A Silver Set

A Silver Set

(“Good words that hide an evil heart are like silver paint over a cheap, clay pot.” Proverbs 26:23)

I know you hoped that we would see you shine;
I know you wanted to be redesigned by bowing and
scraping and ordering every word around the perfect
incantations that sounded like speaking in tongues.

We had a silver set when I was growing up, sterling
silver I believe. We brought it out on holidays and scoured it
with the cream we kept hidden for just this purpose.
We burnished and polished until they reflected the sun
back to our open eyes again.

But we are all just silver plated, thinly wrapped around a common
lump of clay. I watched how you would get discouraged and then
call it depression and exit to watch it run its course like runoff after
the deluge. You agonized over hoping to reach another level but
your humanity seemed to be to blame.

I’ve laminated my own life scores of years over. I’ve wanted
to find
someone who didn’t care that all they saw was much. But
the crowds I ran in demanded prayer and perfection. They
expected a performance that looked like a faith-healer trashing
crutches and wheelchairs. But I always saw the healed person
limping around the same echoes again.

Touch me and you touch dirt, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes.
Hold me and your fingernails will get smudged with mud.
Talk to me, bring the wine, and I will open myself up
one last time. I am slow to show the slivers in the silver
that protects my ego. But for you I will try it one more time.

And perhaps we will find a better connection than thinly
disguised silver can ever deliver.

The Words Came Slowly

The Words Came Slowly

(“Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.” Psalm 105:19)

Perilous sounds like a good word to start a poem,
Unaccomplished might end it.
Sold like a slave and bound like a trapped rabbit,
we sometimes are fettered by our own lack of imagination.
We hope to find our future buried shallow in
our back yard.
We never expected to be at the cliff’s edge
with no way to turn back into who we once had been.

You can say what you want,
you can seek however long you will,
but my story will always stay the same.
Unaccompanied in a land I did not recognize
I stuck my claim on the lyrics hidden between
each note and time signature.
I memorized the songs of my youth and
sang them solo while I waited for a door
I could not open
to allow me entrance into the next level of
my dreams.

Affectations may be the words you find snuggly
tucked away mid-poem,
lingering may be the jump-off point to the final
verses. There were strange sounds that sifted between
the cracks of my catalytic walls. There were unfamiliar
songs teasing me to spend my spare time learning them
like they were my own.

Renovation began the moment I entered the
dimly lit room.
Patterns emerged like dust dancing in the sun.
The words came slowly and I learned them well;
the tempo was off, but I sang them sound.
Completed sounds like a good word to end a poem,
Unharmed might begin it.

Their Repeated Words

Their Repeated Words

(“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!” James 3:5)

I should have noticed it before but the people I know
who have the most impassioned and bombastic prayers selcom
sought me out for coffee or lunch.
I always wondered at the lengthy prayers of the silky voiced
elder who never said much in the end.
It only took a few words to
sting me in the heart. It only took the smallest spark
to burn what was left of my dignity.

It goes without saying, though, that I have dropped words
like bombs
unaware myself. Did I really tell that poor mother to
try to give a little bit more than she had? Did I really tell
that single father that families are a mom, a dad, and kids?
And all I knew to do was apologize for something that hit him
right between the eyes. My words were lobbed thoughtlessly
and were received as heavenly proclamations.

I’ve learned that silence is the best choice when struggling
with what to say. I’ve recruited the unspoken to speak for me.
And yet, letter by letter, I compose these words on the page and
wonder
whether I should restrain my forays into streams of consciousness.

More than once people laid their hands on my head and tried to
drive away spirits and demons that caused my depression. But
no one imagined the harm of constantly leaving the impression
that I should just get over myself and submit to their graduation
of spirituality. They had answers for everything and nothing changed.
They had words to describe every eventuality but no time to
spend in exploring the world right outside their doors.
Our bubbles, our echo chambers, brought more shame than
healing. Our words were swifter than wasps and landed
with their stingers between our eyes. No one modified their
language. They only excused it as an attempt to make me
feel better.

I’ve sprinted far away from the run-on sentences that tried
to enforce voices that could not hear the damage their repeated
words had done.

Words in Single File

 
Words in Single File

(“They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Jeremiah 32:38)

Hungry and breathing on our own,
we played darts in the low-light bar.
We never saw the bullseye, never scored
a winning high. All our research had come to this:
The water was green as jade and the air puffing
like tobacco ash.

