No Power But Surrender

No Power but Surrender

("So you, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 2:1)

Once the pain encircles my day all advice sinks beneath the waves
while the crowds shout from the shore how nice the water is today.
I would float on the crystal Caribbean,
soak in August's alpine lakes
just to view the light from my old point of view.

There are huddles so small that electrons cannot pass through,
moments so long the birds and deer leave only their scent behind;
eyes have focused on silence overridden by bass notes never in the score.
The phone rings; another robocall selling me ways to pay for
an attorney. I would answer, but I've memorized his spiel.
Nights are too short, though syncopated with ghosts who
know everything.

Some of the specters are soothing and drink tea or enjoy my
abstract jazz; my bluegrass grooves.
While others are buckets of words, hot soup on a sweltering day,
undoing the therapy poured out in every lyric.

There are expanses so vast, though I have 2,000 friends,
I cannot see a soul or tree or the horizon where the day should end.
The sun sweats. A high growl lassos the sky and declaims the regrets
that time relentlessly reminds each pulse of my brain.

I would sleep in the shade on a day like this in an East Bay meadow
found only by weaving past the eucalyptus, descending to the stream
and crossing the fallen log waxed with frogs and water and time.

But yesterday no longer exists, though each stab of pain urges
the better days when friends had no answers; only hugs and
chowder and
grilled cheese.

There is no power but surrender left. And surrender may be the
most dangerous power that exists. All this brain can do with its
body of bones is fall back in the ocean, the lake, the meadow;
fall back to a time when, eternity past, all is reassigned. 

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

(“Teach me how to live to please you, because you’re my God. Lead me by your blessed Spirit   into cleared and level pastureland.” Psalm 143:10 {The Message})

Now  the last phone call I received was well-intentioned,
but I have a view from another side of the mountain,
If I speak as I see, acknowledging the focus of the other’s scene,
everything can be disremembered and spread like stale smoke and perfume
until my observation is dissolved as completely as the last bubble
in old champagne.

If you looked at my heart carefully, microscopically, carefully,
a quarter century ago; you know before the first peek; you hear
it speak in healthy rhythm, and you would doubt any deficit of
love or
surrender,
sprint or
marathon;
though the breath may be heavy, and the mistakes plenty,
you would find only the few healed scars from crashing
friends and cars in laughter afterward.

Examine again the intention. Listen once more for the intonation.
Hear the songs resound off the walls, and give slow devotion to
the wafted savor of fewer or two who sing outside the encampment.

Like Moses who could not
care less
that 70 prophesied around the temple
and two within the marketplace; and only wished
that all and complete,
the Spirit would fill, and splash, and gush and flash
like tropical thunder from every heart before or after

Human inspection.