The Words Came Slowly

The Words Came Slowly

(“Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.” Psalm 105:19)

Perilous sounds like a good word to start a poem,
Unaccomplished might end it.
Sold like a slave and bound like a trapped rabbit,
we sometimes are fettered by our own lack of imagination.
We hope to find our future buried shallow in
our back yard.
We never expected to be at the cliff’s edge
with no way to turn back into who we once had been.

You can say what you want,
you can seek however long you will,
but my story will always stay the same.
Unaccompanied in a land I did not recognize
I stuck my claim on the lyrics hidden between
each note and time signature.
I memorized the songs of my youth and
sang them solo while I waited for a door
I could not open
to allow me entrance into the next level of
my dreams.

Affectations may be the words you find snuggly
tucked away mid-poem,
lingering may be the jump-off point to the final
verses. There were strange sounds that sifted between
the cracks of my catalytic walls. There were unfamiliar
songs teasing me to spend my spare time learning them
like they were my own.

Renovation began the moment I entered the
dimly lit room.
Patterns emerged like dust dancing in the sun.
The words came slowly and I learned them well;
the tempo was off, but I sang them sound.
Completed sounds like a good word to end a poem,
Unharmed might begin it.

 

Travel With Friends

(“The earth is full of Your loving-kindness, O Lord. Teach me Your Law.” Psalm 119:64)

Warm it up or ice it down,
the earth is surrounded by divine attachment
forward and back.
Travel with friends, buy an old custom van,
and take off not knowing where to go;
that is the only way to never get lost.

Stop the first night where you land as the sun
blinds the driver’s eyes going down. No one likes
camping
so a hotel somewhere outside of Amarillo will do.
One friend is on the move, another is seeking treatment
for a fatal disease, two are sisters who are leaving home
for the first time to see what wonders there are down the road.
And the driver, he thought he knew his destination until

The next day doing Denver, he began to wonder why he
had no idea what direction to take. One convenience store clerk
said the way west was easy, but it all felt like the rattan weave
of a straight back chair. Stopping for directions every turn
and disorientation, the advice was harder to follow as the day
was lazy and did not contribute
to the need to know what direction to go.

They drove for hours, and tensions grew high. Lowering
their voices
the sisters wondered if they would ever reach the campus
of their dreams
on time.
The driver trembled for his friend so ill he barely breathed
his anxiety at all. But his face had grown red, his hands
pale and cold, and the one on the move propped his head up
on a pillow found behind the back seat.

The temperature rose as they iced his fevered brow,
the road was surrounded by angelic anonymity
over and under.
Travel with friends, driving a custom van,
and rounded the day knowing why they were going,
though lost,

They found the love that enraptures the universe.