Sounding Like Tablas

Sounding Like Tablas

(“So then, no one should brag about human beings. Everything belongs to you.” 1 Corinthians 3:21)

And I heard a voice sounding like tablas against
a sweating sky. I never second-guess the sounds anymore.
And I saw angels flying,
though I saw nothing at all.
And I knew the world was filled with thoughts that had
wandered behind me
from the day something died within until
the moment I wrote this

WORD.

And I cannot describe, to even my own satisfaction,
why the sun should smile as it does.
I could not explain the way roosters crow,
doves cry,
and the earth dances, the earth whirls,
the earth prances, the earth twirls on its path
to who
knows
where.

My fists are unbent. My fingers are swollen from
years of piano notes,
from decades of fretting the chords to form
someone else’s songs.

I still hurry, hoping I’ll hear another pronouncement
that all is well, and all manner of things shall be well.
But the proclamations do not go before me;
they capture me,
they unwrap me before
I ever hear them coming.

I can see it on your face. No, I can imagine it.
The wrinkles around your eyes as you squint at my
imprecision.

I would explain. I would elucidate. I would hand out
an outline. I would project a PowerPoint. But

Some things

Are more felt that explained. And Spring beckons me
from this weary winter. Spring caught be by the heel with
the first sight of daffodils in my neighbor’s garden.

We Lay Down Our Arms

 

We Lay Down Our Arms

(“And a voice spoke out of the cloud, ‘This is my dearly-loved Son. Listen to him!’” Mark 9:7 [J.B. Phillips])

And the time came when they listened to mobs who
carried AK7s and confederate flags.
The time came when they poisoned others with their breath
and called it love. There came a time when they
made guns out of crosses
and went to war in the name of the lord.

Power was stored in the transformers that ran
a dozen outlets who spoke like puppets,
who convinced the listeners (if this was possible)
that the gospel should be shouted in angry tones
that drown the words of the master.

And above the noise and behind the walls
the Father still begs us all to listen and
stop our campfire stories that are more fable than
kingdom. We listen to the echoes of our
favorite attack dogs. We tune in to serrated theories
meant to take down the best of men.

And even worse, some among us say that
blacks are shot more often because they commit more crime.
Spouting spittle like they know the times. Read, sister, read.
And slowly awaken.

So Jesus still speaks, and has spoken. Jesus bids peace
to all who, forsaken or leaving the forests without trees,
give in to the whisper placed in their hearts from the breath
of life, the Spirit who spills love indiscriminately. My
neighbor also waits
for me to listen clearly
and shed the dragon skin that wanted autonomy,
wanted to throw stones until Jesus asked, “Who first?”

If I stand alone, may it be for the sake of my neighbor
who needs a river of kindness to drown out the righteous
rants of the unhelpful.

We lay down our arms before you. We disable our missiles.
We resist the fear of dying, for you have led the way.
And we, in stillness hear the child-like narrative again,
the lamb, the lamb, the lamb,
worthy is the lamb,
the lover of humanity.

I Will Not Eulogize

 

I Will Not Eulogize

(“And the people were shouting, ‘The voice of a god, and not of a man!’” Acts 12:22)

I apologize; I have been
talking to myself.
I saw the advertisement about the
anointed one
coming to town. I hoped to avoid the
crowds, knowing how loud and insistent,
how proud and consistently the hype was played
on guitars and purse-strings.
But I rode in the backseat of a preacher’s
Lincoln
for reasons I will lay aside for now.

I will not eulogize; I have been
thinking for myself.
I saw the lines after the show,
wrapped around the building twice and
then again,
just to have the prophet’s hand placed on your head
to heal what wasn’t broken
and learn to soak in the personal and private
word spoken like it was god.

Before dawn the next morning the faithful
gathered for private prophecy, a token musical recording,
and banking information so the prophet could receive
your donations deposited directly. I did not care that
he told me not a hair of my head would be
harmed. I knew the grandma who went before me.
Promised long life, with her heart pried open,
she penned the number with ease and went home
coughing from her unhealed pneumonia.

And Jesus hid from the crowds. Herod wanted the masses.
The Anointed One stayed on lonely mountains.
Herod reclined at banquets in Herodium, his
palace and fortress, once the masses turned to mobs.
And Jesus walked upon the water, and Jesus’ feet touched the ground,
And Jesus opened his hands and feet and heart to
wounds
so the love would flow out.

And still Herod gets all the press.

There is a common theme; rallies political and
revivals religious,
that promote big sweat,
dire threats,
fear that remembers debts insisting on
their payment.

And still Jesus meets those who travel on
deserted and dusty roads.

