An Open Window

An Open Window

(“But you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Romans 14:10)

My soul was an open window but you
persisted in pounding on the door.
You talked like you knew everything I’ve owned,
you thought I was hiding from you.
Once you saw the wounds but named them
inadequacies. There were shortages to be
sure, but not because I ignored them.
My soul was drafty until I found
the touch
of healing in the person who looked deeply
and refused to walk away.

The scars are still warm from the fever they felt,
and grew hotter the more exposed to the fiery gaze
that read them like tea leaves cursing my weak efforts
to escape,
the constant stare that sought to make me more aware
of the sighs heaped upon the weakest places in me.

I’ll keep a warm corner ready for you,
I’ll light a fire and put on the coffee.
I’ll set a place for you even though you gave
so little space for me.
And if you feel exposed, I will only pass you
the cream and sugar, put another log on the fire,
and ask if you would like to stay just a little longer
into the early evening of the day.

The View of the River

The View of the River From Here

(“For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy upon them.” Jeremiah 33:26b)

I’ve heard the excuses that sentence a man to
eternal consequences for a single mortal life.
I’ve seen your silly dramas you
tag
as Heaven’s Gates
and
Hell’s Flames.
I am weary.

Believe me,
I have sinned with the best.
I have hidden it even better.
I have wished my follow was better than my
swallowing every temptation that insisted that
sundown was the best time for finding the one thing
that would slow down my mind.

I packed my suitcase for heaven
but
could never tell whether the vacancy sign
was designed to invite me to a dinner by the pool.
I will not be consigned to hell
no matter
how loud your fist-pounding pronouncements.
I have seen the other side of the sunset
and the day follows plain as the love that
explains it all in oil paintings on the wall.

Fashion another runway, leave your granite slates
outside the gates and
greet the canvas that was painted on a day when
everything had melted, a day when
we were all shocked about
the grace of it all.

The same day you scared the children half-mad
with your fiery hell,
the people on the periphery were starving for
breakfast. But the children gathered at the
front of the stage
nonetheless,
frightened about the heaven they might miss.

As soon as the morning peeks through the window
I will show you
the view of the river from the top of the hill.

Everything I Wanted

Everything I Wanted

(“Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent.” Matthew 10:29)

There was everything I wanted just inside
the pair of eyes
pre-empting professional conventions.
Who knows, if you can hear me,
whether words stay glued near me or
break through space and time like
electrons escaping the strong force at
elemental levels.

You told me your story between questions about
my health.
I think we could talk forever, but my insurance covers
only an hour, I think. I should have brought coffee as
a write-off. Between laughs and family angst,
we talked about my pain, my usual topic for our
appointments. And we talked about grief, the subject
that, it seems,
has made me a doula in this latter time.

I went late to lunch and the server asked about my
pain. She always does. And it comforts me. She stays
at my table moments longer than any other and wonders
how I do it. And I wonder too.

There were surprises, two tacos, a beer,
and a friend walking in with new music
for me to hear.
Our shirts matched, imagine that, two sky-blue
guayaberas. He and his friends sat as I exited
the restaurant that feels like home.

Everything I’ve wanted is in this village. The doves
lift their steel gray wings perching on branches as Autumn
paints an earth scene to surround them. I wish I knew their names,
and I would tell them my pain is eased for just a moment
as they sit exposed just outside my window.

Waiting by My Window

Waiting by My Window

Waiting by the window for the rain to fill the yard,
hiding in the closet where joy has been locked up tight,
formless friends never knock on the door while
a few ask about me, electrons sending their questions
with a handful of taps on their phones.

We used to run through the rain,
we used to sit on couches without having to explain,
we ate vegan spaghetti and pasta fagioli,
we traveled over the Cascades for Christmas,
and sometimes played tennis at midnight.

Waiting for the phone to ring, all I get is notifications,
someone has stolen my identity, someone compromised my passwords.
Losing my trajectory I feel my orbit failing,
near the apogee of my revolution I see home-base
rapidly fading.

I have the whole day to think, all day to question my assumptions,
but my mind aches from the outside in
and could use a break
from an old friend or two
who wouldn’t mind meeting for a beer
or a dark brew espresso.

Last night was Halloween and I sat where I could see
the children outside my window
just before they knocked on the door.
One called me by name, and I wish he had stayed.
But his bucket was not full yet. His young voice
stayed with me, a log on the hearth, a distant
ember-infused
smile.

But back to my orbit: I am sorry my tangents
have taken me away from the only solar system I have
every known.
And the distance between us is like a heart slowing down,
memories unmade, and no crew to guide my flight.

Waiting for the apology, and many are waiting for mine.
But I am dust on the shelf. The vise around my brain,
the floods and the rain,
the months and months of isolated pain

See me
waiting by my window again.

Scratch That

Scratch That

I would have opened more to you
after you knocked on my window earlier than sunrise.
But, with slumber heavy on my limbs, my eyes
ran behind the thoughts still twisted around last night’s dream.

I would have let you in, let you have your say,
and, after you stayed and understood, we might have
taken a chance at another 20 years of friendship.

But I closed my window, out of reflex, out of weary
habits of explaining why I preferred it quietly shut;

Almost all the time.

And, since it was my window after all, I hoped you
would understand.

Here’s another thing, and I hate to explain,
or excuse my actions on the short-circuited synapses
in my brain…but the tapping on my bedroom window
only increases the flow of fiery impulses that squeeze my brain
like an iron-clad orange peel.

***
You’re not the first, though, maybe not the last. And,
I’ll certainly take my part.
***

No, scratch that. Don’t remember the previous lines.
Delete them, wipe them from your mind.

I am angry. I am boiling over. I want to pour wrath upon
every former friend who wished me dead…them dead to me.
I am tired of the punches unreturned. I am tired of the lies
that set up roadblocks to beauty they would have been a spring of joy
rising up to heal this hopeless heart.

Behind my back, oh the obituaries they wrote; short, to the point;
“He was here, He did, He died.”
And my insignificance floats further back in time so that my anger

Seems entirely out of line. Beware the conflagration of a heart
never allowed to speak its peace. Instead, with every intention
of making me zero; and every false apology reserving a hero’s welcome
for their consideration

Only put more kindling on a fire that could have burned out quickly
in a friend to friend bout of honesty. But, for some, broken rules

So much worse

Than broken hearts or cursed.

All & Every

All & Every

(“The Lord God says, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the One who is and was and is coming. I am the All-Powerful.’” Revelation 1:8)

Take this heart invisibly, the One created-not-born,
and unbreak the fissures, or fill them presently
with the passion unending.

At every point on every line,
every line on every plane,
every plane on every facet interface with me.

Higher than my suspect prayers,
deeper than my conceived potions,
sweeter than my anger disguised as righteous,
kinder than the hidden thoughts behind flashing eyes;

Be to me everything I cannot be,
within each molecule, the air between elements,
the charged plasma between electrons darting around
the center of each atom,
be all in me, all for me, all me and only me.

And delete me as well as I delete my digital words
with calloused fingers on the keyboard. Delete the
me that uses me as a portrait of best things when
the rest of things are undone.

All, my solid footing. Every, my absent nothing.
And as darkly as I see through the glass smudged with
strong-minded sludge, be my light behind the shadow
and the joy for the window of my soul.