer be your light during the day, nor will the brightness of the moon give you light, but the Lord will be your everlasting light. Your God will be your glory.” Isaiah 60:19)

There are darkened dreams in the depths
of us like
cenotes in the Yucatan.
We dive until our oxygen runs out,
our eyes unmasked see forms and shadows,
and we awake to misinterpret them.
We saunter halfway through our day
trying to remember at noontime
the swirling plot from midnight. We make
sense
of so little during the day.

Sometimes we compose our own understanding,
we narrate the dialogue, but never write it down.
We practice it well into the afternoon until it
morphs into something
that sounds like the first song we heard
on the radio, the first song of the summer,
and interpret it until evening.

We pass it around like pieces of pie,
we insist we have salvaged the story from the
bottom of our muddy dream.
It becomes our banner. It is wrapped around
every breath like Christmas bows until
it defines us like labels on
tin cans full of vegetables.

And when we hear only silence,
(may the reader beware)
we pretend we have heard announcements
from the sky.

We take to our blankets, close our eyes,
ache for rest,
while meaning slips through our fingers.
Perhaps the snow will cover everything
we thought we knew. Perhaps tomorrow
will be a day
without shadows. Perhaps we will see
the unseeable then.

Dear Friday

Dear Friday

Dear Friday,
I’m writing to say that if I walked into your room
and all my senses were filled,
I could swear it was the first day of summer and not the last.
I smell jasmine and orange, hear jazz and motorhomes
escaping to the lake.
Nearby someone served up strawberries in chocolate,
the boys next door are shooting hoops like they meant it,
sage reminds me of the long days with native friends
just south of Canada. I’m writing to say
that
though joy is bubbling through every sense
there remains this ache,
this loss,
this wince where time has taken its
best shot at my chest.
I want to walk to a downtown with neon signs
that have letters missing.
I want to find a bar where no one knows me and
treats me like a guest.
I’d prefer, to be honest, the company of all the
rest that are too far by geography,
too distant by time,
too removed from my simple misunderstandings of
living ahead of the clock and
behind the calendar that dates my appointments with
no one in particular.

Still, I will sit on my deck this afternoon, start in the
sun
and
end in the shade.
My playlist keeps me company, my chihuahua licks
my fingers before warning the Huskie next door about
wandering too close to her terrain. Not to worry, though,
it is all enclosed by ranch fence. She finally settles in
her favorite corner in the sun.

Plywood Exposed to the Sun

Plywood Exposed to the Sun

(“Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.” Job 2:13)

Afterwards the plywood peeled after the rain,
exposed to the sun,
darkened by age,
with nails in the corners and
splinters in the grain.

The power went out overnight. The winds
grabbed ceilings and families in its teeth.
Shingled a year ago, the roof shuddered like
staccato notes played by sonic booms circling the
the town
just before the county fair.

The lawns had just been mowed,
the dew was stubborn in the early summer light,
the wine was spilled on broken concrete,
the silence moved in layers across the
river to the hills. The grieving began

Once the shock had worn off.

So they sat in the dust, mudded their faces,
turned their backs to the sun, ached and held their
tongues long enough to let the suffering sink, a heart
ballasted like a stone.

Taken on its own, the week changed very little.
Hours without songs, days with fire for bread,
nights with the moon mocking overhead.

But four bodies bore a single sorrow for
days without words. If only we knew the
power in the hands and eyes, the feet and fingers,
the heart that cannot find the downbeat anymore.
If only we stayed, took our sick days
and loved the way we are made: fully fleshy,
fully torn, complex and worn by time like

Plywood exposed to the sun. 

My Pace is Slower

My Pace is Slower

(“The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.” Genesis 32:31)

I never wanted to slow down. I never wanted to lose the race.
I was the fastest in my class; well, faster than the fastest girl.
And that was saying something, she could outrun most of us.
But I was always middle of the pack with the boys, until, in
high school,
I ran a mile backwards just to prove I could do it. Track and Field
had no such event.

I did not slow my pace. Books ran through my fingers like water.
I sold snow skis and Levis, I sold office desks and stacks of invoices.

I raced across the Midwest. Gathered youth from towns in Oklahoma
to lock-ins and car washes, to altar calls and crowded basements. We
marched downtown, prayed for professors, and packed them in on
Friday nights with free popcorn and sodas. But

I was a school bus without a driver. I was grasping for something lighter
than the dark and leaden way my heart left me in the middle and at the end
of every race. But I kept up the pace. I tried to measure my winnings by
the smiles I counted everywhere I went.