Walking and waiting in the sun,
we looked for frisbees on the browning meadow.
We never threw it into the brambles, though
we picked some black berries to share.
Nearly winter now and our thinking came this:
dogs are the perfect companions for Autumn
afternoons
when we saw winter looming high above the hills.

We adopted new languages we all could learn,
angelic saying and quotations of the sages.
We came out of the corners when we heard
the sun raise its head; just a single ray
piercing through the clouds.

Forgive my for being here before,
I don’t think I had learned the lesson.
But no one offered me a beer when my
thirst is all I could feel. Some stayed around
for a few more orbits, some jumped off at
the first stop of the sky wagons we flew.

We can be family; we can be sheltered.
We can withdraw the blame that rose from
the words of those helter-skelter ones who wore
gloves to sanitize the entire procedure.

All he wanted, (I should write in the first person)
All I wanted was words in single file,
inviting me to the party again. But, with their
enhanced theology I never stood a chance.
I am guilty, I’ve known that longer than the
accusers’ memory. But that does not exempt
(you or me) from covenants of siblings, of
celebrations of family.

Nothing To Say

Nothing To Say

(“He will not break a bruised reed, and He will not put out a smoldering wick, until He has led justice to victory.” Matthew 12:20

The words escape me today like bats lodging together midday.
The page is blank, my mind is slow, the ocean is miles away.
Imagine a smokey jazz club but the piano is out of tune,
or a summer afternoon when the squirrels don’t need to
climb the trees; the walnuts have begun to fall to the ground.

There is a quietness that feels intrusive; there is an emptiness
that feels oppressive. There is a heat wave on the way.
My branches are dry and my mind is unreasonable,
my memories are weak and my eyes are blurred from
thinking things should have been different. Thinking
I should have changed it all.

I blame myself for the lonesome trench, for this
yearning that extends past my reach. Light as a
hummingbird’s feather, the smoke from my candle
is flickering low.

But sometimes the next day is better than the last,
sometimes the routine is disrupted, and you find the
tiniest
glow of impartation. It is impractical to dig in
yesterday’s sludge.  

Sometimes it is someone’s smile that strengthens my mind,
sometimes it is jazz playing in the background.
Sometimes the light hits the window so subtly that
I can discern all the colors of the spectrum one by one.

I need to train my voice again to sing the songs that
capture the moments that ignite the love that only sets
us free
from having nothing to say.

A New Version

A New Version

(“These words I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. For in the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.” John 16:33)

I have drafted a new version of our agreement and
may send it over to have you read it through. It is dense,
and for that I apologize, but I needed for us both to
banish doubts about simply following the day from the night. Emerging
from my thoughts I reunite with the self I left behind,
worried it would wound me deeper than just keeping the rules.

That is why I am sending this short word and might bury it
in the back yard for fear someone will read and consider me mad,
think of me as too far gone. Reality is,
I am closer today than I have ever been.

Once upon a moment I could generate the laughter that would
ravel my day. I could smile at nothing and feel it warm me
inside out. But the years have been cruel, the years have been
wasted, the years pasted without relief. So, I steal another’s smile
and wonder how long it will take for that smile to fade.
Shine sometimes, and I’ll look around the corner to see
the shadows that testify I have made a difference on the
red siding on the barn.

And yet, in the middle of a brightening day I feel my
sadness heightened without reason. So, I’m writing this tome
and casting it to the wind. A world decorated with
seasons of joy, and fear, and sadness, and hubris
has left me wondering if the multiplied days really
matter at all. Put the pieces together, if you will,
and recite who I am to me
carefully.

The Storm Threatened

The Storm Threatened

(“Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” Luke 9:23)

The storm threatened more than mud and slime,
it continued to mock both function and design.
It was predicted,
and we evicted the plans we had for a picnic
afternoon.

It drove us to pray for promised deliverance,
It captured our imprisoned intelligence.
It was so sudden
there was hail in the garden
and conversations were muddled well into
the evening.

We watched and wondered at the thunder that
drove so many home. We woke later than usual
with eyes red from dust and distrust as we ached
over the mockingbird’s song that repeated the
false charges, wary accusations, and verdicts
made of sand.

