An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

(“All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who disobey and oppose me.” Romans 10:21b)

There are things I used to see only
from the corner of my eye. There was dancing
on the next street over,
there were puppies at the construction site.
There was handwriting I refused to read,
there were songs I set aside.

I never locked my doors, but I built my
walls high to
support the roof, to protect my head from
anything falling un-alphabetically.
I had categories for principles, labels so
the contents would not surprise me. I knew the
names by the languages I heard.

With my door closed tight, I lost sight of
the way the soul shines outside my structured steeples.
(Did I tell you I built my walls? That is not true.
I moved into domiciles manufactured well before
I moved in.)
I was never a carpenter. I occupied land and
closed the door.

It did not take a hurricane. I’m not sure, but it
happened as the earth shifted below the floorboards.
Overnight, over time, over my head, leaning over,
my walls fell and met the wet ground, all four sides
around.

And I saw.

The dancing was an invitation to play.
The puppies were prophetic, the handwriting
poetic. The songs were
nursery rhymes and soap bubbles I had locked outside.

I had lived in a house of mirrors, seeing only the images that
glanced back to me.
I rebuilt a house, a home of windows.

Today was the last day in my well-paneled home.

There Is No Stopping the Rain

There Is No Stopping the Rain

(“Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in Your eyes, O Lord, my Rock and the One Who saves me.” Psalm 19:14)

There is no stopping the rain, not by iron walls or
massive defense. It crawls over the peaks of the mountains
and lands just outside my window. I am so
hollow
I wish it would fill me, gauge me, let the substance
fill the hole shaped like the world in me.

I looked at your yard yesterday, with your flags raised like
Babel’s tower. I looked at your lawn and the stakes you’ve driven
into the ground. And the rain did not stop. And the rain filled
the gauges on your fenceposts, and the rain filled the field
next to you, and the rain filled the water dishes for
cats and dogs,
and the rain spilled from higher ground to lower life,
and the rain would not be stopped.

I would move to the desert if only for an excuse to remain
so empty. The rains come a quarter inch a month.

There is no hurrying the waiting, not by text or phone,
not by anguished obsession with killing time. I would
call you now
if I knew your number.
I would drive for half a week to see your face at the door.

I admit I saw a rainbow. You sent me the picture, remember?
I admit I heard the thunder. My dog hid underneath the bed.
I admit I could do more to sweeten my tone,
I admit, after a life of acing tests in school,
I have broken every rule and suffered the consequences.
You can check my expense account. I’ve shoveled the
muck
that accumulated when the rain overran my intentions.

Can the rain reshape me? Can it rise to a level in me--
that living spring in me--and stop the anxiety that has

Hollowed me whole?

See-Through Walls

See-Through Walls

(“Whoever despises his neighbor sins, but whoever is gracious to the needy is blessed.” Proverbs 14:21)

When your only solution is see-through walls

to keep out the undesirables,
they’ll see you with your big black boots
kicking the water jugs away from their reach.

When the beaches are scattered with tanners who have
plans for the evening but not for the night,
the rafts arrive silently on the slow red tide.

The imperfect walk among us,
the last are heading the list,
the assault upon our senses needs
new thoughts and amendments,
the first are refusing to list.

Slant away from your stakes in the ground,
lean toward the limps and the moths,
leave your foundation, forsake the partition
that divides the planet in pieces. How is peace
conditional upon common dialects when your
own words are swallowed beneath the crosses
you’ve burned.

The wind has shifted again, the immigrants sing.
The wind is blowing again, the refugees flee
for open shores, a hope and reports of grace beyond
purple mountains sea-to-sea. The song
is sung again
and only those who listen will

Find the powerful embrace of losing it all
for goodness’ sake.