And then the bus crashed. The leaden darkness broke through my
paper skin onto nearly everyone I knew. I had not wrestled with God.
I had not tried to wrestle with myself. (Or maybe someone wrestled with me.)
The stress and success were
butterflies that flew the nest upon the first falling snow.

Rest/unrest. Strong-arm/weak-mind. Smooth takeoff/crash landing.
Days of running track became decades of wanting to take it all back.

I’ve stubbed my toe trying to get up. I’ve falling on my face into the
red dust of the oval track. I’ve cut my feet running barefoot on gravel.
I’ve unraveled in the wind while everyone was watching.

My pace is slower. I limp when it is cold. Some days I feel like
I’ve climbed a mountain with no way down. Others I am grateful
to walk around the marina, near the river, smelling the fish station
and salt. I walk the same route and do not care if I ever walk like
an athlete
again.

Doing Nothing in the Sun

 
Doing Nothing in the Sun

(“You led them during the day by a pillar of cloud, and by a pillar of fire at night to provide light for them on the path they took.” Nehemiah 9:12)

Come up and see me,
the butterfly must have heard
and peeked in my window underneath
the eaves where the mourning doves nest.

Come out and play now,
the sun and clouds spoke in same-day
invitations. There is sanity doing nothing
in the sun. There is fantasy that sets
the demons fleeing who
hammered every thought the day before.

Ambient light shines inside the shadows.
Stationary branches hold
wakening leaves. Would you follow the
butterfly till you lost your way?
Would you believe the doves sing just
for you?

Come and sit with me,
my alone can be your sanctuary.
Your fears can be my balm.
And, before the sun falls too far in the sky

We may believe that we are surrounded
by the divine.

Will You Pick Me Up?

 Will You Pick Me Up?

(“Because you are God’s children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into us to call out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Galatians 4:6)

And so, a day begins the same as most days begin.
The sun rose, but I rose too late to see it.
The pains that have trapped me in a body
too old for its years
keep me pinned to my pillow too often to
count.

I do not mean to complain,
though I know how it sounds,
but how do I reclaim a decade
stolen by trips to medical centers and
uninvited spears that kept me locked
inside myself?

Papa, will you pick me up,
will you tell me how to sit on this planet
while the nerves in my brain
flash like fire? Papa, will you pause me,
put me in a parenthesis where I can explore
the mountains or the
bookshelves seventy miles away?
Papa, I don’t mean to cry so often,
and my reasons change with the turning
of the wind;
still,
(is a wish the same as a prayer?)
my feet that love to wander both
thoughts and ground
barely leave the few acres they can
walk around.

Papa, will you wake me in time
to sit around a table with beers and
friends and
guitars and
dangling ends of conversation
before the next thunderstorm sets in?

Chardonnay in the Sun

Chardonnay in the Sun

(“There they stored up a large amount of wine and summer fruit.” Jeremiah 40:12b)

Maybe you’re among the fallen ones,
maybe you’re just living your best,
maybe you’ve always had what you wanted,
maybe your dreams have turned to dust.

I don’t know if your fields lie fallow,
or if you will start your harvest tomorrow.
I don’t know if you’re talking to yourself,
or if you’d rather be anywhere else than
surrounded by the four walls,
closed in by the silence,
waiting for the fruit to ripen,
waiting for the wine to ferment.

Maybe you’ve been waiting to belong,
maybe you think you’re the chosen one,
maybe you’ve learned to shut out the world,
maybe the days are full of best friends and bluebirds.

I don’t know if your doorbell works,
or if your telephone is off the hook.
I don’t know if you’re fixing dinner for three,
or if you have waited all day for company
to fill the silence and your anxiety.
Maybe I should call you,
maybe bring coffee and lunch.
Maybe we are both the same, maybe we are not.

But a walk through the vineyard might do
both of us some good.
Chardonnay in the sun and
a book read out loud,
a day without fences, a week less certain
than monuments of the past; just hearts that
beat and eyes that see
and tongues that cannot wait to taste
the sweetness of the dawn.

The Sun Does Not Lie

The Sun Does Not Lie

(“This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5)

It was a winter day when the sun finally broke through;
the birds were skipping, the shadows were crisp,
the neighbors walked to their mailboxes,
and one heart still felt alone.

The sun does not lie, and you are more graceful than
the years that have whispered in your ear. Mornings like these
midwinter
reveal the love behind it all.

We take it piecemeal, don’t we? Every failure,
every uncharted word, every night we wasted
annoyed that we drank too much. We add them up
like jigsaw pieces from a thousand puzzles. We cannot
find the edge. We stay in the middle of uncertainty,
convinced we deserve the voice that scolds us
for not finishing well.