(Crucify)

And we breathed the air that was burning plastic,
acrid and across from the garden torn up by
the onlookers in their rush to ridicule with words
the prisoner nailed to lumber. Why won’t he
come down? No one wanted to see that, of course.
No one wanted to spend more than half a day
glaring at the sky stripped of everything that
would open their eyes.

Everything turned black, every sign was
beyond belief. Every person felt that pain in
their chest and their minds found no rest as they
wondered why he ever was called a king.

Before the storm we heard him say they might

(Crucify)

Him. But that day was sunny and we never imagined he meant anything more than some days would go slower, that some days might be over later than we imagined.

Now the storm, the thunder, the pounding drops of rain
so thick they kicked up the dust all combined to confirm
our hope was gone. We could not let this night go by

(Crucify)

We did not know the storm would pass, at least not
that we could predict. But women found the
garden in the morning sun and surprised us all with
something we hoped was a new dawn,
a fresh beginning, a new ache that makes us
want nothing more than to follow, storm or sunlit days,
the trajectory that disengages us from reliance on
various changes in the wind.

My Words Like Armor

My Words Like Armor

(“But Jesus told them, ‘He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts.’” Mark 10:5)

I wear my words like armor,
I look for loopholes in yours.
Starting from the middle I can
slide down the slopes from north or south;
I can believe I am above it all.

Or, if someone talks out loud, I can
nod occasionally, I can mumble famously,
and leave them thinking I have heard
every word.
They may even think, though I would not admit it,
that I agree.
I do not.

How many years does it take to lay down my shield,
how many decades to reshape the form that held all
I believed.
I sealed up all the cracks and the darkness stayed inside;
the light could not find me. And you thought,
like all the rest,
that I was at my best when talking about God.

I disagree. My metaphors are misanthropes,
hindered hopes that sit at the base of my spine.
Every opinion I’ve ever heard has been mine
until
I heard a love that was more solid than
the poetry I created. I cannot define it,
I can barely describe it, but there is a WE
that exists in the midst of everything. My
theories only keep you at arm’s length anyway.

My fingers are calloused but my thoughts are mindless,
my progress is timeless and the cure I was offered
only tied me in knots. But I’ll sit with you here
as long as it takes to untie the kindness we had
at the start.

After the Words

After the Words

(“In the same way let your light shine in front of people. Then they will see the good that you do and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16)

After the words are finished,
before the meal has begun,
during the early hallway of evening,
we might have time to compose another
sonnet, or, better yet,
sing something we all know by heart.

Before the night drops the dew,
after the moon glows undone,
during the late slant of afternoon,
we might find the time to fill a plate or two
for the neighbors who ran out of money before
they ran out of food.

We don’t need a new agenda,
we don’t need to push hard.
We don’t need an invitation to
start a party among the unknowns.

Before the sun drains the dark,
after the birds announce the morn,
during the corporeal rays starting to warm,
we might find the ones we left here
are poets and prophets who,
have callused hands for sermons and
chef’s hats for the daily benedictions.

We don’t need a host of angels,
we don’t need another spire.
We don’t need a well-written tome
push us closer.

We only need a word, we only need
the silent seeds sown with no one watching.
We only need reminders how free it seems
to feed our neighbors, our kin, our global

Language of love divine.

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

(“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 14:11)

Can you spare an hour, a sliver of time,
a coffee, a piece of pie,
an hour to see me the way I am?
Can we careen into the afternoon like
skis on powder?
Can you join me and then leave
a piece of you behind?
When I began writing this I
had no idea
where it would end. Starting on a day
when the walls enclosed my room and
then now in the sun in the early afternoon.

I was reading a new book, a book of words and
the word called grammar. I read slowly, letting
each sentence linger on my mind like wine on my tongue.
And once the reverie was complete, lost in pages
of scholarly guesses the

Breeze manipulated the bamboo windchime,
hollowly, wholly, and brought my eyes back to
blue skies, green scenes, and a hummingbird
spotted like a border collie. I had never seen her
before.

My invitation still stands. I have circles where no
one exists except in my imagination. I have a thousand
contacts in my phone,
but none of them live close to home. Silence
is untranslated. And that makes writing a greater challenge
than transcribing the conversations of a dozen tables
late afternoon at the bar.

