A Day Without the Sun

A Day Without the Sun

(“In days filled with trouble, I search for you. And at night I tirelessly lift my hands in prayer, refusing comfort.” Psalm 77:2)

There is no way to explain why the hole I dug
is so empty today. I meant to fill it with artifacts
for the next generation to unearth. But all they will find
is a pamphlet full of words signifying less than a bursting
shovel of dirt.
Don’t misunderstand,
I wanted to be handed truth in a dozen handbags,
but had trouble finding what I insisted existed in
heartfelt utterances of pain.
They laid hands on me to cast out the final vestiges
of insanity. It was instantly regarded as a complete
waste of time.
I can’t forget about the heat I felt when
healing spiraled around my catastrophes. I refuse
to give up on deity in all its idiosyncrasies. I’m
under the thunder of a dozen shovels of earth.
I waited for a new sentence that would outline the
reasons
everything feels empty today. I spoke the words that
I thought I believed and was left
flat on my face underneath a day without the sun.
I love you, that is all that remains of every
statement of faith I’ve ever believed. I hoped to
bring you better news; I hoped I could read a letter
sent in a scented envelope that convinced me to
believe anew the through-line from heaven to earth.
Sandwiched between serious and hilarious
I’ve come to believe all that matters
is the love that comes through the door unbidden,
like a caisson containing the weapons
we swore we would destroy once we followed the
Prince of Peace. But they still are guarded
in our gun cabinets like gold. I wish I could speak
one hundred words to melt the ammunition hoarded by
songs of unbelief.
Today I wished god was a genii who waves a wand
and restores the days I have lost by my misbehavior.
Today it has cost me a little more sanity and my
brain is numb because the words have come to mean nothing
but now grow like poppies in the field.

Without Watching

Without Watching

(“Whether he is a sinner or not, I couldn’t tell, but one thing I am sure of,” the man replied, “I used to be blind, now I can see!” John 9:25)

I’ve got nothing in my pockets except
shredded tissue that went through the wash.
I do the laundry now and my wife works.
She always emptied each pocket and
turned the clothing inside-out.

I haven’t filled up my car for a year and a half;
barely have driven except to see doctors and visit
an occasional mockingbird. I stay home now while my wife works.
She always detailed the car and never left napkins on the seats.
I forgot where the gas cap latch was when I filled it for the first time
yesterday
in a year and a half.

I live too much behind me. I mean decades behind me. I live with
stagecraft in my head, leading ladies and drama buddies, high school
presumptions and productions we took more seriously than calculus or
french IV. Every time we practiced, every time we performed,
donning burlap sacks of characters on a page,
we met truer than when using our own names.
My past flows through a funnel. Area codes are transposed,
and everyone I know from the best time of life
are mere digital connections; though for some of us,
the love has only deepened as we spoke each others’ names.

I haven’t stood behind a pulpit for over a year. I may never again.
I may forget decorum and study. I may become lazy and cry away
the mistakes, age and pain that did me in. I may never preach again.

Sometimes sight comes without watching,
blindness is cured while we lie in the mud.
Sometimes we were born that way, sometimes the sky
merely darkened, and others have closed their eyes because
perception is too frightening. I have been blind because
of everything.

Sometimes the good news becomes noon day and smells of
apple pie golden in the windowsill. Sometimes gospel is more than
pianos and banjos
and is heard in every birdsong sung to you from beginning
to end. Sometimes seeing is just spit and mud
in the hands of the Human One who rarely announces his name.

So we wash our clothes, empty our pockets, fuel our cars,
long for tacos our best friend’s mother always set out for
the half dozen always just showing up. We sit by the water,
we breathe the pastry baking, we hear music divine played by
earthlings like us, human or not

And hope one day, unexpectedly, the tears will clear,
the light will enter, the love will engulf and we shall
know as we are known; clothed or unclothed, named or
anonymous.