A More Magical Time

 A More Magical Time

(“How sweet is the taste of your instructions-sweeter even than honey!” Psalm 119:103)

What if we focus on the magic,
what if we run for the fun of it,
what if we write our way healing,
what if we create from the middle of earth
upwards?
What if we let the seasons slide by in their time,
what if we planted more honeysuckle and snapdragons?

The schoolboy’s objective was always the same,
to walk the
three blocks to school
and pick a blossom from the neighbor’s
overgrown garden and suck the nectar from
the stem.
Another friend had taught him where to find
the sweetness
and he never passed by without a tiny taste
of morning.

What if we danced at the pow-wows,
what if we tore pieces of frybread to share,
what if we learned the ancient languages,
what if we create from eyeline to sightline
in tempo?
What if we love the cultures we stumble upon,
what if we burned more sage and drank more wine?

The young man’s objective was always the same,
to find the footing
and join the round-dance
when “all tribes” was called. No one
corrected him (though he knew his feet fell
like rusty anchors). They teased him the way
friends and family do
and he smiled larger. He wished he had taken time
to learn from his best friend
the joy of the fancy dance
and the drum songs that moved the earth
to a more magical time.

After the Kneading

After the Kneading

(“However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience…” 1 Timothy 1:16a)

How long does it take for darkness to unfurl,
for the taste of violent cuisine to roll off our tongues
into loaves from the earth baked in the noonday sun?

We used to let the elders take the front of the line
in our potlucks and banquets,
with unaccompanied minors right behind.
In that thin place between age and innocence we
hoped
prophetic purity might arise.

Time (that place unmeasured except by planetary motion)
outpaces our lusts and unmade faces until
we are dissatisfied again by the meager fare
of private meals where with little love and less challenge
we eat by ourselves.

But bread is meant to be prepared with muscled hours,
rising after the kneading like a carnival balloon.
Bread is meant to be shared with all who detected
the aroma of the afternoon, arriving to a circle of
friends for a repast near evening.

Some bring guitars, some bring songs,
some read poetry, some play along,
some limp in slowly, others tumble like clowns,
some take off their shoes, some make the rounds
and hug every neck, high and low, telling
the same jokes they’ve told one hundred times before.
Still everyone laughs; maybe everyone snickers.

We’ve been around the block a few times,
some have even met each other in the ring;
some have had words with each other more times
than you would believe,
but that is why they share the bread which redefines
argument and apologetic from winning and sinning
to singing and ringing the dinner bell with the
screen door wide open and the wine already poured.

There is a banquet, there is a picnic,
and if you get confused, just watch the dragonflies play
and hear the echoes of the frogs in the damp grass

And sit with us a spell, sing with us a prayer (even
with your mouth full). Stuffed and sleepy we’ll end
the day, but will wait for the very last vagabond
who always arrives much too late.

George Floyd, I Did not Know You

George Floyd, I Did not Know You

(“After ten days, Daniel and his friends looked healthier than all the young men who ate the king’s food.” Daniel 1:15)

Will you eat the king’s meat,
Will you sit at the table of deceit,
Will you change your middle name,
Hoping it will sound nearly the same
As the swarms of modified eagles
Cackling like hens?

Will you visit the robbers’ den
Pretending it’s the temple?
Will you stand outside of it for a photo opp
To prove you are not the devil?
Will you kneel as an example
(on the necks of the devoted, no less)
of dominion you think you’ve been blessed with?

How long did it take for the blood to stop flowing?
How long did the air squeak like a dying balloon?
How long did you know there was not breath. He was
lifeless?

Will you refuse the king’s madness,
Will you fall on your faces and confess,
Will you join your tears in streets
Where blood stopped flowing, where the breath ceased
as the swarms of mystified people
pleading like moms.

Stay inside if you need too, stay outside if you want,
all I know is eight minutes is far too long to compress
a brother’s throat. Mingle your outrage with the grief
of too many removed from the scene, lives taken
unseen,
justice stolen like Macy’s front door and
peace bartered for projectiles piercing the soul

Of a nation broken and plagued. A nation only healed
By its own self-confession and sorrow. Today (and last
Century, and three before that) are the time for crying,
And judgement. 

And tomorrow may justice flow like
A river. Tomorrow may peace demand the rocks give way.

George Floyd, I did not know you. I know less of your anguish.
Teach us (we who stand outside cathedrals),
Rip us (we who sleep inside bedrooms),
Paint us (we who live so colorless),
Point us (we who navigate so well…

past our privilege in the famine of shame.)

Let us (fasting and sacrament) fully taste your pain. 

An Altar to Punch

An Altar to Punch

(“Don’t call me Naomi,” she responded. “Instead, call me Mara the Almighty has made life very bitter for me.’” Ruth 1:20)

Sometimes you need to find
a place to cry alone,
or at least a place where people
do not feel they must atone for the bitter taste
you bring to the gathering.

Sometimes you need those friends
who understand, who see,
that being sad, being angry can be
just as holy as a prayer.

Bitter is just the taste on the tongue when
what you thought would be right
seems to have gone so wrong;

And the Almighty, El Shaddai, is slow on the uptake.

Sometimes you need an altar that you can punch and grind
and rip and tear with no one worried that you ruined the carpeting.

Sometimes you need to tell the Almighty, to complain to
El Shaddai that
the chef seems to have overcooked the burnt offering.