My opinions have changed on their axis; my outlook
is a search for meaning on a sea of love. So, if you can,
if you will, sit at my table and tell me your tale. We can
cast our words with flyrods into the evening. We can
walk past the stream where crows try to sing and
children laugh at everything mid-July.

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?

The Day Started Well Enough

The Day Started Well Enough

(“No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You aren’t able to serve God and Mammon.” Luke 16:13)

The day started well enough; the sun rose
in the usual place. The grass was unruly around
the dog’s pen and
the garden beds where two rose bushes struggle.
I would have waited all day for your company,
even if you got a late start. With a porch swing in front
and a deck on the back,
my house is yours. No need to build another one.
There is music even before you arrive,
you send it ahead of you. There are memories
of the way your eyes dance at birds and clouds,
but mostly babies.
There are evenings with campfires
that should never be extinguished.
There are places where no words need be spoken.
The day starts the same for you and me,
and I know you desire for it to end more quietly.
We can pick up the sunshine with plastic shovels
and store it in pails we sometimes used for Easter baskets.
We can toss it toward night-sky imaginations and laugh
at our ingenuity. We have lassoed the sun.
Eden was a paradise I am told,
but so is my back yard. And no tree is forbidden;
the rabbits come for breakfast, the deer brunch on the
unprotected roses.

These are all yours. They do not belong to me.
I’ve kept a journal in the desk by the front window.
You can write in it every time you come, and no one will know.

The day started. They all do. We remembered; we knew.
We wondered when the boy would come finish mowing the lawn.
Then we would gather the sunlight, drop it like jewels into the
glowing embers of our campfire, and tell stories we only tell
each other. 

Who Unplugged the Words?

 Who Unplugged the Words?

(“Look at the birds that fly in the air. They do not plant or cut or keep any food. Yet your Father in heaven feeds them. Are you not worth more than birds?” Matthew 6:26)

If you had asked me last night, I would have told you,
the sanity seems to be oozing out my pores. Pain inspires
visions of well-locked cages. Rationality fades at the
threat of rain.

But there are the robins again. A dozen in my tree again.
Plucking fruit and ants again. And not worrying
about the rain.

But these walls are not strong enough to keep my sentences
from breaking down between commas and misunderstanding.
You would think my head was porous, my brain-waves bid
me
adieu
as they make me search like a blind man for the thought
they have disconnected. Who unplugged

The words again?

But there are crows again. Commanding the cathedral trees again.
Cawing to protect their babies again. And not worrying
when they will land.

But these days are not long enough for me to send a search party
to find my sentence fragments. I’ve left a trail of them from
sanctuary to theater, from wife, to child, to grandchild. I run
into them
occasionally on walks toward the hills. But they are distorted,
the wind and rain have turned them inside out so much
I doubt they ever belonged to me.

But there are the hummingbirds again. Sipping at the nectar again.
Buzzing near my head like locusts. And not worrying
over unplanted grain.

Moods stay like glue while my words saddle up their horses
and ride into oblivion. But

The birds keep singing, and sometimes,

Some very rare times,

I understand their song.

Sing Me Closer

 Sing Me Closer

(“I have spoken once, and I will not reply; or twice, and I will add nothing more.” Job 40:5)

There was once a man, a preacher, a laborer,
a well suited-and-tied man. He could pray beyond
the boundaries of time that ticked away at the end of meetings.
No flowers, little elegance, simply words strung together that, more
than
once,
made me wish I could pray exactly the same.

There was once a man, another, a hopeful, a bull,
an untailored man. He could tell you what God had said
right in the middle of the first man’s prayer.

I often wondered why either of them were there.

I do not fault them; I nearly envied one. My prayers were
drops of tears when alone,
perfect informal eloquence when presiding. But never so long
that anyone suspected I had learned a holy language. And
never so specific
that my words could be mistaken
for palm-reading, fortune-telling, or guidance from the
Almighty
who (I hoped) could speak quite well on Her own.

Today I go through a week of days with no live conversation
for hours at a time. I have spoken once, then not at all until
the night begins to fall.

I would give this gift.

But no one knocks on the door to accept it.

I despise spiritual language. I do not have the mystic’s vocabulary.
The only dialect that has ever moved me,
the only accent I’ve learned that removes the pain
are the words that wrap around your heart so hard
you feel like you might die,
and you might as well,
in the love that feels more divine
than pews and prophecy,
pomposity and prayers
combined.
Sing me closer so I can breathe,
touch my hands, warm, and I may, once more,
believe.

