You Can Choose

You Can Choose

(“’In that day, declares the Lord, ‘the king and the officials will lose heart, the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be appalled.’” Jeremiah 4:9)

You were playing games and changing the rules;
you were throwing the dice disguising the results with
light flashing like saber tooth tigers competing for survival.
You thought your prayers were the answer when you
filled the altar with dead words and loud admonishments.

You who proclaimed the end of days, will you be ready
for your justice to come calling? You were ready to deport
every dark-skinned neighbor over their birthplace a half
century before. When God meets you at the end of the road,
what will you say to justify the cruelty your declarations
incited?

You kings, you should never have imagined you were monarchs
giving matches to strangers to burn down the meager cottages
of the poor. From the throne to the backyard chickens, you
thought you reigned with impunity. Instead, it will be you
who will lose heart when you see the hand of God reducing
your words to sawdust to trample underfoot.

Take a breath you purveyors of underhanded mischief.
There is still a chance for your redemption. Walk away
from the conflagration you have created with
heat of your hatred. You thought you would never be
found out, that no one would see the loathing you
learned despite it all. You had your chances;
your stances were arrows aimed from your thrones,
and you thought they only advanced your cause.

You can choose today how you will learn the dirges of
the disheartened. You can change your tune; you can
unfold your cartoon character and feel the pangs of
hunger your policies have caused.

You can choose today. Look into the eyes of the One
who sees everything.
You can choose today.

Sing the Silvery Song

Sing the Silvery Song

(“And now behold, we are in your hands; do to us as it seems good and right in your sight to do.” Joshua 9:25)

Oh no, not today. Not while we are doubling down on
the trouble we have avoided so far. You were far stronger than
we could imagine and bowed ourselves before you with our
hands quivering in the sun. There was a day

When we were all simply people on the sand. But you took your name,
we took our land,
and it all became the worst capture the flag game ever seen.

Your ancestors and ours roamed this dirt in different directions.
Some followed the river, some stayed close to the oasis of trees.
Some built huts while some built tall houses with gardens on the roof.
We all shared the plums and figs and dates and planted new fruit
trees when we wanted. We raised our sheep and goats and a few pigs.
We ate at tables spread for neighbors with enough for children and
elders.

Oh no, not today. Not another gridiron gladiator storming the gates.
Not another flock of locusts setting the air on fire. We’ve hidden
for far too long and now
ask for courtesy, a little sympathy, a new translation for an old
alteration we made up on the spot. Speak the old languages,
sing the silvery song, beat the drum slowly and wake us up with
pipes from the hills.

Let us gather now like we know it’s almost over,
let us share the table set among the sweet clover.
Let us listen for the bell that rings out freedom,
let us grasp hands, and shake them like we just succeeded
and will look for the ways the sunlight plays so late
in a summer evening.

Like Angelic Clocks

Like Angelic Clocks

(“I will always look to you, as you stand beside me and protect me from fear.” Psalm 16:8)

I’d sit here forever if it could last
one more minute like angelic clocks counting down
the crevasse between dinner and lunch.
Those empty afternoon hours fill more than
straight-line pages of poetry jotted down to
cross the impasse between being and July.
Summer is a luxury;
noon is a magician’s wand;
dusk is a certain measure;
midnight the loon call with moonbeams
setting the backyard cedars on fire like
origami crepe paper. I wouldn’t blame you
if you scratched your head while I cut
a whole sentence out of fabric I found at
the Goodwill.

I’d invite you over for a beer;
I’ve wondered if you are aware that
your breath has moved me closer to shore
than I have been in twenty years.
I don’t mind the ocean, but the salt
has blocked my pores. I need a second
sunrise before we embark on this second act.
I don’t mind if the curtains fall,
I don’t remember the marks. I was cast before
first call. I knew what sparkle was;
I knew how daydreams swore. I wore
every word you unwrapped for me like a
t-shirt with an unknown logo pointing us back
to illumined mornings. We could hire a boat
to take us further from shore.

I’m in the mood for an adventure today.

The Date is Wider Today

The Date is Wider Today

(“You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.” Hebrews 10:6)

The date is wider today; do you feel it.?
The air is fuller just now; can you know it?
We could have ridden all afternoon on the offshore
breezes the cooled the summer sun.
We could have spoken all evening of the
ways of children who haven’t learned our foolish
myths and rituals.
The magical sound of water on rocks reaches us here
above the river a quarter mile away. The playful sound
of children’s voices freeze-tagging each other in the
front yard makes the evening open up like the entrance
of a princess who giggles.
The boys play H.O.R.S.E. sending the basketball through
the summer air for hours at a time.
And not once did any of us stop to ask
why we deserve these unicorn moments. We live in
so many dimensions at once it is impossible to discount
a simple encounter with someone,
battling cancer,
humbled in body,
and a voice lower than he once possessed. It is simply
a question without an answer. And so, we hug,
and hope,
and pray the days will stay wider as the road
winds before him unknown.

