Everything Universal

Everything Universal

(“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” Revelation 7:9)

The tickets were free and the air was clear.
The arena was packed and I knew very few who were there.
But I showed up because of the invitation;
I drove to the top of the hill to get a better view of
where we were going.
I saw lawyers and doctors,
servers and chefs,
crutches and joggers,
every kind of human I believed.

I made my way down quickly not wanting to miss a minute.
The road was crowded, the line was slow, but no one was
impatient as we waited our turn. I noticed an old friend,
one I did not expect to see at such a raucous and holy moment.
He looked the same and spoke the same,
and I remembered his name the moment he waved at me.
Neither one of us expected to see each other here.
It had been 30 years since we played tennis together
on the weekends.

We parked near each other and walked to the entrance together.
I felt as if her was escorting me. But neither of us had any idea
about what we would hear and see. Myriads filled up around us,
circling the round rainbow throne.

We looked at each other before the singing began. This was the
most indiscrete moment we had ever lived. Millions, and maybe
billions outside the doors were all dancing like the world had
just begun. So many languages but we sang the same song.

We spent the time like we were levitating from the ground.
Gravity gave up its heavy bonds. 

And the Lamb. And the Throne. And our joy. And the Home
we learned we could call our own. Not a single wall,
not a impenetrable barrier kept any of us away. Our
tongues rehearsing native songs that we all understood.
Voices creating a new song from the old. Everything that was
universal
felt local that day.

Safer Together on the Sand

Safer Together on the Sand

The tides roll in and out
so regularly
that we can set the days by them.
But every low tide surprises you,
exposes you and leaves you
uncovered on the helpless shore.
You shiver every time.

You have learned to shelter in a
nearby cave, rolling a stone
to hide inside for half the day.
The surf is drowned out within
the limestone fortress.

I know where to find you.
I watched you once on the sand
before we ever met.
I marveled at your beauty and
wept as you ran away. I did not know
what it was you feared;
I only wanted to sit on the beach with you
until the tide came back in.

I started going to the same beach
each day to wonder at your beauty
and to know the secret that made you hide
(If I had only shone brighter, would you have
blossomed and
trusted me with your hidden heart?)

I walked past the pulpy seaweed, through
the coastal grasses to the mouth of the cave
gagged by a stone.

I did not know your name yet,
but I guessed it would sound like moonlight.
I wanted to breathe that name out loud,
but had to knock on the stone and
say “hey”.
I heard barely the sigh that wanted to
be alone.

I went back every day at the same time
and finally heard the tears drop just inside.
And I knew you still wanted to be alone.
I asked if I could remove the stone.
You preferred that I didn’t.

So, I promise to never try to pry it open.
But if, one day, you nudge it open,
only an inch…

Then I would still stay silent and
send only sunshine and golden love
through the crack you have opened.

And when I find you on the beach, frightened
but stronger,
I would ask your name and take it
as my necessary breath.

I would ask only for this;

That I could meet you here on the beach
every day to walk the sand together.
We would walk past the cave each day,
and we would keep on walking.

We are safer together on the sand
than alone in a soundless cave.

Unison

Unison

It’s a sort of sorcery, isn’t it,
untimely spells cast across the imagination
that subtract joy
from the souls of the innocent.
They make jazz feel like the ultimate
sin.
But their incantations contain nothing
but vacuous screeds disguised as melody.
Their long-form compositions only
repeat
hearsay
they say they learned online.

Most of us recognize the serenade
when we hear it. It sounds like manna,
it sounds like New Orleans and
powwows. It sounds like romance
and winding trails across the seaside dunes.

Only the still heart can read the music.
Only the graced embrace the truth that
that flies from heaven but takes root in
the deepest soil of earth.

It’s the pinnacle of reality with no
invocations needed. I hear the first two notes
and know,
if we will listen,
we can sing the rest together/
unison.

Wait for the Green Breeze

Wait for the Green Breeze

(“He told her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness.’” Mark 5:34)

You cannot carry the crowd upon your shoulders.
You cannot lay down the law and expect everyone to obey.
You cannot walk through walls, you cannot dig to China,
but we can hire the verbs together,
watch the sky untether,
and wait for the green breeze that makes
the rocks hum.

You cannot dictate the future from your comma.
You cannot lay down a straight line to curve gravity back.
You cannot always run, you cannot cook without fire,
but we can rent the day together,
question hymns together,
and wait for the tide to turn that
takes us home.

