Teach Me Silence

Teach Me Silence

(“Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction.” 1 Timothy 6:9)

Can I learn more about you, the silence between
the commercial rants and conversational winds?
Do I need to listen to every interview with the next
entrepreneur hawking what I never needed but want
just the same?
Can I conquer this need for occupation,
can I slow down my mind?
What of the hands on the clock that mark my hours
more slowly than the day? What of the tremor I feel
just wanting to get out of my skin? If I could
buy everything (retail or closeout) how much
quieter would I seem? I don’t say much, but my
brain unsteadily steams like the iron wheels of a train.

I’ve never had much money,
don’t know where I’d shop if did. Maybe the
minutes would tell me how to satisfy these desires.
Maybe the hours would empty my treasure chest
buried closely to the line where land and sea meet.
Maybe my heart would beat to the rhythm of the waves,
and maybe I would be still long enough to know
I have everything that I need.

The fingerprints of the world are whorled on
my transparent brain. I never wipe them clean. They
inform me of everything like rafts
carrying pelts from northern excursions. I inspect
every one but leave them for someone else to purchase.

Take me silence, teach me stillness. I’ll lay my
yearning aside for an hour of solitude, though I barely
talk
to anyone all day. Is there a word in the center of me
that can define my cravings? I’ve run out of energy
and no longer pursue them. But they still occupy my
thinking every day.

Meet me, find me in the middle of my sentences that
trail on for hours at a time. Unpack my density,
my destiny seems to be wound up and tangled like
vines in the middle of a rose garden. Meet me
finally where I can hear only silence waiting for
me.

It Was a Fast Train

 It Was a Fast Train

(…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3b)

It was a fast train that got him there,
it was a straight line from fame to desertion.
No one knew his name, no one noticed the lines
in his face
etched over time, etched by tears like iron fillings.
He had studied. He had memorized. He had written it
all
down
and hoped that his journals would suffice to answer
the critics who were saddened that his trip took him
so far out of his previous circle.
There were curls of smoke; there were headdresses
he remembered and colors he could not describe.
He knew that every chance he got
he would listen carefully, he would diagram
the plot
for anyone who wondered how the hell he ever ended up
so far from pressured versions of sanity.

Someone else had paid the ticket; they asked where
he wanted to go. He did not know.
East was hungrier, west was warm. South was
catchier, north was torn.
But he could ride for days without interruption;
he could think for hours without answering a
single question
about his intentions. He wished he had written
more of it down.

He didn’t mind the passengers; they had no expectations.
He tried to sleep but found the dreams were scarier than
the visions of wakefulness. He only wanted a glass of wine,
a friend to break bread, and a hand upon his forehead that
understood the changes of time;

The changes of seasons;
the range of opinions that any one person can have.
He fasted once or twice; his menus were spartan.
He looked for an eye, a smile, a wisp of hair caught
by surprise. He did not like to dive into himself

Until

He arrived and heard that all had been cured by
manna, by oatmeal, by simple fare and
dimpled children who never asked him why.

Fill My Heart with Song

 Fill My Heart with Song

(“I tell all of you with certainty, not even in Israel have I found this kind of faith!” Matthew 8:10b)

Fill my heart with song, teach me lyrics from
beyond the border/land. We will walk together,
we will bask in the sun, we will not notice if you are
immigrant or native son.

Teach me your language, let me hear the slides
and staccatos. Teach me your colloquialisms,
colloquy around the campfire as the waves come
crashing in.

Gale force winds/sing louder.
Sea gulls ascend/sing sweeter.
Sea lions play/sing abandoned.
Feet on the sand/sing magnetic.
Head in the clouds/sing ecstatic.

I would fill my pail with the horizontal rain,
I would circle each raindrop with a permanent marker.
I would paste it on the cliffs as an installation of hope.
I would surrender deeper, find the glint or confetti
and trade it for silly talk and sweaty debates until
their value increases. Did I mention the languages
that wrap the globe in miracles and melody?

Let my mind never be filled, let it always have room for
low-rent districts and the dialects that have been forgotten.
If you are the last speaker, I will walk with you hours
a day
just to learn to say
how loved you are, how your cadence shifted
my metrics decades ago.

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.