The Retaining Wall

The Retaining Wall

(“Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock.” Matthew 7:24)

Sluggish as an Autumn morning, I climb to
the nearest hill to maintain some masquerade of
control. When life pulls away ahead of me,
when I roll the dice on the universe,
I lose control and cannot predict
how they will fall. I cannot pretend
that suffering is the ache of needing a period
at the end of every day.

I saw someone driving a truck the same model
of my best friend who died over a year ago.
The man inside looked like him and I pleaded
that maybe time had run under the bridge and
looped back in fantasy. I have no control over
who leaves and who stays. I cannot pretend
that my words will make you stay until
the end of the day.

I am not God anyway.

I saw your house where I visited you often.
The new owner is building a retaining wall;
granite block abutting the back of the property.
He has three dogs. One black and one brown with
heads nearly the size of horses. One is white and
rules the yard; a 15-pound Maltese.

It is Autumn in the afternoon and the breeze from
the north
chilled my hands while the sun behind me
warmed my shirt like it was freshly ironed.

If I lose control, perhaps I’ll suffer less.
If I move along the trails made by deer in the woods
perhaps
life will be more effortless.

God does not hide far away.

At The End of The Road

 At The End of The Road

(“Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” Luke 15:6b)

Why do we build the wall,
can you tell me the story again?
Why do we keep our gold inside
and everyone out
and at what cost?
Why do we lock our gates,
can you recite the code again?
Why do we twist our iron into
so many shapes
and chain them with locks?

Look down, look down the road,
the dust is stirred by the feet of returning.
The light is blurred by the whisps of
bleating songs. Live sounds. Flying sounds.
From grey to white, from infra to ultra sounds.

Wait down, wait at the end of the road,
the sun will soothe your churning eyes.
The tiny strays, (the best of days) have found
their way home. Long travels. Footprint travels.
From lost to found, sound to song travels.

Why not tear down the wall,
that is the story older than time?
Why not share our wealth
with the dizzy children
without cost?
Why not open the gates,
so princes on donkeys can enter?
Why don’t we straighten our steel eyes
toward the horizon
and wait

At the end of the road?

The Mortal Silence

The Mortal Silence

(“As they led Jesus away, Simon, a man from Cyrene, was coming in from the fields. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross and to walk behind him.” Luke 23:26)

There was nothing peaceful about it,
the clouds were leaden upon a graphite sky.
The body politik and the rest of us, (anger and sickness)
saw events transpire for the best of us and so we cried
to send the one most like us down the avenue of shame.

Fires bled in our eyes, boiling over from the first boot
on our necks
to our last breath (and yet our feet were tattooed as well).

I misunderstood every word, tried to right and wrong the
whole day to death. I shouted with the crowd, I cursed the
powers that occupied us like slaves, I was with and against,
as my heart burst outside the courtroom and within the
reflexes of oppression. Yet I pressed closer to
the blazing procession, a day for the dead.

I saw death where people sang like mardi gras,
I saw life in the pierced head, the welts like a
pollock painting on the back of the fainting one
whose breath came as slow as summer wadis.
I saw strength in the stumbling,
power in the fainting,
and something else, something without a name.

They cast their words at him, dashing them against him
like stones through a glass wall. They were right after all,
and the lynching lasted far into the afternoon.

I did not volunteer, nor did I imagine I would hear the
turpitude wound around my own soul like shackles.
I was conscripted and took the beam, the angry
crossbar with its weight centered across my shoulders.
I knew the drill; it was all too common on this hill
where so many were hanged like cursed fruit from a tree.

But he. He was. My breath escapes and does not return.
But he. He was. His life escapes and so has the sun.
But he. He was. His eyes were fire and life and gold.
But he. He was. I was tired, compelled, and old.

Old as sin is what they say in the country. But he. He was.
Older. 

How does the Ancient of Days walk to the auction block?
How does Eternity Past put his feet on the same path as mine?
I was compelled. But he. He was.

Not repelled by the worst of us. And I, I loved this
weakest of kings, this dying god, and stayed as he
gave his life away.

He was. He is king over my erratic thinking,
and lord-in-love to a world still addicted (some in
His name)
to mining for violence. He was. He is
only found in the compelled quietness,
the mortal silence of tears of offender
and offended.

Some Hit the Wall

Some Hit the Wall

(“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.’” John 6:68)

Some hit the wall so hard they cannot find their way back
to the panels where icons wrote worship in incense chalk.
The pain spins them, the concrete pins them against the
bricks that scratch their honest diversions.

Where do they go, the innocent failures,
headstrong but too smart to toe the party line?
Impure, though they longed, in short, for more.

To breathe the first blade of grass; silent, unmown,
straight in its posture toward light that pulls it from
dark underground. Sharp and soft,
it shoots in slow-motion toward the explosion of sun.

Is there still time to lie upon a bed of green next to a tree
generations older than hierarchies of men? When?
Are names still uttered from double-scripted scrolls;
is life still the language? And, my name, does it roll
of your tongue like you love the sound of it? The short of it?

Some hit the wall and find themselves cornered. The explanations
no longer soothe the brooding ache, the excuses have exceeded their limit.
Some sit, simply waiting for the next dispensation of miraculous
stories from mighty crowds. Some sit. The waiting has erased
the overheard faith and demands the hand and voice
first-person. This time.

Though struck, though dumb, though deaf to the drumbeat that
once attracted my soul like the first blade of grass,
I have nowhere else to go except the vast uncertainty that
slides in front of me, just out of reach.

I can only write of ache. I apologize. The size of my soul is shrinking.
But buried black, dead at the bottom of the abyss,
a seed remains. A seed awaits (please)
re-germination to become a spindly grain hugging
the wall.