But the sun does not lie, and here you are, more precious
than anyone has told you. It takes breaths, lots of breaths,
and boldness to let it penetrate the years of darkening aches.
The shadows have mocked you while the light (stars, moon,
mars, sun, reflecting notes from the songs you have forgotten)
while
the
light
bids you to play.

Under the Sun

 

Under the Sun

(“I tell you the truth, you must change and become like little children. Otherwise, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3)

They draw pictures on the back of shopping lists,
they turn their moms into angels,
their dads into astronauts,
and their dogs into superheroes while the
cat sleeps in the sun.

They believe in prayer though they do not understand
the answers,
they believe in hugs and heaven,
they believe in god and tears and smiles and
afternoons spent in the sun.

They will whisper their answer to puzzling questions,
but sing like Elvis with a mic placed in front of them.
They dress up like kings, they dress up like princesses,
they dress up like the preacher and turn their furnace room
into a church. The pets all were saved the very first service.

They count stars and start again where they left off
every night of the summer. They wander through grandma’s
kitchen full of ceramics and pies.
They sneak into grandpa’s garage that smells like something
burning
and discover the pinball machine up against the wall.
They explore the backyard because
Nana and Papa said there was a family of rabbits next to
the south fence last year.

They believe a kiss can heal an owie,
they believe cartoon bandaids heal the fastest of all.
They kiss their puppy’s booboos
and heal the heart of the lonesome neighbor
who sees it all. Mom always took him cookies;
what else are paper plates for?

They sprinkle imagination like confetti,
put notes inside daddy’s books on the shelf.
They compose poems for mom and perform plays
on the porch. They see more than we see

And, faster than motion, they rewrite everything
we thought we believed
under the sun.

An Inside Job

 

An Inside Job

(“Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to him.” Acts 8:35)

With their hair full of waves and an ocean that swells
they dove into their day like seals paddling upriver
following the chum.
They had not played so well in days.

Remember, there is a pebble in your pocket and
summer in your eyes. Remember when we realized
it had been an inside job all along?
Remember how we gazed and wondered at
the way the hills knew the words to every song.

With their interior design and a moveable feast
they gave away everything just to have more.
They followed the sun.
They had not been so rich in years.

Remember, there is a penny in your pocked and
sunrise in your eyes. Remember when we realized
we were connected all along?
Remember how we stared and wandered for
days like the spirit does, like a song without words.

With their reading glasses and pointed questions
they swam away their pain like swans in serenity.
They chose not to run.
They had not rested so well in weeks.

And the days began and the evenings ended,
the questions were asked and answered well-intended,
the tide rose and the tide fell,
the winds looped and the—

Stillness welled up
within the few who
took the time to listen.

Unadorned

Unadorned

(“God’s love will come together with his faithful people. Goodness and peace will greet them with a kiss.” Psalm 85:10)

Nature is not afraid to be unadorned.
I took a photo of two trees three days ago
and labeled it beautiful.
The leaves bled red and the
twigs held loosely the pumpkin orange
sticky notes as long as they could.

But walking by again after two nights of wind,
two nights of November,
the trees were bare, save the hangers-on,
gray crepe leaves turning in the breeze.

It is the parallax of beauty, viewed from the vantage
of weeks and months, that sticky green turns to crunchy beige,
while rain and ice take center stage.
It is the puzzle of perception that
stark arms hiding nothing can elicit wonder
as surely as a spring tree flooded with mockingbirds.

I have become raveled with all that is around me.
I am plaited and braided around god and the good earth.
I have my preferences, I like the sun,
I hear something so proud and ordinary it
makes me stop and wonder as much as a butterfly
lunching on a rose.

The rain can be good as the sun at sewing broken hearts
together. The dark can enter the jagged edges where
flesh was cut from flesh, where bruises ooze from barbed
wire trust or speeding through the night without rest.

That God would not fear to be unadorned,
to make dirt his crown, forest roots his footstool,
a sweaty body his home and encrusted feet his transportation.

That, on a bare tree we see his beauty bled red,
and then crepe grey as breath and heartbeat ebbed away.
That God would appear so tragic, frightening, dreadful

And so, absolutely, definitely and without a doubt…

Dead.

That, unlike spring, he did not lie dormant, but…

Died.

And, like spring, he pushed through the crammed earth
to meet us again, still wounded, but more alive than any
of us have ever been.

It is a wonder that God does not fear appearing unadorned.

