Composition

Composition

(“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3)

I had just sat down to let my mind wander between
muses of immunity and sirens of mediocrity and I spotted,
coming across the lawn and toward my adolescent apple trees,
a doe of uncertain years loping across my view.
It was not unexpected. She was one of a dozen who would
venture to my yard over warm summer days.
She made me wonder where she goes after nibbling
the buds off my roses. Next year I’ll find a way to
keep them off the menu for my four-legged visitors.
But today she sauntered past leaving them, maybe,
for a midnight snack the next time she comes around.

I started the day by rolling the burden on my back
to a stronger companion who volunteered to show me
the way home. I walked along streams of consciousness
and pondered how I would start this poem. I still
am not certain it has begun at all.

My daughter told me about rescuing a baby bunny from
the jaws of their big tabby cat named Timmy. She chased
him into their garage where she thought she had him cornered.
But he slinked through a slightly open door into the
laundry room. She caught Timmy and he released his prey.
Chasing him back outside, she quickly let her three dogs out into the yard.
She scoured the house, looking everywhere for the
injured bunny and finally found him hiding at the back of her
clothes closet in the bedroom. No wounds were visible, just
a spot where bare skin peeked through the fur. Taking him
outside to let him out in the wild near a grove us bushes,
there was a mature rabbit waiting, its mother, she was sure.
The rabbit ran and my daughter loosed the baby bunny
into the bushes.

She and Timmy are still fighting.

It Should Be Second Nature

It Should Be Second Nature

(“The Spirit of the Almighty Lord is on me, because he has chosen me to serve him. He has sent me to tell good news to poor people. He has sent me to comfort people who are very upset. He has sent me to tell prisoners that they are now free. They can go out of their prisons!” Isaiah 61:1) 

It should be second nature, this message for the poor;
it should be our constant theme, this raising their banner.
Now in spiritual affluence, gone is the poverty that others
placed around your necks making you lie face down in the dust. 

It should be our first response, this comfort for the distraught;
it should be our song most joyous, this melody of delight.
Now with their wounds assuaged, gone are the deepest cuts,
the hardest to heal. Now only trust that scars are simple reminders
of healing. 

It should be our primary work, this demolishing of prisons;
it should be our loud refrain, setting the prisoners free.
Now with bars broken, gone is the isolation that kept
you bound in perpetual darkness. Walk free, walk out,
sing your ballads of abandon above the mountains. 

There is contentment ordered from heaven,
there is room to roam for once proclaimed from above.
While you thought every word that kept you captive
was a divine decree, the words came that set you free
and what you never dreamed became true on the day
the prophet spoke the way of love that meets us closer
than from the future they feared. Their deliverance is
their legacy. 

It should be celebrated, this image of joy skipping
underneath the sky.

The Breeze Can Turn

The Breeze Can Turn

(“There are those who are last now who will be first in the future. And there are those who are first now who will be last in the future.” Luke 13:30)

The breeze can turn the day around,
it can move flags and leaves to their own devices.
The earth turns and the winds swirl
and we try to predict it all with instruments of sound.
The sand hill that you built your life upon,
no matter how high up the cliffs,
will not stand when the winds of time shift.
There are fewer days than when we started,
fewer moments to freely pursue the dreams of
salvation. You’ve fattened yourself like
a calf for the slaughter and do not realize
the days are racing forward.

Step down before
it is too late,
stand on the loaming ground before you fall
from the top of your precipice. Carry your
proclamations under your coat,
turn your speech around,
you’ve got more to confess than the
limits you’ve put on yourself. Failing
to flourish, you just pretend your boxes
are filled with more money than you can count.
Go look again,
the mice have eaten half of it. The rest are
necessary to pay your debt to humanity.

Poverty might look good on you. Poverty might
turn your words around. I’d befriend you
if you spoke honestly. I’d share a meal with you
if you lay down your presumptive power and
eat slowly the supper made by humble hands
born across the border.
The breeze can turn the day around,
if only you will listen to the wind and let
the Spirit fill your vacancy with the
cries of the walkers only wanting a chance
to work in the sun.

