Each Day is Framed

Each Day is Framed

(“Or else let them come to me for protection. Let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.” Psalm 27:5)

When each day begins framed with pain
the sun is hidden in the corners.
Birdsongs are fragments of scratched paint,
the best thoughts are cracked and peeling
despite the finest efforts of restoration.

Sometimes I feel the need to explain, dip my
pen in the blackest ink
and begin again. In Prose. In Short Sentences.
In Declarations. In Descriptions that get to the
Point
of pain.

But I write between moments, through half-open windows,
while the earth is crammed with minutes I’ve wasted
waiting for abatement. Could I write in clinical paragraphs
complete with footnotes and citations
some might believe this artless student of doubt.

But the days begin and end the same,
my brain the biggest enemy. How God inhabits
the letters, the numbers, the synapses and numbness
is a question for others better than me. I do not suffer well,
do not joy in it, revel in it or find a sliver of meaning in forces
that keep me pressed to the ground.

I am a mere dependent, assigned to the edges of my art.
The craft I laughed so passionately is untuned in the corner
and silent. Still I must write, and write well, not excellent; but
true.

And many will question the frame, wonder of my faith,
(as I also wonder), and note the stains upon the painting where
the shadow of pain blocked the sun’s healing rays. And

Peace is beyond my reach, though, I should believe,
it still inhabits the first brushstrokes beneath the layers
of grey. I await the colors of the day.

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?

The Braided Strand

The Braided Strand

(“And he said to them, ‘Take care about what you hear. The measure you use will be the measure you receive, and more will be added to you.’” Mark 4:24)

We pull hard on the braided strand
like junior high boys
testing their skills.
How high can we drag our
evolving bodies above the
wrestling pads on the gymnasium floor?

Points are awarded for how high, how quick,
how fixed our eyes are upon the goal.
Friends are added for how strong, how silent,
how cool, how calm our sweatless face laughs
at the dare.

The doors are unhinged, the locks are broken,
the arms and legs of hundreds of acquaintances
buzz like flies in and out of the unspoken rooms we
hoped to populate with
a handful of lifetimes.

Did you hear about the one-way friends,
the directors of your life, the raters of your dives,
and the takers of your soul if you do not surface
soon enough for their satisfaction?

Did you hear about the open tribes,
the round-dance, the nods at your stumble,
the givers of your joy when clumsy is the
only step you’ve learned of their songs?

We pull hard on the braided strand
and,
aided by strangers (a first-day handshake with
a nameless face)
we find our rhythm, get our footing,
grab the slick rope and laugh at our efforts
together
to find a place above the clouds.

Earth and dirt, dust and sky; we live only
inches above the surface of gravity and sighs.

Mud in His Hair

Mud in His Hair

("Learn to do right. See that justice is done—help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.” Isaiah 1:17)

You preferred he sleep with mud in his hair.
You preferred outrage at a man who slept in the shed
because the pastor thought it was better than shivering in the rain.

You stretch walls to the sky to keep out infestations,
slick-dirt children and mothers with desperate and
hollow eyes. You call poverty an invasion,
refugees criminals and serial adulterers saints.
You kiss your flags in pagan idolatry and expect an
Amen
at the end of your national anthem.

You expect a throne, a crown, barbed wire and cages;
you bow before liars, stand inspired before hitmen with tongues
like asps. You never tire of banquets to honor
the alternative facts
you've chosen to spoon feed to
your progeny; tiny birds unfeathered in nested bubbles.

Toss a roll of paper towel
to the man with mud in his hair.
Give him an orange on your way to
Starbucks. Deny him a night without rain and
complain that the pastor
let him sleep on the concrete again.

Maintain your buildings, guard your doors,
and you can transfer all the blame to every
sluggard who sleeps in the rain.

Between If and Then

Between If and Then

(“A woman came to Jesus with a special sealed jar of very expensive perfume. She poured the perfume on his head while he was at the table.” Matthew 26:7)

Can I be honest?
I’ve reached the end of my vial. The contents were not costly,
(more ordinary than rare), but I’ve emptied them now, and somehow,
feel quite unsatisfied.