I’d rearrange so many things if I could convince anyone
to give me a chance. But time moves on like a runaway
train
while we, curious, wonder how to begin again.
Tonight the aroma from neighborhood grills will fill
the dinner hour. We will stop, if we could, and give thanks
for air so full of summer incense and children’s games of pretend.

The Reservoir Overflowed

The Reservoir Overflowed

(“He knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!” He said this and died.’” Acts 7:60)

The reservoir overflowed its banks today,
tide pools waited their unveiling.
The moon had pulled all the water to one side,
the thunder clapped while the monsoon sang.
I had rehearsed my speech for weeks.
The podium was set like a stele on the sand.
The microphones and speakers were fine-tuned,
the crowd was invited,
the fliers distributed making sense of it all.

When at once the water wicked from my socks
to the hems of the denim I wore.

I say
at once
from my pinpoint inaccuracy.

As the landscape melted, the river felt its power
spreading and filling each depression.
Definitions faded as the waters rose.
I suppose I could say this uprightly,
but I’d rather leave it oblique for the
generations to come.

The crowd arrived too late to see me fade
beneath the waves,
but they shouted, “You should not have stayed.”
They held on to their stories, though
in the telling,
they abused the patterns that only watching can
see.

Me? I felt I knew, now,
every song by heart that
I had never heard before. And though
buried and swept downstream,
dying was what redeemed everything I
thought was worth living for.

Live on and sing, oh forgiven ones.

A Package Arrived Today

A Package Arrived Today

A package arrived today winking at
my front door, a brown cardboard box,
fiber tape around the perimeter, my name,
my address,
my zip code. I forgot to open it.

While the sun shines my mood melts into
golden reflections that are obscured
by the winter rains. I still wish I could see
you
again.

The box was filled by human hands, there is
no doubt.
And yet, you have been gone so long, I hoped it
had been sent by angel mail, settling on my porch
with your voice, your laugh, even your tears inside.

And still the sun has not changed. I wrestle,
then reflect, then take a glass of chardonnay
standing erect between my pear and cherry trees
feeding me, shading me, telling me their secrets of
how many tongues have tasted their sweet inventory.
I passed a lemonade stand on my way home.

The sweat cooled my forehead, shadow and breeze;
the dogs followed lawnmowers across open fields and
I,
I hoped the box held something immaterial that would
permeate the losses of the years. I wonder

If the trees know more than they let on.
I wonder if the cherries can tell the difference
between the mouths old men living and young loves
too soon gone. And I taste one

Before I open the box, unwrap the plastic inside,
and, with the nectar still on my tongue,
hope to find the explanation within.

The World Feels Diluted

The World Feels Diluted

The world feels diluted today, though I know it is
full, brimming, flooding, overrun, sculpted carefully by
sun and moon. I am breathing just fine, but I ache like
I’ve chased after an elusive friend always on the edges
of periphery.

The world feels static today, though I know it is
swift, breezing, rounding, tick-tocking, waving slowly like
rushes on the riverbank. I am walking just fine, but I
need to make myself clear. I need to find where I left
the only daredevil self I ever knew.

There are footprints on my soul that are eroding. Some
left by ghosts
who will never walk the sand with me again.
Some left by men I shared meals and questions with,
whose words are now decades old. We should meet on
the beaches again, or the racquetball court, or a rec room
full of couples who decided laughing was better than lectures.

The world feels muddy today, though I know it is
fresh, bursting, greening, never done, molded like pottery
in a master’s hands. I lost my breath recently, my legs feeling
every reason to cut the journey short. But where would I
go if I stopped wandering? Where would I find you if I only
stayed
home?

Call Me with Coffee

 Call Me with Coffee

(“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12)

Today light was handed me through a clouded sky,
and so my confidence lies partly awakened
and partly shaken;
life is like that.

Egos are like that.
A flash in the night, a comet out of gas,
a star you saw yesterday hides behind
a hundred moons.

I’ve given up my toys, but not my play.
I’ve given up my chums, but not my friends.
I’ve given up my pretensions, but not my dreams.
I’ve given up the timeouts, but not my curiosity.

Today was wet like yellow raincoats,
and so my letters melt slowly on the pavement,
partly faded.
Memories are like that.

Today is like that.
A wish for the past, a vision that did not last,
a story, a song, a friend beyond arm’s reach
and a hundred years long.

I’ve given up award shows, but not my creations.
I’ve given up tattling, but not truth-telling.
I’ve given up flattery, but not greeting cards.
I’ve given up standing in line, but not patience.