Silence Sits Like a Scornful Goddess

 

Silence Sits Like a Scornful Goddess

(“Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” John 6:27a)

Silence sits like a scornful goddess
laughing at the loneliness that invades
uneven thoughts.
When the center is wound tight like
a yoyo string, others watch
as the moods rise and fall
at the whim of the hand that controls
its flight.

Music fills the cavities, smooths
the breaks,
but never makes up for the lack
of conversation.

Silence mocks the inner craving
for more than a day without pain.
Rings on the fingers are reminders,
amulets around the neck,
but they are less than the invisible
waves of familiar voices between
sips of beer and messy tacos.

But the moment one friend captures
the threaded wander of the tears
no one else can see

Is the moment songs are restored,
hands warmed,
and words connect with words
to mean more than their sounds.

No Regular Work

No Regular Work

(“You shall do no regular work, and you shall offer a food offering made by fire to the Lord” Leviticus 23:25)

My mind has done all the heavy lifting,
and now will not stay silent, filling my earth and sky
with visions of places decades of spaces away.
I may rest, I may recline,
I may spend my time adding movies to my queue,
but my mind races ahead. I cannot spend any time
alone without it rehearsing something I
wish I had not said.

I would take a sabbath now, but I tow every mistake with me
to the lake, to the river, to the isolated pew
in the tiny chapel where the dew is still on the roses.

I suppose it does not matter, this muscling of my thoughts,
except they scatter the melodies that angels sing here and
only now (not then) and I begin again with days so long they
move backwards toward the dawn.

Yes, my brain is more energetic than my brawn, but it also
is befogged and hears the basso horn sounding the alarm
(but I cannot fathom the depth of the beach that surrounds the island)
sounding the alarm
as my chest vibrates with its imperceptible voice. I forget
why I came here and where my body belongs.

It remembers songs I used to sing, stages I boarded,
music I played outside on the square or inside in the
ballroom repeating a second set of jazz after people
finally began to dance.

My brain fills my days like a dirty martini,
unclear and wet; the dreams unmet leak from me
in brackish streams.

So, no, I will do no regular work today, and,
if I may,
I will offer (like a cantor) memorized words
and pieces, sentences and phrases, jigsaw pieces
of incompletion. My conceptions have gone
astray.

So, yes, I will write these words today, and,
I still pray,
they will speak to every love and friend who
knew me well enough to keep the
day tremors away.

You Did Well

“The master answered, ‘You did well. You are a good and loyal servant. Because you were loyal with small things, I will let you care for much greater things. Come and share my joy with me.’” Matthew 25:23

It is good to set our sights high, to have lofty dreams and hope to achieve great things in our lives. In fact, Scripture often encourages us with phrases like “Set your mind on things above” and refers to believers as priests and kings. The difficulty lies in the leap we make from the effort needed to accomplish those dreams and the big payoff we are hoping for.

Devoted to Excellence

“He who tills his land will have plenty of food, but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.” Proverbs 28:19

There is no doubt that we can name plenty of hard working people who have lost their fortune. I have a dear friend, one of the hardest working people you might ever meet, who is now near bankruptcy due to a combination of physical challenges, properties what were flooded and dishonest business partners. Hearing stories like that we are tempted to say, “See, this proverb, along with the rest of Scripture, is unreliable.”

I Have No Idea When Jesus Will Return...I'm Serious (But I'm Working Until He Does)

“Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Matthew 24:42

I wonder how purposefully we live each day. Often we get caught up in Second Coming prophecy trying to decipher the times. We want someone to tell us which current regime on this earth will foster the Antichrist’s uprising. We buy series’ of books, watch prophecy television, and jot down everything we think point to Jesus’ return. I don’t want to be too critical, but it seems Jesus always was interested in how we are living right now, in light of His return.