Are your feet cold today, this February,
has the ice stained the impulses that leapt like fawns?
There is a melancholy that fills the spaces,
there are hard stops and soft memories that
fill our minds with faces that once kissed
our silences. Some have gone too soon,
and it feels we may never stop mourning.

How you fill my heart departed loves, how
your laughs and questions marks sit upon
the opening of the day

And mark it with smiles, tears, and
a longing to replay walks through courtyards
where we manufactured words to fit between
our cobbled dialogue.

We wait for the touch that makes
all whole again.

Switchbacks

Switchbacks

(“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself servant to all, that I might win even more.” 1 Corinthians 9:19)

I know you would like a passenger,
someone who does not yank the bit.
I know you would love a road trip,
I know you love silence; I know you love presence,
I know you would love a safe place to weep.

We can ride through the mountains, driving close to the edge,
taking the switchbacks and peering over the ledge.

A high school friend told me once that, on those hairpins,
you should start on the inside of the curve and finish on the outside.
He never mentioned what to do if
we met another traveler halfway.
But we winded our way up to Yosemite
in his 68 rebuilt VW bug. The air-cooled engine
labored with no breeze from behind. We played
the “guess who” on cassette and sang along to
American Woman. Gary drove, I sang shotgun and
Danny brought up the bass in back.

I will be your silence as long as you live,
I will be your presence as long as I live,
I will be your place to weep and to laugh so
inappropriately that no one understands
how tears and stupid jokes can live together so
unabashedly.

I Remember Boarding a Train

 I Remember Boarding a Train

“Daniel went to…his friends…so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this secret.” Daniel 2:18)

I remember boarding a train to nowhere but
it still headed straight north.
The steel spun and clattered on the rails like
Ezekiel’s angels with faces and chariot wheels.
I had embarked on a journey
hoping to change the world.
The scenery was foreign to me,
the night descended like a dragon’s cave
and we wondered where the mood would take us
that had begun with such enthusiasm.

Riding it for three years (or so it seems)
I lost a traveling companion for each one.

A friend who knew laughter and told the
same stories over and over again. And still
I listened.

My sister, frail but stony, it had been ages since
we rode the country together. And days before
Christmas
she finally sighed. I left the train behind and flew
to her family, my family, three nephews, one niece,
and a great-great nephew with a smile like hers.

My classmate, my beloved Hermia. A friend who
made the sunrise giggle and could make an entire room quiet
as she spun her tales. 50 years ago we were teenage
super friends
and 50 years later the same. She suffered and
she suffered well. To the last her eyes inhaled every
friendship she ever had.

I remember boarding a train to San Francisco but
stayed on it for two round trips. What could we find
on the streets and hills but steep houses and leftover
frills in Haight Ashbury? Our stories filled the silver car
until we finally disembarked to watch

Street-performing mimes and grab some pizza.

We were not sure we knew the answer, we are not sure
now
if we changed the world.
But none of us are the same, riding and going
nowhere
together.

Unadorned

Unadorned

(“God’s love will come together with his faithful people. Goodness and peace will greet them with a kiss.” Psalm 85:10)

Nature is not afraid to be unadorned.
I took a photo of two trees three days ago
and labeled it beautiful.
The leaves bled red and the
twigs held loosely the pumpkin orange
sticky notes as long as they could.

But walking by again after two nights of wind,
two nights of November,
the trees were bare, save the hangers-on,
gray crepe leaves turning in the breeze.

It is the parallax of beauty, viewed from the vantage
of weeks and months, that sticky green turns to crunchy beige,
while rain and ice take center stage.
It is the puzzle of perception that
stark arms hiding nothing can elicit wonder
as surely as a spring tree flooded with mockingbirds.

I have become raveled with all that is around me.
I am plaited and braided around god and the good earth.
I have my preferences, I like the sun,
I hear something so proud and ordinary it
makes me stop and wonder as much as a butterfly
lunching on a rose.

The rain can be good as the sun at sewing broken hearts
together. The dark can enter the jagged edges where
flesh was cut from flesh, where bruises ooze from barbed
wire trust or speeding through the night without rest.

That God would not fear to be unadorned,
to make dirt his crown, forest roots his footstool,
a sweaty body his home and encrusted feet his transportation.

That, on a bare tree we see his beauty bled red,
and then crepe grey as breath and heartbeat ebbed away.
That God would appear so tragic, frightening, dreadful

And so, absolutely, definitely and without a doubt…

Dead.

That, unlike spring, he did not lie dormant, but…

Died.

And, like spring, he pushed through the crammed earth
to meet us again, still wounded, but more alive than any
of us have ever been.

It is a wonder that God does not fear appearing unadorned.