Today could be like that.
I have not disappeared at all. I live within
the chemical flashes of your brain. But your
voice is hidden from me,
and your warmth escaped like the first frost of autumn.
Some fences are like that.

I would have kept you in my field of vision,
I would have revised my strategy until you knew
there were no reasons for walls or silence
or u-turns of offense. Only friends who, like the
molecules of water,
sometimes are drunk from cups and
sometimes empty into the sea.
Today is like that; today, if you think it,
call me with coffee on your mind.

Today Tumbled In

Today Tumbled In

(Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. 4:10)

Today tumbled in, a set of dice determined my mood.
The sun is out late afternoon
dissolving the marine layer in its
yellow embrace.
But the roll of the dice told me
the pain was beyond bearable,
I put it all on the table
and wept the day away.

There are fault-lines you cannot see,
cracks that do not show
and I am tired of being strong when
I’m only leftover rain and a hurricane
quickly running out of courage.
Maybe I am blind.

Life is full of philosophy
until an unlucky family
deals with sudden death
and fatal illnesses.
Maybe I am shaken.

It baffles me,
maybe I mean only half of what I say,
and maybe I see less of what surrounds me.
Why do I wave friendly at neighbors
when the tears flowed just a moment before?

Today tumbled in; night will steal the mood,
replacing it with dreamscapes of fear or pleasure.
These are the days that I give up believing;
my opinions never changed the time of a single sunset.

I am old and life frightens me but occasionally
amuses me. Most often I let another well-constructed
syllogism fall on its face and other bodily unfunctions.

I am not strong. I am not certain.
I am only one late in life person
who hopes these days that seem so remote
from human connection
will not be the gamble they seem to be.

Tomorrow will tumble again. Know me, please,
God of numbers and ABCs, of
wisdom and idiosyncrasies
better than the crumpled pages
I have written upon.

I Had to Apologize Today

I Had to Apologize Today

(“We trust in the living God who came to save all people. He makes a way for those who believe in him.” 1 Timothy 4:10b)

I had to apologize again today.
Sorry, more than once today.
I don’t mind making amends,
don’t mind much admitting I’m wrong.
What tires me is taking the barbs,
tiny snippets of arrowhead offense
and, backed into the corner again,
I admit I could have rephrased my comment.

But like storm clouds that crash without warning,
they want me to change my opinion too. Few are
triggered by the sunshine that warms their own garden plot.

But, I did have to apologize today. And then the silence.
Some who have never met me face to face,
or had an hour of music together,
or have forgotten the gentle frame that
borders our lifetime,
walk away burning and may leave the planet,
escape the gravity we both obey, and further from earth,
slung into outer space,
they are unreachable by phone, text or
a simple embrace.

Don’t we all have the same birthplace? Not the same
town or country, but the soil on which generations stirred
to drink the air from trees, breathe the one sun that bundles us all,
nurse from the fruit of earth, and sleep in the cradle of footprints
left by offspring who grew up before us.

So I offered another apology. And my chest is lead.
My fingers are shivering in the summer wind. My feet are chilled.
We kill each other, then kill back. And our hearts still beat,
but retreat more quickly the next time someone sends
a message in the mail. We used to like to open envelopes,
sneak the stationery slowly from its womb. But too soon
Some letters are just more darts spit toward the one
The author thought had broken him. And now no
safe place
exists between send and receive.

But I apologized again (I am a master of penance)
and I enter the space as I decelerate my engagements
with those I’ve offended, and hope their aim is off
just enough
to let quilt and rapture stitched by God
wrap us both inside.

Not Going Anywhere

Not Going Anywhere

(“And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’” Isaiah 6:5)

I think I’m staying here today, and I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.
I’ll sit in the same straight-chair, and I’ll insist there is no sense in
following
the very next dream that pulls me in.

I think I’m unable today, and I’m not lifting any stones tomorrow.
I’ll pretend I’m the very same, and I’ll resist the boundaries that
hem me in
the next time a dream comes calling.

But whether the air is musty, the sidewalks damp,
the sky squeezing the last drop of sorrow in my lap,
the sod is mud, the mulch is dry, the neighbors are shut-in,
the tress are naked and scrawny, and last year’s nests
are a ghost town in their branches;

Whether I write or speak, whether I ache or cry,
I still wait for the letter that will bring
love from a friend or money from the government;
sometimes it’s all the same to me.

That’s why I’m staying here today, an island in the desert,
an exile in the wilderness, a wild mind constrained by
suburban pain, a broken heart never fully mended and
words like arrows from my mouth that sound like
icicles sub-frozen and sharp.

So I pull my chair up to the table,
I walk the neighborhood in a well-worn circle,
I cry over voices in my head,
voices overheard,
voices simply over. And I send a text out
randomly to see where it lands.