Day Breaks

 

Day Breaks

(“Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My Son, the One I have chosen. Listen to Him!’” Luke 9:35)

Day breaks in on my dreams
as the sunbeams crash through my
windowpanes. Whether born with a
knotted mind
or
twisted like that over time,
the only voice I hear frightens me,
reminds me
that I have never belonged.
(When I did, so they thought, they invited me to
their homes. We played games. We laughed and
got donuts in the middle of the night.)
But either because, in desperation, I tried
to no longer hide behind cinder block certainties
or
I simply could no longer carry the pain of a slowly
exploding brain,
many scolded me. Many, my god, who once sang
the same songs about you.

Day breaks and the light slices unreliably,
strings and waves and particles so discordant
they escape my present reality. I have constructed
a crumbling world
where floorboards squeak every time
I think someone wants to enter. If they make their
way past my threshold I would certainly show them
the cobweb rooms where others before them
had left this unclean vacancy within. No, it
did not begin with them;
truly, I did little housecleaning from the start.

Day breaks up the waves that flow from river to sea,
and, for the life of me, I cannot discern how I ended up
flotsam upon the ocean with
no way to swim to the shore. I’ve flagged others
down with my words
but perhaps the foghorns have drowned my voice.

All this to say, let me hear the Daybreak. Unwind my
savage mind.
I am a child who cannot swim, a foreigner who does not
understand the language,
a castaway who stranded himself for
want of good navigation.
Let me hear the human voice of
the Living Son,
the Chosen One.
Because the way things have broken
every word I hear spoken sounds like
just one more reprimand. I need a voice
that gently breaks over deepening cracks
like ocean over sand.

Perhaps I Will Hear a Voice

 

Perhaps I Will Hear a Voice

(“Then she stood behind Jesus’ feet, crying, and began to wet his feet with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” Luke 7:38)

I.

What no one knew is that I would
have stayed there all afternoon.
Perhaps they assumed I had grown weary
of mud on my feet; so very tired that I
had thrown everything away they though I believed.

II.

I heard your voice in a dream last night,
a voice I had not heard in forty years.
It sounded just the same as I remember,
only it was me-in-the-dream that heard the words
and not my waking ears. Still,
something was broken and
something healed
at careless sentences and curious
memories. There were fevers and living room corners,
my brother and the one high school class we shared;
was it world history?

So many question my departure; so many minimize my pain.
I am sorry that I had to dig so deeply into the archaeology of
my dreams
to hear easy laughter from the wrong side of religion.
I have no idea where you have gone, but I can find others
without trying
who have dismissed the crying in my soul. And, as in
all dreams, you were not you,
you were me,
and met my ache with simplicity.

III.

What no one knew is that I could
stay here forever.
Though they cleverly reeled me in to
their angry godless Jesus,
I can only fall awake-asleep,
and weep,
and repent for salting his feet
with my tears.

And now my heresy grows
as I stay where I can never leave.
He has reduced me to essence only.
It is lonely here. Perhaps I will hear a voice
awake I recognize from down the years
tomorrow or today. I still break,
I still heal,
I still have stories I am not allowed
to tell.

But I have stayed in the place where
my stories are safe, my proofs are optional,
and the voice I hear is spoken in things
more solid than

Dreams

or

Doctrines.

I Wish You Would Walk with Me

 

I Wish You Would Walk with Me

(“And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you whole. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.’” Mark 5:34)

I wish you would walk with me, I wish you knew me,
I wish you would walk to the unseen city with me.

I cannot see it yet, though the crowds chant its name.
I have watched for its gleaming alabaster piercing the sky,
I have heard the words shouted like a hundred spears
to drive demons away.

And twelve years with the same unknown pain has
slowed my pace while others went ahead on their own
pilgrimage. My courage sinks as I see them disappear
across the hill-spotted margin of the trail.

My face is not disfigured though my brain is tangled like pasta.
My eyes are not darkened though they burn like fire.
My music comes slower, my voice has no power,
my days are on rewind, my nights project images
of ghostly winter trees, fingers snapping when the ice
weighs them down.

The detours are as lonely as the singular path I have walked
for decades. I bring up the rear, or turn back, or aside and
can only be reminded that I have cried in wishes, sometimes
in faith that misses the point. And the pain stays; one of
the few companions
that are not afraid of the unheard words I long for.

I wish you would talk with me, I wish you got me,
I wish you would listen to the silence in the dark with me.

I wish you would hear me or heal me. I wish you would
keep me company.

Come Ride with Me

Come Ride with Me

(“A voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Luke 3:4)

I’ll tell you a secret from the mud bottom of Spring,
I’ll whisper the honesty of gravel where I’m scrambling,
I need a road trip,
a route 66 trip,
a Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Navajo Nation
and curio stand trip.

I need a sedan without air-conditioning and keeping each
other awake
across the long stretches, whining across the deserts,
curling up the mountains with
tires
that should have been replaced thousands of miles ago.

