The Wine of Happy Vineyards

The Wine of Happy Vineyards

(“O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! Your praise reaches up to the heavens.” Psalm 8:1)

The songs fall from the heavens like petals from a rose;
the scent is like rain after the sun goes down.
Day to day the sunsets sing with lyrics reconfirmed
by the moon and stars.

We are so dry here after years of drought; the fields
barely yield the fruit we were once accustomed to.
Slow to grow and barely to flourish, we have waited
for the minds of the miscreants to change.

We are looking for the Spring and rain;
we are waiting for the winds to repent their
arid canopies of sundried mornings. We are looking
for the grand rearrangement, for something recent
to replace our handheld testaments of disillusionment.

We have dreamed it; we have been undone.
We have cast our windows fully open and our
doors
ajar to welcome the habits of heaven.
I’d invite you in to await the choruses complete
from the hills and across the river and up the banks
of hope. We will know the melody the moment we
hear it.

Have we drunk the wine of the happy vineyards;
have we possessed the bread of a thousand possibilities?
Has the light finally reached us from the furthest stars
that started a million years ago to traverse the universe?

We have heard the refrain pushed forward like whitecaps
driven by the wind. We have not stopped listening.
We see the masterstroke of genius in the setting sun
and realize there is more to this all than we can fit
into a few lines of a poem.

Of Feasting and Wine

Of Feasting and Wine

(“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never be hungry. He who puts his trust in Me will never be thirsty.’” John 6:35)

Nourish my soul again like an apéro in France to enhance
my waiting for the later feast that would fill us until deeply
slumbering.
Brighten my eyes with refreshment like waters from the
mountain spring that set my mind to waking refreshed.
I feel hollowed out, not listless, but unsure of where the
next step should go. I feel ready to meet a dozen questioners
who laugh between bites and sometimes sing when the
meal is over.
I never wanted to take my meals solitary, but avoided
the call to ordered
groups
that met over stir fry and casseroles to revisit their
latest protestations about everything they thought was their
proper use of their locked up Spirit of God.

Their meals made me blush, my face, sometimes red
with hurt and anger held back, wishing I had not joined
their buffet. I found their sustenance wanting,
I found their repasts repeating words that had already found
their targets with arrows sharper that truth. I arrived
late
to avoid as many of their scattered incantations as I could.

If only I could find some, even merely two or three,
who would share a meal in joyful reverence, in laughter
that is
invitational,
in stories told about stones overturned while preparing
their flower gardens.
We knew their roses were the most fragrant in town.

Even the rain outside my window cannot muffle
the water being poured out over our wounds. Even the
clouds could not cover the waiting in our hearts for your
eternal food. I can taste it on my tongue, this new dish
served that never runs out. I can feel it running down my
throat, this new wine that revives the weariness that weighed
heavy in the air.

Full, complete, revived and ready to meet the
path I will walk today. The new energy caught up with
me and pointed me to the next banquet of joy.
I’ll show up early and hopefully hear another
traveler’s tale
of feasting and wine.

Like Accidental Wine

Like Accidental Wine

(“The Lord is pleased with his people, and he gives victory to those who are humble.” Psalm 149:4)

Borders, landlines,
phonelines and shores along
the cliffs: we want to define the
boundaries
for all time.

But the waves break and move the sands,
tsunamis send ancient landmarks inland. Angels
fly between our certainties and
alight where death occupies space
we’ve allotted to the proper dimensions.

Sometimes the wadis run full,
sometimes the lakes run dry.
Often our rhymes are indistinct,
our metaphors too precise.

Let us spill our language like accidental wine,
let us find the wink of summer as sparrows
mind their business in branches outside our windows.
Let us celebrate all we do not know,
let us sing like resurrected minds.
Let the mechanisms unwind,
let our spirits imbibe the inaccuracy
of it all.

Seasons are not divided by graphite fences,
our senses shuffle between bitter and sublime.
We can hear,
once we lay our words aside,
the faintest ions of wonder being born.

