Woke/Provocation

 Woke/Provocation

(“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24)

Buzzing between sleep and the dawn,
someone took it upon themselves to
unshake me from my late dreams.
Chilled with ice, the water hit my face
and every nerve was alert.
I had not forgotten to set my alarm for the day
and had no pressing issues ahead of me.
Provoked and awake, my made-up world
unwound like the mist above a lake.
It did not occur to me that I could not
be late on this particular day.

So,
I awoke.

Woke,
what a word for the mornings, what a seeing of things
as they are and not as I wish or remember.

Woke,
what a spiritual state of things
that turns ingrained mediocrity to love
that is like the sky,
embracing everything.

Woke,
what a personal way to see my neighbor
who is ignored for some abhorrent doctrine of
hell
and
sin
and
inside knowledge.

Woke,
what a lovely word that the enemy
has obfuscated with deadly
flumes of smoke.

I saw my twelve-year-old friend Amy on
my walk today and her big black dog
raced to greet me.
I reached out my hand and
petted his solid ribcage. “Hey,
Samson!”

I do not think Amy heard,
but she shouted,
“Hercules,
come here.”
And my memory, provoked,
awoke
to the name that defines him.

Coffee, Alone

Coffee, Alone

(“It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth.” Mark 4:31)

Slept well, woke up at 8,
Ate some toast, went back to bed,
got up at 11, and now I have 3 less hours of
pain
today.

So full of things I cannot control,
my head is a gyroscope of spinning memories.
So full of aches I want to forget,
my head is a guinea pig of constant experiments.

Will a walk clear it? Will the sun steer the aches another direction?
Will the birds wash it with their songs; occasional butterflies land
close enough to distract me long enough? But my days
are faceless,
and my faith lifts only my heels for
the next step on the sidewalk.

I go to coffee, alone, the pain still my silent companion,
and hope the barrister recognizes my face from a month ago.
But she is a college student, the shop is full of customers,
and I’m a new old man in line for a latte.

I eavesdrop on two students at the next table to
pretend I’ve had a conversation. But I pick up only words
that sound like other words which I wish were the words
I understood.

Slept well, woke up like paste,
rolled over, hands on my head,
checked the clock at 12,
and wasted one more morning
escaping the pain.

Each day my world shrinks,
12 hours to 10,
50 pages to muttering,
5 friends to waving at strangers
as they drive by.

Can this seed still be planted, and live,
and grow, and thrive? And be recognized as
fully alive even in the corner of a forgotten garden?

Dreamed-Up

Dreamed-Up

(“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them. We will come to them and make our home with them.’” John 14:23)

She woke up and thought she would write some words
to the one person she had refused her words for
five years and more. And then the words were only
the sudden hope of manufactured miracles,
the quick passing of canned words strengthened by seeing
it

All in a dream.

While he had suffered for seven years, the pain building
like a slow ascent up a Mexican pyramid, or the steep hills
you hike
that appear as one short jaunt until sightlines break the ridge
to see
more and more hills ahead; and in your periphery. More hills that
eventually end upon a plateau of pain; a restless place where

Each day drowns you underneath its angry intent of
shoving every thought out of a once active brain,
and your habits are soggy and sweat from the energy consumed
attempting to beat back the welding pen that has engraved “pain”
upon every movement of your body.

But she (who could challenge her motives) merely sent a “word”
that dreamed up a prophetic announcement that all his pain would
be finished soon.

And he would like an ear, for she would not bear to hear that, in a month
or a year,
the season had remained, the pain still plunging him helplessly
beyond anyone’s comprehension

Except God’s alone.