My Words Are Uncomfortable

 
My Words Are Uncomfortable

(“There was a widespread outcry from the people and their wives against their Jewish countrymen.” Nehemiah 5:1)

Some people just want to be heard,
to be felt,
to be understood.
They cry one thing, but to those who listen
carefully,
their song is heartbreak
trapped inside uncertainty.

If only there were soul surgeons
to open us up inside, to see more clearly
all that is more than skin deep. But our
hearts go on beating and we
still do not understand our own songs.

We know how the words sound,
we know their meaning is plain,
but we also know, somehow, somewhere
inside the stained edifice of a face that
has seen too many concrete days
there is just a pure outcry for
love,
nothing more.

See me
(I ask)
and take me at face value.
Hear me
(I cry)
and excuse my embattled phrases.
Touch me
(please friend)
and see how I shake.

My words frighten me, so I cannot let
it upset me
when they baffle you.

I scramble to arrange them differently,
but they do not sound like me.
And you, you probably know me better
than I think I know me well. So, my words
are uncomfortable as itchy wool, they do
not fit, they are poorly tailored. They are
sand in other people’s shoes.

I will return to the conversation, relax my suppositions,
and bury my poetry in the garden to
dig it up for a better day.

The Words Are My Breath

The Words Are My Breath

(“’Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,’ says the Lord.” Jeremiah 1:8)

One wrinkled brow could send me scowling away,
sunk in the debris of approval’s dregs.
The earth received my tears as often as
someone disagreed and split the infinite distance between
us into degrees of the absurd.
First to fear my failure (and my successes, I think)
I could plead for my life with the best of them
and then recalculate the trajectory of my words.

At the time I most needed a hand under my drooping head
the abyss echoed back every word that had curled back onto itself
and poked me in my dreams unsolicited. I saw myself.

I am troubled about the words that melt in the rain,
the promises spoken to air,
and bare ground with no promise of clumps of grass
or daffodils.

And yet I know the sun will have its way.
I know words are the spirit’s DNA.
I fear shallowness in my attempts to keep the
loneliness at bay.
Yet I cannot stay silent, the words are my breath
exhaled
and my spirit
unveiled.

The bruises of preselected subtraction
remain. I avoid certain domiciles and domains,
but have ceased to try to explain
the way spirit moves from Beginning Word
to beating heart
to breathing lungs
to tears and then droplets of words
that are silenced by some
and by others are heard.

Inside the Loop

 

Inside the Loop

(“The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; and they have gone down into the person’s innermost being.” Proverbs 18:8)

They told me my soul was impounded;
I heard the news from reliable sources
and paid the fines plus taxes plus surcharges
plus a fraction more to unlock the door
the story-teller broke with his insistence
that no other tale could be truer
than the tale he wove.

It loomed from parking lots to garages.

The room I had saved for glorious days
was suddenly crammed with hoarded bits
I had heard
from officers-in-charge,
authors of books
and
radio hosts who swore
their knowledge was inside the loop
(the loop I longed to encircle me too.)

Those stories bloated me, leaking out the pores
of my skin
until I thought I believed in every secret scheme
that only the faithful and redeemed knew
out of tune,
out of mind.

What have you cooked up for me this time?
Shall we blame the demons, the seasons,
the curses--or worse--the fatality I was born into?

But now that sunset is approaching
I’m unwinding Once Upon a Time
from
Happily Ever After
and telling the fable that is in front of me,
and filling the table with discoveries
I have made on my own.

I’ll trust the last line, the afterword,
the seldom heard and sublime word
to the Author of starlight and verbs.

Words We Cannot Place

Words We Cannot Place

(“All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.” Romans 10:13)

I wonder what colors a child would see in the grass
if she has never learned the word “green.” I wonder what
name he calls god who has never heard
the word “hell.”

I wonder how we carve such narrow paths
when navigation is wide upon the sea. I wonder
how we tattoo people we never knew with “alien” or
“illegal” when they have children who
wonder about grass and moons and stars and god
and unicorns and pinatas and cakes and candles
and freeze tag and ice cream too.

I wonder about those who receive lavish gifts
and simply pre-sign postcards for the poor.
I wonder about the gospel that sounds like
venom and preaching that looks like war.