The Dance Had Begun

The Dance Had Begun

You told her she had wasted her days, that she should have
spent more time dancing. But
you failed to ask her, or inquire about her,
why her breath came like gasps of sundown so
early in the morning.
You suggested she could do better,
you commanded her to smile,
and she did, so as not to upset you,
but her feet stay glued under your vision.
Her thoughts wound around her like smoke
from a burned-out village, like the steam from
a circus calliope. The clowns had gone home
before the bigtop collapsed.
You wasted her time with your inquisition,
you stole her soul with your invented advice.
She heard but could not listen; sighs were her
language and you
spoke in unknown tongues.
You could not answer the question in her eyes,
you had no language and made no reply. She
knew,
though untranslated,
you meant well but missed the target, missed the
heart of it all.
She would have cried if you had given her time,
she would have written her pain on a dozen
cocktail napkins.
She wished for semi-darkness, she hoped for
another song to begin. She looked for faces that
read her sadness. She searched for the one hand
that spoke more than
a dozen deductions. She could not move as long as
the suggestions shoved her into corners, over cliffs, and
into canyons while she waited for just one slice of
an
orange from China,
or chocolate from the Mexican coast.

She floated once the silence left her alone with
the one who offered to walk her home and silently
offered her cherries and wine. No one knew it,
but the dance had begun.

Of Coats and Loaves

Of Coats and Loaves

(“The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise.” Luke 3:11)

I like thrift shop finds—the forty dollar suit, black and
wavy white threads, was perfect for a wedding the next day.
It left me two hundred dollars to spend on a tie.
But Sacramento was too hot to shop
in used bins for my next chapter in a North Dakota winter.
Long-johns and parkas bulged my budgetary allowances.

I always think of you, friend, when I shovel the snow here now.
I can sweat at even 30 below.
You gave me your only military thermal outerwear. Quilted
and camo green
I pulled the pants on over my jeans
and the jacket kept the cold away long enough to
clear the driveway for the next round of blown snow
or blizzard slush. For 30 years I
wore them and I wonder where you had been stationed
that you had this pair to spare.

I love coffee shop bakes—the chocolate croissant you can find
nowhere else. The lobby is coffee perfume the moment you
pass through the door. But stand for a second, and like a wine
taster
breathing through his teeth,
inhale slowly. The bread is calling just behind the hiss of
the espresso machines. Like a farmhouse Sunday afternoon
the baking bread fills every corner with friendship and
anticipation.

I always think of you, friend, when I remember the homemade
loaf you brought to me the day I pined for familiar eyes.
You could not stay, but the glance and package of grace was
enough.
I thanked you and watched you drive away.
I cut a slice and toasted it. It warmed as the
toaster glowed, the aroma slowly filled the kitchen like
new-bake, and I put some coffee on. I opened the butter and
waited for the toast to golden. As the knife spread
I heard the alto crunch and could see the lines of your smile.
I slide the bread between my teeth, the butter plays on my tongue.
I think about the dough you rolled, the sound like taffy being pulled.
I see the flour on your apron, a little on your nose. And as I chew I
know
the coffee will be silky.

And the clothes keep me warm,
and the loaf revived more than
my hunger for homemade days.
And the way you gave
always brought your face to my mind.

How Much Does a Mermaid Cost?

 

How Much Does a Mermaid Cost?

(“Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes. He saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road.” Numbers 22:31a)

How much does a mermaid cost in 2020?
If you find one, will you let me know;
but butterflies and angels are free.

I was always told about days like this
when rainbows were absent and the molecules
went painfully right through you.
I was also told about other days
when inhaling oxygen brightened the skies and
wonder cascaded from both strip malls and mountains.

We pay the price for both or at least extend our credit.

When you saw nothing, did you look beneath the air,
did you look behind the veil?
Did you slow your pace in case an angel might
meet you
around the next bend in the road?
Did you drop your backpack in the ditch
to carry nothing on your shoulders to meet
chilly day smoke from woodburning stoves mixed
with fields of hay newly mown.

