I’ll Stop by Tomorrow

I’ll Stop by Tomorrow

(“I do not deserve to have you come into my house. Just give the order, and my servant will get well.” Matthew 8:8b)

There were no shadows in the house,
the shutters were closed and the drapes pulled against the sun.
I tried to divide my attempts to be seen from
my instincts to hide.
Slowly the scene shifted as the sun found the
cracks in my defenses.

I meant to mention, I’d like to sit alone on the porch,
wave at the children on their bikes and sit with men
of my age
thinking out loud about our past and painting the future
something brighter than gray. We all admitted it was easy
to embrace our halcyon days when we thought life could be
lived in layers we never completed. We lived from
playhouses and swings to pens and musical things we
hoped would help name us forever.
We pretended there would be reunions where we
remembered every spiral adventure and made plans
to get together only for time to steal our best ideas.

But now in the epicenter of my life I’m too shy to invite
new faces to my porch. And that leaves me friendless in space.
Locked away, my heart waits for the night lights to take over,
and wonder what I would say if I ever came out under the stars.

Exactly how long I’ve been this way, probably just long enough
to notice the damage. But I’ve been invited to the
grand opening of a friendly space but slept through it.
I’ll stop by tomorrow.

Tomorrow the Hurricane

Tomorrow the Hurricane

(“We have been speaking in Christ and before God. You are our dear friends, and everything we do is to make you stronger.” 2 Corinthians 12:19b)

Tomorrow the hurricane may come,
the centrifuge within, hidden from view.
Uprooting trees, disintegrating leaves, and
smothering thought with its humidity.

But we keep the tempests contained, don’t we?
We wrap our skin around the pressure that threatens
to suck us in, and then,
to implode everything we haven’t nailed down.

Till then, of course, our skin looks the same; our eyes,
our hands, our knees, our feet. If we curled one wrinkle
on our anxious foreheads the whole building might explode.

And, gauging from the last time our home was in ruins,
we are unsure how the rebuilding would go. Will people walk by,
wondering why
they escaped the storm that destroyed the corner lot?
Will couples stand just outside the caution tape, filling out forms,
promising help, and going home to air-conditioning and amnesia?
Who can blame them when the catastrophe is blamed on the skin
that refused to hold it in.

So now you know, if you read closely, that mostly we would love
to let the air pressure equalize,
reveal empty earth already denuded by unrealized dreams
and hurricanes trapped within.

And a few have known the scale of the storm, and a few have not
railed that I should have known better. And a few have nailed back
a couple of boards when they could. And a few have mailed love.

And a few, with their own shaking hands, have planted roses in
the dark, bare earth.