The Hole in the Sky

The Hole in the Sky

(“…love one another earnestly with all your heart.” 1 Peter 1:22b)

I must apologize; I mistook the hole in the skies
as sabotage. But it looked like a hole on the frozen lake
augured for ice fishing and attracting northern and walleye.

But I looked again and there it was, a square, directly above my head,
where the azure had been sawn with equal sides. I would not have
noticed it,
but I was watching hummingbirds hover just opposite my face
and ascend like tiny bottle rockets to the uppermost limb
of the old walnut tree in the yard. Then two flakes
of cottonwood snow
drifted higher by and I followed their floating trajectory.
One dipped and circled the tree and rose again toward the logging
road behind my house.
The other rose on the currents like the ascension.

That is when it appeared, this grave dug in the sky.
How was I to interpret such a vision? Who would explain
such a thing?
I waited for an angel, I waited for a messenger,
I slept and waited for a dream, I woke and waited
for a vision. But none would come.

And the sky stayed punctured. And, afraid the whole earth
would leak through the hole, I panicked and turned up the heat.

I am only alive to describe this to you because
nothing happened to deflate the blue above or the
green below. It was just a hole and nothing more.

The few who saw it too presented their theories and
dissertations to a panel of judges at a table strewn with
flags and bibles. The first said the moon had broken the sky.
The second said it was the end of rainbows as we know it.
The third, oh the third was persuasive. An act of God,
to be sure, (except, the author interjects, wasn’t the
pre-hole sky an act of God too?) An act of God, he said,
dropped the mic, and put up a tent just outside of town
to wait until we all got sucked up through the hole or
fell into the one next time that would take us to hell.

I am still unsure why the sky was punctured. I am not sure
it has stayed that way.
I know what I saw, and my testimony is true.
I do not know its significance, only that I wanted to
share it with you and
maybe call some friends to talk about it over drinks tonight.
None of us know much anyway.

The First Thing I Noticed

The First Thing I Noticed

(“For this is the gospel message that you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:11)

I thought it was love when I tried to
twist your eyes around to see mine.
I thought it might be too late or too long
or never happen at all
if I waited until sunshine
lit the path open between shadows.

I insisted too often, covered up too much,
misheard the lyrics and assumed the world
was just like I imagined in my luster and my lusts.

If I started over I would love like water
and wade simply along the banks. I would
see you like air and not mirrors. I would
listen like a novel and not essays.
If I started over I would be loved by water
and let it seek its own level. I would
float upon its crystal waves and never flail.
I would
befriend like dolphins and drink the rain.

I think it is love when every banquet
is smiles and eyes or tears and salt.

 I think it is love when it finds you early
and you find it late.
I think it is love when “forgiven”
is the word that stops the shivering and
ends the infinite loop where fiery fear
refuses to surrender to peace.

The first thing I noticed was how the ocean embraces
the wrinkles and inches we thought everyone saw.
And the sun splays its quiet orange across the each
silent evening’s wave.