I cannot converse much about angels (though,
I may have entertained a few), they are fleeting,
they are fast,
they are still, they are stealing away if we
do not stop to behold them. Some wear swords,
some are barefoot, some glow like jazz,
some are homeless. Some are sent
to relieve us of our empty senses and fill
them again with earth and mud,
clouds and sky,
circles and globes,
squares and boxes,
and lines that lead us directly
to the presence of the One who fills all things
(solitary yellow leaf, autumn’s last rose,
wind that makes the trees sound like ocean,
and the oxygen that moves through us like wine).

I am not wealthy enough to purchase a mermaid,
(what is the going rate in 2020?)

For Pianos and Wine

For Pianos and Wine

(“People ate until they couldn’t eat any more. He gave them what they had wanted.” Psalm 78:29)

I would give anything for eight candles and a piano,
a light for each visitor in the room, a table of food,
and a tune we all knew by heart.

A draught of ale, bacon wrapped dates with an entrée of duck
or lamb,
or goat or ham,
and dessert imagined by witty minds or luckily stumbled upon
at a Mexican panadería.

I would go back in time if it helped,
to hug the finest friends (some still in arm’s reach,
some across the wireless space,
some closer than before but with back turned to late
comments and figures of speech.)
I am the same friend, only my brain has changed.
I have same love, only the scope is strange to their thinking.
I have the same calloused fingers from playing guitar alone.

I would give anything for two guitars, a flute and a horn.
An evening searching for baptism and listening to the call of
nightingales.

But I would not give up the expanse, the exploded boxes,
the labyrinth that takes me deeper, the hope that takes me sweeter,
the few new friends who think it a wonder that I share
a drink with them at all.

I would give anything to hear a voice on the line:
we heard you are hurting. We heard you’ve changed.
We heard you may be out of the tribe. We heard you’ve remained
the same. We saw your slow exit and your limping. We saw
your tears and the simple goodbye you waved when your heart
wanted to stay.

And we just wanted to say: We don’t care how your brain works today,
just join us again for bread, for candles, for pianos and wine.

Open Invitation

Open Invitation

(“He said to them, 'I have really looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you. I wanted to do this before I suffer.'” Luke 22:15)

I saw you outside the door. You approached it slowly, like you
were uncertain of the address. You looked up at the wall and
down upon your downloaded map and seemed assured this
was the right place.

I saw you outside the door. Your body swayed in toward the light,
then back toward the olive groves while your feet stayed planted secure.
The aromas were familiar, Passover since you were a toddler; roast lamb and
garlic, parsley, eggs and wine to remind you the God with a Name will have
no slaves.

I saw you outside the door. You made a wide arc toward the dark
between two closely planted olive trees. You could lean your back against one,
your feet against the other, and squint to your right, the door that beckoned:

inviting light and something so serious that the usual menu was incomplete.

I saw you between the trees. I whispered and early spring bore my breath
toward your face, “Come in with me, the Master asks us to celebrate tonight.”

You cast your eyes to the ground, and slowly, tracing my face, I know you
recognize me, and I am sure it is true.

“Yes, I was on my way in, friend. And, like you, I feel I have no right to enter.
You know my lusts, don't you?” A pause/selah. “I have also lied, you've heard.”
Another pause and selah. “You know how well I spoke and how poorly I acted,
I can see it in your eyes.” l o n g e r pause - - - s e l a h. And now the breath
you could see was ice inside of me. I shook over every betrayal known and yet
undiscovered.

“Yes, I know you know who I am. And I have been worse than you know. But,
I am here for Him, because of my sin. I am here to drink the wine I must drink,
or else die in my grief. I am here to drink the cup of bitterness,
the cup of my forgiveness.”

I touched your elbow, barely. Departure left you open to steady yourself or push
me away, stealthily leaving the open invitation. But, like a diesel in winter, you
warmed to the light framed by the door waiting open on the Eastern Wall for perhaps

only two or one more.