Still I have heard, sure and I still know,
the whole earth is full of His glory,
and the embers are on the altar; purge and glow.
My lips are ready for the burning,
my mouth for the purging,
my heart for the urging to know the Love
that surrounds the air, expands the sky,
and does not insist on oblation from
a man who is knocked down already.

But I bow anyway, I’m not going anywhere today.

I Just Have to Tell You

I Just Have to Tell You

(“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come…and save you.’” Isaiah 35:3-4

I hate to admit but my eyes are blood-red this morning,
blood-red since yesterday, closed and shut throughout the night.
I though we both received the same orders; the ones I received decades
ago, the same you’ve heard from the mouth of the Lord:

“Go into the world..”

But, here is where my eyes break down, where my stomach lodges
clear up into my throat,
where my fingers shake from mistaken interpretations as
more and more act like dragons
and spit fire at the world they think has begun its
persecution.

“Go into all the world…”

But we gossip about the “family on welfare” where,
parked just in front of the sagging garage,
was a fancy car, a new car, a car sans scratches, and
one that matches your best desire for one too.
And you step into church, with the first sentence ringing:
“I drove by Linda’s place. Ha…she gets food stamps while there
is a fancy car in her driveway!” And our dragon saliva lights the
next best gossips to say the same. Worship did not happen that day,
I think Jesus ran away to comfort the object of these good peoples’ scorn.

“Go into all the world and preach…”

Hey, we pay a pastor to do that. And, boy can he tell a story. I mean,
he has our ear every week. (And they go home never taking their
booster thoughts of truth.) We pay a pastor well, until, he meddles
in politics, or sex, or money. And we would report him the moment
he mentioned the Democrats’ solutions. We don’t walk out, we just
leave our post and send letters of excuses, because I want to leave worship
like a massage, and without bruises.

“Go into all the world and preach the Good News…”

That’s the Ten Commandments, isn’t it? Oh it is so sad that they won’t
let us
post the 10 on every state house lawn, or every
telephone pole alone I-5. We used to be such a godly nation. (Decimating
Native Americans, Enslaving African tribes, Denying Votes to fellow females,
and rounding up every Japanese inside chicken-wire ghettos. Not to mention
lynchings and mobs and bombs targeted with hateful precision.)
We used to be such a Christian Nation.

“Go into all the world and preach the Good News to every creature…”

But you better take a gun with you, or mace, or pepper spray, and don’t
stay too long in the neighborhoods marked by poverty and starvation.
“Here’s a per diem, you can buy all the food you want at McDonald's or
Arby’s. Spend your money wisely, and you will come out ahead.”
They watch us, well, they see us well. And, at least we went on
this mission trip
when the others stayed home without precedent.

By the way, did you notice that one house. Oh it was decrepit. Shutters
hanging askew. Wood siding cracked, splintered and eaten a foot above the
foundation wall. Broken windows and forgotten screens, roof shingles
looked like a melting cake frosting. And then, (don’t mention this to
anyone else)

But, did you notice, that a Cadillac pulled up, maybe two years old,
and shiny, oh it was shiny. It gleamed golden in the sun. Those seats
were leather, I know they were. I just have to tell you. It makes me
mad, people like this, using my taxes to get themselves ahead.

…and preach the Good News…

I’m sorry, God, we didn’t get to it today.

Only Finding

Only Finding

(“There was just enough for everyone. Those who gathered more had nothing left over and those who gathered little had no lack! Each home had just enough.” Exodus 16:18)

There is no hunting, there is only finding,
there is no searching, there is only gathering,
the elusive we seek is the want that demands tomorrow,
not today; next year, not this short radius of time.

There is no hoarding, there is only supply,
there is no hiding, there is only open sky,
the stockpiles we concrete and padlock
are fear’s sleight-of-hand, our fingers of
calloused. We think too much of the thorny
succulents to celebrate fresh today and today.

There is no tomorrow, no future, no long-range plan;
today is the habitation of earthly dwellings. The smile
I intend for tomorrow,
subtracts from the one you needed today.

There is sadness, there is laughter,
there is feasting, there is hunger;
we speak and only memory captures
the sounds into tomorrow.

We sing the songs our grandfathers taught,
today; they sound new. “Masters of War”
was Dylan through Pearl Jam and every Christmas
carol
is gospel harmony with electronica’s assistance.

There is feasting today, tomorrow more,
but today’s feast will not be tomorrow’s meal.
There is celebration, tomorrow new provision;
today we will sing while our ancient anxieties

(their constant hum)

Are brightened by love’s now and only,
a minute divided by 60,
a second split into infinity,
one breath begins, and ends,
behind us again.