How do you feel?

I thought
if
I poured out all I could
then
You would appreciate the effort, though
not up to the standards
of your usual saints.

So here I am now, in the weightlessness between the
if
and
then,
still looking for Your face, still listening for Your song,
still wanting to be pleased with Your pleasure in me.

Do we need this ritual throughout my lifetime? I
believe,
I think,
that Your pleasure arises in simple being and presence.

But my brain (that unwieldy part of my body) sends weeping
over apparent acts unnoticed. And now it upbraids me for
wanting notice at all.

I would pour out more, but I’m dry as the desert in winter,
weary as the old man I’ve become,
and yet have more miles to traverse than treasures stored
heaven or earth.

I’ve failed more than the woman who perfumed your feet,
and failed after faith, after baptism, after profession, after vows
and bows before myriad altars.

I would create more, but the words are these words,
nonsense without incense, assumptions without perfume.

Is it unholy and sacrilege to say; if there is any way,
would You pour from Your vial (the smallest spray of mist)
to let me know this time between times
contains as much grace as the moments I could barrel my way
and unload kegs of devotion, or know Your voice so present that,
between breath and breath,
if and then,
I would still weep for better reasons;
mercy at banquets and love in lepers’ homes where
extravagance is misunderstood.

All Tattered and Perfection

All Tattered and Perfection

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

Where lives intersect; eat and play and love,
we can dance the steps of the joyful,
we can hear the melody redeemed,
we can note the steps, follow the quarter-tones,
and wonder at rounds geometrically opposed to
the strict sounds that stayed within the walls of
our protected subdivisions.

But we must not journalize the stranger; bell and chant and candle.

Here in the day we are reduced to children again who
play by the rules until the rules hinder the play. Why can’t
the newest one have four strikes, not three? Why shouldn’t the
corner boy paint portraits in pink and green?

Once we have discovered our New World we die if we think
the discovering is done.
Each coast is clearly concocted of sand dropped in new
frameworks against the horizon.
Each cavern is deep or dry, shallow or dripping with stalagmites
dialed by time slower than the kitchen wall ticking.

Dry eyes, warm clouds, sand crabs, foreign sounds,
hands raised, knees bowed, hymns sung, voices loud.

A hush at supper, a shout at soccer; vespers and incense,
chocolate and cadences; each soul is its own invocation,
and benediction can begin

The moment we embrace the introspection that longs for
the dances we’ve never learned or seen or heard.

The Dancer is not of this world or your world,
The Dancer spreads the music through every crack in time.
The Dancer indwells each space between movements
and encircles the down-beats tapped or clapped or missed
in our tripping attempts to follow.

The Dancer is invitation; all tattered and perfection,
torn and covered with the crash of waterfalls and the
force of hurricanes. The Dancer is whisper; the epicenter
of creation’s silence fully alive.

Mud and Roses

Mud and Roses

("What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?")

The smell of mud and roses,
that is how the chosen perceive the world.
We cannot embrace perfection, but love the spaces between
earth and bud, bloom and dirt. First the rain leaves pockmarks upon
the garden bed,
then the earthworms sneak along the perimeter before light plays
upon the newly broken clods. Robins meet for morning breakfast
and coffee
and a little to go to feed their young.

The perfect green stems with new rubbery needles embrace
last year's old growth now gray and stiff, their thorns more apt
for a Messiah's crown.

You cannot work the ground alone. You cannot inhale the garden's perfume
in a florist's shop. One is rich, one is sterile. And yet in the garden they are
the prelude to the day, the annunciation of sun, the breeze's benediction at
the lowering of the afternoon.

The chosen do not consume doctrine devoid of mud nor roses apart from
the dusty hands that tended them.

Faith is the moment where earth and roses meet, where lotuses bloom on
muddy ponds, where divine and human see each other in the beloved space
of imperfection's grace.