We sat, remember? I mentioned that, though I knew the forgiveness deeply, I still had not control
over the shivers every time I remembered how untrue I had been.

I hoped that you, new and without a history of deceit, could be clean and never shake except for
joy and laughter. And so it was, your mouth broad, your teeth wide and gleaming at
mercy's dance.

We have met there, each year since, begging the Savior would suffer no more
than He already had for us. We have watched, each year since, for others
who, shiver or static, still cannot quite make their way
through the door.

Beyond the Wooden

Beyond the Wooden

(“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Luke 3:4b)

While I would normally sing until my lungs ache for air,
I hear the approach of the Chemist of atmosphere, and inhale
His wonder. Holding it within, I taste the life like a well-aged wine;
a hint of grassy meadows with an overtone of berries hid in the shade.
And

Then

I s-lo-w-l-y ex-

hale.

His vintage is beyond the wooden dates, each planting
is perfection in the Vineyard of the Lord. The fruit
makes the parched smile, the burned brow returned to
its last relaxation. My Lord walks between the vines,
the human and divine, the aroma and bouquet stay
soundly on the tongue longer than the words whispered
as we awaited His return.

And even longer than the mellow taste that linger
is the memory of the gift He gives to all who stop their
their own thunder

And slowly sip the vin nouveau,
the perfect cup of the Lord.

The Wine Warmed

The Wine Warmed

(“Then he said, ‘This wine is my blood, which will be poured out for many to begin the new agreement from God to his people.’” Mark 14:24)

Your life, man of all People, touched our lips and
sealed our fate as You offered wine-called-blood
and ended the meal with a hymn and a walk
and a prayer in a garden. We were chilled,
(the room was warm with body heat and anxious sweat)
the path was old
(did David plant the olive stands; did Joshua see the hill?)
the walk was common as You told, again,
the plan to unchain our petty machinery to hear
the Father’s cosmic poetry

In the Son, the Only One, tonight You spoke it
as if it were done. And we took our rest like
Jacob, heads upon the stones while You wept
and plead alone.

Your death, image of all Divine, touched our lips and
peeled the curtains from our eyes; You gave thanks mere
hours
before You suffered. The wine warmed in Your hands,
the seed created in and through and by the Son, planted
by an honest gardener, filled with earth’s dark loam,
sky’s bright glow, and crushed beneath anonymous feet
to brighten the eyes of the hopeful.

In Your hands You knew the spill would not be swept,
but run red carving its own path past analogies, old realities,
and creating space for waiting; 2 days waiting;

For the Son, the Only One, who broke with morning
and it was done. And we take our rest like
conscious creatures who know the secret behind
every celebration and every yarn ever spun that

Hinted there was more, much more, under the sun.

Who Washed Your Hands

Who Washed Your Hands

(“Every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26)

It should have been me who washed Your hands
that night before eating the exodus meal; I should have
set the table neat with white linen, poured the wine
red
in the cups that speak so well,
set the matzo unbroken before our final
consummation, our ears not hearing
this was no celebration;
more memorial, a portrait predicting
what we would not speak throughout our
entire meal.

How could we know (except You had told us
time times it all) what we were too excited to hear.

We knew who You were, but missed who You are,
We confessed You Messiah, but doubted Your methods,
We wanted to follow, though unclear of our destination,
We asked the right questions, and lost the answers in our assumptions.

I cannot approach the table again with my sentences dotted,
my paragraphs complete.
I will not dine so certain nor stare down the uninvited,
I will sit with men uninitiated, talk with women untrained
and admit we are all simply amateurs, in it
for the love of the game.

It should have been me, washed Your feet,
but You took the towel, the basin, the water.

It should have been me, broken like bread,
but You took the fracture, the spikes and the thorns.

It should have been me, poured out like wine,
but You spilled the blood, for our tears and sweat

And built a family upon winning one death final
like we thought we would die given half the chance
(accomplishing nothing).

And built a family upon dying like victory
teaching us with basins and nails the announcement to make
to a world dead of war and sick of valor.