I want to hear your mix tape,
your stories, even though you’ve told them
to me before.
I love to hear the story, morning by morning,
and at the rest stops where we pause for two hour naps.

I know your music well and hear it for the first time
every time we travel.
I’ve memorized your sagas, down to verse and dogma
that cement them too familiar to be surprised again.

But you surprise me even though I’ve know the road since a child,
you sing along with AM radio, crying and laughing before the song
is done.
We pull in stations from Mexico and wonder why FM
was ever invented. We keep it tuned until the signal sounds
just like the tires across the inky asphalt. We turn the wheel,
we tune the knob
searching for another list of night songs to take us home.

It seems I’ve always been on the road, and now I sit
in a tight rectangle, wanting the sun to burn my face,
the wind to wake me as the white lines hypnotize me,
and feel like the first time I ever ventured out alone.

I never feared a wrong turn, never wept my failures;
always watched for the screen doors that looked
on like lemonade stands operated by children. We were
the proprietors
of a season that leaves a hat blown into the desert,
a heart that watches for midnight dwellers in the
air from afternoon until night.

Come, let us ride. The highway still needs construction,
the scenic route awaits your company. Though you have
always been with me,
I ask you

Come ride with me again.

Who Should and Shouldn't

Who Should and Shouldn’t

(“If your whole body is full of light and not darkness, it will be as bright as a lamp shining on you.” Luke 11:36)

Do you know how to see reflections in the water,
Do you know how to hear the voice of God in the wind?
Have you seen the faces, the hands, the portraits,

The lands occupied over and over again; and then
the present generation claims them as their own.

Do you think you invented the Mississippi,
Did you create the Rio Grande?
Did you spin the earth, grind its soil,
transplant the seeds, while drawing lines
in the middle of rivers, across ancient boundaries,
separating the kingdoms you conquered
and declaring them your own?

Did you do it with a cross before you,
with a bible in your hands?
Did you pretend god was on-your-side
because your guns were better,
your powder drier,
your faces whiter,
your boats bigger,
your English the sure language of god?

The badlands glowed with spectral beauty
before your eyes every beheld them.
The rivers swelled at the moon’s invitation
before you ever knew their motion.
The plains swayed, the grains waved like the ocean,
the Rockies reached toward the sun before
you ever named them.

Who are you to say to the millions whose tongue
does not match your own,

“here, and no further, we have drawn our lines in the sand.”?

Your light is failing, your eyes too narrow,
your sight is blindness, your night you call day
will soon give way to
the glory of the One who

Spoke it all into being before the first strand
of DNA was woven into all that is living.
Dare the One who hovers over creation,
speak with impunity if you think you know so well
who should and shouldn’t cross the river,
who should and shouldn’t share your town.

But do not speak of Christ while you
sing about boundaries of greatness,
foundries of weapons,
sainthood of hatred and
western culture as if it was the
brainchild of god.

Sink a while in your darkness and
let the light that is love divine
(All Loves Excelling)
open your dry eyes to
the idols you’ve adopted. Let
them come crashing down so
the shadows they’ve cast can
become light in the face of the
Perfection of compassion.

When You Speak

When You Speak

(“To Him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.” Revelation 1:5b, 6a)

I.

If you come up my walk on an afternoon,
winter when the shadows are low upon ground,
my dogs will greet you (or warn me) and will not stand down
until they have finished their security check and wagged you
in on hind legs hopping. Dogs are hopeless. Mine always
seems to be smiling the grin of a Husky ready to do the work
of a hundred men and do it again after a nap on the snow. Mine
always sounds angry when she barks at the sounds nature never
intended:
door knocks, car latches, rumbling engines and plates dropped
on the kitchen floor. When she sniffs a deer wandering between
the house and fruit trees the growl is guttural; deer and humans
alike
cannot hide the frightening image of ancient predator and prey.

But, give her sway, open the door, and she is ready to play,
though every auditory cue suggested dinner was upon the
canine menu.

II.

I have aged longer, a decade in five, as pain has depleted
the cistern of joy. Each day alive takes longer as the
knives in my head slash each thought from origin to
completion; from truth to unreasoned hallucinations.
I hear nothing but noise (though my best songs have
hibernated long enough to voice my first recollection.)
My best friend’s words (they are comfort, always and first)
are grit and dirt to ears sandpapered clear of resistance.

III.

Oh my God, and my Good. You have not change,
you have not moved.
You have loved and are the Healing Pool in which
I drift, I sleep and I wake. And yet

When You speak
I hear the pain cringe, I feel the clinch in
my shoulders, the drain of emotions
and my default is zero when once
Your words
were infinite joy to the hearer.

Speak to me though I startle, for,
Your words, mistranslated by my pain,
are the reason I still speak of my God,
my Good, then, now, and again.