The Grief is Louder

The Grief is Louder

(“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” Acts 4:31)

Though the sun squints the eyes and blazes across wind-streaked skies,
there is sometimes not enough warmth to burn away the clouds of sadness
wrap around my heart like unshorn wool.

There is no mistaking its purpose;
we have turned toward the flaming chariot watching
like parade-goers lining each side of the avenue.
Though music turns with each passing,
though grass is softer, roses laugh fuller,
the grief I wear is louder than the amplified
big band tunes.

There are valleys where light seldom visits,
caverns filled with sludge for vision,
and souls once lit
now smoke
in pit and ash.

Let the time pass. Let the days go by,
two and three,
an hour on the phone,
a dollar for coffee,
and the warmth of a kiss upon the cheek.

Loneliness and grief,
heavier than accumulated joy,
are denser than the silly quotes and maxims
mouthed by friends and phantoms.

Yet the quantum particles pass through,
the Spirit She sings the elegy for me
and does not rebuke my tears, pain or
doubts. She sits and shakes with me
until the craggy mourning cracks and her
lightness touches
my latent heart in subconscious movement
toward the sun.

And, surrounded by love, God, friends and
everyone,
the smile is not wider now,
the smile is worn and weathered now,
but the smile rests in a long distance
and microscopic array of nurture
while the sun rounds the bend again.

Each Day is Framed

Each Day is Framed

(“Or else let them come to me for protection. Let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.” Psalm 27:5)

When each day begins framed with pain
the sun is hidden in the corners.
Birdsongs are fragments of scratched paint,
the best thoughts are cracked and peeling
despite the finest efforts of restoration.

Sometimes I feel the need to explain, dip my
pen in the blackest ink
and begin again. In Prose. In Short Sentences.
In Declarations. In Descriptions that get to the
Point
of pain.

But I write between moments, through half-open windows,
while the earth is crammed with minutes I’ve wasted
waiting for abatement. Could I write in clinical paragraphs
complete with footnotes and citations
some might believe this artless student of doubt.

But the days begin and end the same,
my brain the biggest enemy. How God inhabits
the letters, the numbers, the synapses and numbness
is a question for others better than me. I do not suffer well,
do not joy in it, revel in it or find a sliver of meaning in forces
that keep me pressed to the ground.

I am a mere dependent, assigned to the edges of my art.
The craft I laughed so passionately is untuned in the corner
and silent. Still I must write, and write well, not excellent; but
true.

And many will question the frame, wonder of my faith,
(as I also wonder), and note the stains upon the painting where
the shadow of pain blocked the sun’s healing rays. And

Peace is beyond my reach, though, I should believe,
it still inhabits the first brushstrokes beneath the layers
of grey. I await the colors of the day.

An Economy of Grace

An Economy of Grace

(“Heal the sick who are there and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” Luke 10:9)

It is a close-up in sepia with venetian red from chin to forehead;
Her eyes are halfway open as the lids slowly meet; the lashes are so long
they nearly preclude the closing created by history, fatigue and pain.

Back it up, rewind those mysterious eyes, and replay at half-speed the
cropped face with no context or place; perhaps it is a single frame, may two,
but the emerald glint is clear, two jewels hid between treasure chest lids;
she hides the beauty, for once the sadness is seen, our eyes can lie for us,
the gleam of turquoise, sapphire or aquamarine sent full-spectrum through our tears
betray our struggle with pain

Unless we look away at just the right moment, just the right angle,
and keep our eyelids resting upon the other until the observer takes leave,
distracted by some fully open eyes with every single ray of the sun finding
each natural facet in the iris speaking health to every spectator.

But, whether we think the eyes facing us
are the artwork of another fine cinematographer,
or message sent freely (to me) to us, we sense
one awake and one bored to sickness and we may often
leave them both alone.

Yet the two (who represent nearly all) may both be mourning,
hoping a new storehouse of pastels will renew the hues we’ve
allowed to disguise the pain we hardly let the spectators see
and, unhealed, we keep smiling with our eyes,
or sleeping with our lashes barely touching so we can
bit by bit take a slice of light in.

Let the watchers say, whether the light is lost or shining,
whether coasting or climbing; this ill-represented earthen
world
is not a kingdom with grace unfurled. There is another place
within this place, another answer that is Yes and Yes,
another jurisdiction without posts or fences or borders:

Just a healing fountain at every step you take toward
the King whose love pours in the light and ignites the colors
in fifth-world wonder. Waking, sleeping, hiding or weeping;

The kingdom is healing, its colors stream like repeater rainbows
opening the eyes alive and day-free, every-mercy. An economy
of grace that floods the red ledgers and destroys their discrepancies.