Planted Years Before

Planted Years Before

(“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:6)

The fingers are wringing every leftover nerve
I have. Squeezing at my head like an anaconda,
making me forget easier days. My words are limited because
the pain constricts my thoughts and restricts
my smile to grimaces misunderstood. I’d
love
to uphold my end of the conversation, but I’m
not sure what I would say.

There may be words planted years before that
have
wilted at the constant ache that hides them from
the sun.
I never make appointments; they are too easy to miss.
I am halfway to tears most days, and when conversations begin
I feel the hairs on my hands signaling I must not
violate the air around me.

Today I am tired. Weary to the bone.
Today I am hoping for someone who simply feels like home.
Today I should feel lucky to have all I need.
Today my spirit moans and spits up seeds sowed so long ago.

For a few moments I play the songs freehand and hope I haven’t
skipped a coda or stumbled overboard. I slip home as soon as
we are done. I slip home without a word. I never
minded the difficult days before that pain; I would walk through
them like an arch into another place. Now I stand silent,
and wish for a place to sit until the noise is over and
I find a new place to leave heart to hang out again.

Take this mud that cakes my heart and make it the seedbed
out of this pain. Let the shoots fight for the light while the
ache dismisses every dream I once hoped to be true. I’ll wait
until Spring.

Between the Stars and Planets

Between the Stars and Planets

(“I’m now eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or drinks? Can I still hear the voice of male and female singers?” 2 Samuel 19:35a)

Late into the day the light dims and the sounds around us
are interpreted by the rattling cages of hopeful listening.
We once heard the frogs calling by the pond,
the owls hooting above the trees,
the folksongs sung by young lovers in the meadow.
We remembered that though our children thrive,
our footsteps have become more halting and we
wish we could twirl like them in playful squeals.

We had spent the prime of our days like castles built
above canyon walls. We had armed ourselves with word
after
word, and forgot most of them by the end of the day.
We explored food and the music that accompanied it.
We recited memorized planets from first to last and
all the asteroids dancing between them. We had a way
to look at the sky that discerned between the stars and the
planets and could see well past the end of space, at least
in our minds.

We stayed up late with the best of friends, played music
like it was a carousel. We were serious about our joy;
we played the homemade cassette over and over, two
sisters harmonizing to simple guitar accompaniment.
They sang of oil anointing the head, of sheep imitating
the shepherd and all of it so simple we dove into the songs
like angels swooping the skies.

Today the voices are crackling, the fingers are swollen and
the lyrics escape me. But I remember the people, the warm
smiles
we could wait all day to see, the voices that calmed our
unnecessary anxiety, our uncanny laughter at the silliest of jokes.
Today we would wait even longer because we are spread
across the miles like dots on a map spread across the floor.
And our days are warmer for the joy of our youth.
Some days the evening claims too many of our memories,
but sometimes, unexpectedly, a friend calls to say,
“I miss you.” And you can hear the music one more time.

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.

I Will Always Stay

 I Will Always Stay

(“O Lord, by your favor you have made my mountain stand firm. When you hid your face, I was terrified.” Psalm 30:7)

If your best friend likes butter cream,
then, by all means, head to the grocery store
and pick up the cake. Birthdays are meant to be
be sticky and sweet.

Sometimes the gaze of love comes late,
sometimes we do not feel it at all,
if only we could see, behind the silence,
the heart that carries us forever. We miss
so much when the quietness is louder than
simple hope, lazy days on the lake and
pizza shared on a table with laughter we have
waited for so long.

We walk to the mountains and hope to find God,
we sit in worship and dream of beaches,
we ache for a glance from the one friend who
never walks away,
we find the air so lively we swear
we have been here more years than we have been born.

We listen for the voice, the one that always is
happy we called,
and sunbursts of confetti become the next verse of
our psalm.

But we go days on end, don’t we, wondering how
valuable we are.
We sweat and cry, or close the door just
hoping
someone will ring the bell.

We listen to music, as long as it will last, but
it never replaces the presence of the sloppy bows
tied around familiar arms,
the dazzling ancient eyes we have known so long.
We fear one day,
someday,
the eyes may turn away.

And where will that leave us?

Mercy. We cry. Mercy.
And someone, a voice so familiar we would
know it anywhere, echoes so simply,

I will always stay.

Beyond the Years

Beyond the Years

("But let us give thanks to God! He gives us the victory because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done." 1 Corinthians 15:57)

Do not march on in anger,
no need to parade in fear,
the triumphant procession extends beyond the years
that have held you down below
the sod of so many opinions.

Awake now, meet the day;
alive now, come and play in the sun
and join the immortal one who has opened every tomb,
emptied every grave,
and leads you, oh reluctant warrior,
in celebration you may not see, but fills the
reflections of the waters,
echoes from the planets to galaxies,
small talk in tiny cafes,
suspects of doubt along with
trumpets of faith.

The rich man's cave where he lay
is void of its treasure. There was no holding down
the apex of creation. Laugh at monster death,
cry at dying's destruction, but live, for life
is the gift, hidden in the earthy darkness and now
ablaze in the light of day.

These pain, these pains,
these bones that creak with age.
These pains, these names
that seem to upstage our hope,
our glory, our truest story while we
wait with poverty at our feet and
loss knocking at the door.

That day, that day,
mere hours away from the cruelest pain.
That day, lambs play
with lions and entertain babies
who we kept away from snakes in the garden
for fear.

Though this day may squeeze the breath from your believing,
though tomorrow a storm may rage unpredicted,
though politicians deceive, mega-seat theaters play
the movies we payed dearly to believe, and even though
the pins and needles sting like adder's poison

the reason to hope still stands like the world wiped clean
once it did all it could do to mute the song of all creation;
the life breaks through like high-speed videography
cracking the sidewalks in moments,
revealing the life that existed far before the
concrete of time.

Even One

Even One

(“Don’t be too quick to get angry because anger lives in the fool’s heart” Ecclesiastes 7:9)

You would never know when his lid would blow
spilling the scant particles of mind in rapid fashion.
He was my friend, a sort of pretending that doubles up the masks
of deception and self-preservation. One never knew the true man,
even the cracks in his character were darker than
the serrated edges around his eyes. I must apologize, Mr. Cohen,
this one time, these exact tracks never did let the light get in.)

I still ache. I am not well. I have not healed. I still shake when
no one is watching,
and my eyes swell at night while the tick-tocking pounds me awake.

There are plaques on my wall to illustrate my goodness, but now that,
10 years after the double-barrel burst from the double-masked man
I know fewer and fewer people, the radius of friends is smaller and smaller.
And, if I could have my way, I would crawl into the groundhogs’ burrow,
a solitary rodent hoping to use less breath than yesterday.

Do not be dismayed, do not attempt to heal or fix me;
some have, with the warmest intent but with results as silly
as dropping a dozen groundhogs into a hole in the ground:
and, with one short command: “Play!” and expect them to stand and dance
and ask you for more.

“It has been 10 years, son”, I hear them say. “10 years you’re still hung up on.”
And they are right, my mind, my plight, my guts sprung far too tight,
my brain ache, my shaking skin and the nighttime rest that will not
let me in…still exist. And, just for the record, since you wondered, since
you asked,
You are right, but here is my question for you:
“In those same 10 years, sir”, please hear me say, “10 years I have never heard from…

….even one.”