I wonder what color a child would see in the milking bucket
if he had never learned the word “white.” I wonder what
name she calls god who has never heard
the word “death.”

If you must, tag my forehead with grace;
If we will, bring everyone to the dancefloor;
the tall girl with braces, the boy with thick glasses,
the boy in the corner hiding, the girl in the bathroom freezing,
the group outside smoking, the class president and
her entourage, the late arrivals from shanties and mirages.
Invite them all, their call is clear, though foreign;

they appear and then are departed before they
ever get a taste of the unnamable grace

That bathes the universe with words we know by heart,
words we cannot place, words wholly apart from memory,
but seen in the face of Love that will not let the tiniest atom
escape the resurrection of the New Name by which
every family on earth is traced.

Words Like Honey

Words Like Honey

(“When he had spent some time there, he went off again and travelled from one place to another…encouraging all the disciples.” Acts 18:23)

Do you have to words like honey,
the golden ambrosia,
the delicacies prepared with care?

Do the eyes smile when they see you coming,
or do the neck muscles tense like a dining room table?
Do the minds open like butterfly wings each time someone
sings the lyrics you’re known for,
or do the toes of the feet dig into the deep asphalt inside
their shoes?

Let your signature be bold, bold as love.
Let the crossroad where you meet be an axis, an axis of peace.
Aloud or alone,
Crowded or nearly gone,
toss the confetti in the air, the tie-dye tissue flung
over trees while the breeze waves them like aerobic arms
hailing the next season of hope.

Do you have views like chocolate,
the silky burnt umber,
the confections prepared just now?

Truth is hard, but not unlovely.
Love is sweet, but not sickly.
Come, see the forest for the trees,
Come, feel the zephyr that sees
another season than the rusty winter
others insist is coming like midnight.

Come, forecast the brand-new morning,
Come, fancy a sunrise or two
on the river, above the hills
loosely the same as resurrections and
breakfasts on the beach.

Leave the raucous spew; renew the hues of azure,
the sway of wheat upon the sea, the ways of God upon the
coral reefs in all transparency. Fill the table with
bounty (hunted, gathered, shared, donated and piled
higher than the ocean cliffs). Invite the vagrant, the homebound,
the footloose, the shoeless, the spent, the pent-up,
the rested, the divested, the distorted, the contorted,
the last, the first, and best and all the rest

Who simply wait one good word from you,
one taste of honey where they sleep, where they play,
where the mass of air has deflated their best dreams.

Let them hear the beat they can dance to until the
end of the day.

Leaking Grief

Leaking Grief

“Help me, O Lord my God! Save me because of your unfailing love.” Psalm 109:26

I have been leaking grief, not all over the place,
not puddles at the bottom of my feet;
but focus on the drips from the driveway to the
front door,
the seals have grown brittle and I can’t find
my bearings.

If I keep my thoughts at bay, I think of nothing.
If I allow my thoughts to stray, all the disrepair
straddles each side of my brain.
If I keep them away, they invade my dreams in
failure (no one shows up for my choir practice);
anger (no one defends the obvious loser);
losing (climbing cliffs with my fingernails);
bankrupt (running out of time and too many die.)

I have been leaking grief for years. You can mark the trail.
Gaze, for more than a moment, my eyes are redline,
oily, the tread is worn to the nub. I will no longer listen
to a single word that suggests

Anyone can overreact to unexpected death.

Take your high words and tell them to the hills;
I need the silence that heals, the fawns and does
that do not roar in the woods. I need the waves
that steal the sand and carry it to islands where survivors
know grief is sometimes a way of life.

Oh, Man of Sorrows! Become acquainted with my grief.

Take your complaints to the county courthouse,
I’m tired of being an eternal caregiver.
Come wrap me in a shawl, light candles for me,
sing the songs from Ireland or Lakota, beat the drums
that let the tears and tongues trickle, the faucet is
broken.

Someone wrote that you cannot support abortion and
be a Christian.
I wonder how you can lock the eyes of mourners,
(“don’t cry” is a lie) when your Leader wept between
the mystery of death and rising.

I am not lying; I have been leaking grief and sighing
for decades. Tomorrow I shall seek the comfort

Of unbelievers who know how to hold my tears in their tissues.

Oh Man of Sorrows, acquainted with my grief.
Oh! grief.