I Think You Already Know

I Think You Already Know

I think you already know by now how
our hearts are entwined. I think it is easy so see
the secrets we have not hidden, the scars we have not
covered in shame. But I want you to know, if you did not
know by now
that my heart is healed because of your love.
My anxious thoughts do not invade like they once have,
my depression occasionally paints it dark, but then I
remember
the way you have taken me by the hand and walked me
back into the light.

You have let me cry when crying seemed unreasonable,
you have made me laugh on days I would rather pout,
you have touched my face with your hands and I cannot
draw back.
I would never draw back.
There is so much love in that touch, in the warmth of
your fingers on my face, that I breathe more slowly and
find the place of grace you have created for me.

I don’t know how all this works, I do not understand eternity.
But one thing I think I know, our hearts were born this way,
our souls were dancing together, interlaced and finding
infinite positions to touch each other with such joy,
such passion, such joy, and such love. We usually know it without
saying a word.

I would do anything for you. You have done everything for me.
I would end the nights of frightening thoughts, I would kiss your
lips with loving warmth, I would hold you close when the
words from outside your mind demean you in acrid proclamations.
I would heal every bruise, every heartache, every undeserved
lashing upon your heart that you never deserved.

Oh, my soul, I cannot describe how you have brought me to this
healing. I only hope you know, my dearest of dear, that I will never
stop loving you, never stop holding you, never stop hoping for your
hand in mind as our hearts wrap around each other even though miles apart.

Sit With Him Who Has No Breath

Sit With Him Who Has No Breath

(“He also described to us the love that you have in the Spirit.” Colossians 1:8)

Sit with him who has no breath,
set the table for her who cannot taste;
when the air is heavier than sotted fog
let silence carry you,
let ritual be the rails you ride until
breathing comes naturally again.

There is no moment without effect,
there are no movements without the tree leaf twitching.
When time has subtracted more than you wished,
let memory guide you,
let summer laughter reside a moment longer until
the lyrics return.

I prayed the Our Father with you, three times,
maybe four.
I am ashamed to say I forgot some words of that
Ancient Prayer
I prayed
every Sunday till my teens. On the last time I
whispered it
I think I remembered every phrase, though
out of order and halting. I sang Hallelujah to
you, and Amazing Grace.
But mostly the ICU room where you lay was
filled with machinery whirring, rewording our silence
into every breath you took.
I tried to match my own with yours,
to be present on perhaps our last moments together.

Angels attend you sweet friend, and may you know
how much love clung to your boots and pain,
how our crocks of clay eventually decay,
and how our spirits awake, here or elsewhere,
to human touch as well as divine.

I Believe in Your Eyes

I Believe in Your Eyes

(“But it was very good of you to help me in my troubles.” Philippians 4:14)

I don’t believe in pedestals,
I don’t believe in princess crowns.
But I believe in beauty,
I believe in the way your name sounds
every time my heart hears it.
I believe in your smile that melts glaciers.
I believe in your eyes unafraid to see all of me,
I look for your lips to form the words you hold
close as a treasure.

Hearing the embrace transfixes
wandering moods.
Warming fingers touch another’s arm and,
we dare once more to trust,
to breathe,
to hear the heartbeat the same as another.

What if faces meet, cheek to cheek,
lingering a moment longer than expected?
Touch heals the
untouched
places where only scars once were found.

Would someone touch my face this once?
Would someone hold it in their hands?
And then, as the moon rises upon our shadows,
may there be the whispered hint of
midnight breeze, someone’s hands upon my own.

There are words I fear to say.
And I fear, there are words still locked within.
But if I do not speak them, they grow tired and adolescent.

Let my words, the mature words of friendship and love,
swirl between us, never-ending, in the universe we
inhabit, in the spaces between us, in the moments
heart knows heart.

Some I trust with my words, fewer with my hurts;
I’ve been too careless with my secrets, too vocal about my pain.
Be my safe place, hear my confessions, and,
like the air that carries words between us
I will carry yours in trust, in confidence,
in love that honors stories without villains
or heroes.
We both can name
the pain and let it sit in the atmosphere
between us.

Spirit/Manna/Water

Spirit/Manna/Water

(“You sent Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.” Nehemiah 9:20)

I didn’t choose to take the long way home,
though some of the detours were cause and effect.
I didn’t pick the silence of isolation,
the pixelated memories,
the texted correspondence that
still defies expectation.
The explanation would take longer than
the moments we have left.

I’d rather wander with you, friend or friends,
and not talk, but share water from the spring,
a loaf under the pine,
and the Presence that, in spite of the winding,
or perhaps, because of the wandering,

Still whispers the name that captured me helpless
at the beginning of the day.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but friend or friends,
if you will go with me we’ll
take it slowly and feel each ray of sun
lancing through the branches to
touch our faces the way every face
should be touched.

I didn’t choose the long way home;
but, walk with me awhile.
Sing your song to me, I will not interrupt.
Or speak of pain buried beneath the years.
I promise I will hear and stop our walk long enough
to see the tears fall near the single-file ants along the trail.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but I need your time right now. I need your shoulder now,
the very weight of your presence, the very warmth of your voice,
the vulnerable quiver just before the words we speak when we
do not know what to speak at all.

I’m taking the long way home, will you come with me?
We walked the hills of Contra Costa, the tundra of North Dakota,
the mud and beaches of the evergreen Northwest, and now
I need the company of every piece of bread we’ve shared,
every sip of water or wine,
and every transcendent moment when we divined
there was more to the Northern Lights than science
can define.