It's Easy to Get Lost

It’s Easy to Get Lost

(“Christ says ‘Yes’ to all of God’s promises. That’s why we have Christ to say ‘Amen’ for us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20)

It’s easy to get lost when you let your mind wander
where the forest obscures the horizon. The jazz station
plays with time signatures all day long.

You might start at the entrance, a graveled parking lot
with a semi-cab at one end and an suv at the other;
one of their radios is gurgling the blues.
It might make you wonder why the middle of the day
is denser than the beginning.

You follow the arcing trail, a wide white sidewalk
with bemudded bicycle tracks left over from yesterday
afternoon. All too soon the earth is wet as you
merge with the trees, bluebonnets and sparrows.

You take a breath, reminding yourself you missed half
the view; your mind had narrowed, enclosed all the
thoughts from the previous year as they bounded about
your brain
like clothing in the washing machine. Like
tennis shoes in the dryer.

Mindful of the static that buzzed across your consciousness,
you choose the mud and rocks instead, the sky graying
overhead,
and a lone butterfly gliding toward
the sunflower garden that has not bloomed yet
this season. (It was likely an angel, you felt the
magic of its wings.)

A mere quarter-hour in and you’ve lost the beginning,
which you don’t mind,
you’ve been here before; will visit again. There
are some days that even a best friend would
be an intrusion.

Another five minutes and you’ve lost the ending.

You know where the pond is, but you have lost your bearings;
halfway around it and you would be nearing the beginning.
But overclouded by trees the trail is foggy green, winding through
cones and around the cacti hidden like silver
deep in the grass.

The sun is out, but it is obscure. The wind is light, and will not
expire until the moon and stars drip dew upon the meadow again.
You had nowhere to go, and with no thoughts in your mind
you unwind the clock that clanked away each minute you wasted.

You had thought for nearly all your life that places like this
were perfect for prayer. But duty always beckoned before you
set one foot upon the sod.

This time you’re lost and exactly where you are supposed to be.

Scissortails

Scissortails

(“God comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

My soul was indigo, ink black if you have to ask,

If you must know.

Until two scissortails cavorted against the whitewashed sky

Like adolescent children chasing each other 

Across a well-hilled grassy park. 

They were perfect in formation, a dance upon a canvas,

They were playing, prepared for mating, and they wrote

Joy across the opening sky.

But my brain has been cold ever since I sold my certainty,

And told everyone I knew, though artlessly, that we were leaving,

Driving southeast toward the vacuum of time and surety.

What the hell did they think we would live on,

How the hell did they think we would survive?

Had they never received comfort (stay a while) when

The bottom fell out and the walls closed in?

Had no one raised funds for them, put jars in every bank,

Spread the news and thanked every contribution as far as

Social media could fly?

How they hell did they think we could make it

When we left our most precious possession behind?

Why didn’t they line up and say, “Here, stay a while”,

Or “Let us get you home sooner than you can imagine.”

Yeah, keep those cards and letters coming because

So far,

The mailbox is empty of any letters addressed to me.

Why, during the previous decade of pain, no one came

And found me weeping, to sit with the spikes they could not

Understand. So, you see, some days are inky, so deeply

Indigo

My soul has nowhere to go.

We never lied about the hollow ahead, the abyss that certainly

Met us at the end of the road. We told the truth, and what’s worse

The truth was thinner than we knew.

It’s taken me a half hour each morning to learn where I am again,

It takes a shower each morning to burn away the tears from my head

And hope, at least, for scissortails or toddlers, or a letter in the mail.

Or one last effort from those who love us to get us back home.

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.

Tell Us How Good We Are

Tell Us How Good We Are

(“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." Luke 4:18-19)

Yes, please tell us how good we are, how deserving,
we've been observing your rules for decades now.
We've put down uprisings,
scolded the protestors;
Lord knows, we even prayed before we did.

Yes, please tell us about the new good news, how others refused,
but we who dust the pews in your house are you muses,
how we inspire your love and how you dote on us.
Look, we even brought the national flag into your house,
we sanctify, almost deify, the man in the big house who
most of us voted for.
(The others, finally, have walked out the door to some other
place they call church but which I'm sure you haven't frequented
in ages.)

Yes, we know your words are wonderful. They fill us with expectation.
We can't wait to tell more and more about this chosen generation,
this nation you saved, the country you chose above all others.

What? we have gone too far? Yes, it is true, some of our fathers
and mothers
crossed the invisible border. What? were they less blessed because
of it?

Yes, now I hear you questioning us, our standing, our unquestioned
place in prophecy? What? You do not feel welcome here where
the stars and stripes sit next to the communion table?

"I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Do you remember the famine,
when Elijah was sent only to Mexico? Do you remember the lepers
during Elisha's time, yet only a leper from Iran was healed?"

Yes, now we hear your message. We hear it clearly. Leave now,
out the door. We nearly believed you were the Christ, but
now we know you are an imposter, for you love those who we hate,
and have spoken the harder words to us.

Yes, leave if you please. You have disrupted my angry religion,
you try to replace it with universal acceptance, and our God would
never put up with it.

You may think this word is apropos,
You may wish to have it disposed,
all I know
God helps those
who
need His help the most.

See Us More Clearly

See Us More Clearly

"For the sake of your name, don’t despise us. Don’t dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your promise to us; don’t break it." Jeremiah 14:21)

Please see us more clearly than we see

ourselves,

here we bring our votives and underlying motives

wondering why our turns of left and right and our

circles of up and down

leave us just as grounded as before.

We would fly if we could, (some pretend that we do),

we would beat back the momentum of our own

dishonesty, except our own family tell us

all we believe is true.

Please see the red in our eyes, (anger or crying,

sometimes a mere disguise). We give no excuses,

though we choose to sometimes blame it on the way

we have been created. (Me, not you. The yous abuse

every freedom they are given. The theys are tireless and

wicked without reason.) But we confess, and confess, and

confess, and it sounds like all the rest who cannot find a

place to admit, we vote for ugly then never regret what we get.

Please send your grace just now, and open our hearts to receive it.

We have lived so long as if we are right, we have forgotten how to admit

a journey filled with center-vision that refuses to see the

abused, the crying, the unwell, the dying,

the never-church, the basement pray-er, the mudcake poems

fascinated with grubs and ants and slugs. Earth is too dirty

to allow on the carpet between our pews.

Please send your Spirit; this time we will not refuse her friends

that always accompany her presence. She brings lilies of the day,

but dandelions too. She shares the scent of love that fills every room

and edits every ungodly no-love forward from Youtube or

presidential campaigns. She brings pain, she brings hope,

she brings tears, she brings old jokes we used to tell.

Please send her and we will never pretend

again,

that it was our singing, or our shouting, or our goodness
that brought her here within.

Come Ride with Me

Come Ride with Me

(“A voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Luke 3:4)

I’ll tell you a secret from the mud bottom of Spring,
I’ll whisper the honesty of gravel where I’m scrambling,
I need a road trip,
a route 66 trip,
a Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Navajo Nation
and curio stand trip.

I need a sedan without air-conditioning and keeping each
other awake
across the long stretches, whining across the deserts,
curling up the mountains with
tires
that should have been replaced thousands of miles ago.

I want to hear your mix tape,
your stories, even though you’ve told them
to me before.
I love to hear the story, morning by morning,
and at the rest stops where we pause for two hour naps.

I know your music well and hear it for the first time
every time we travel.
I’ve memorized your sagas, down to verse and dogma
that cement them too familiar to be surprised again.

But you surprise me even though I’ve know the road since a child,
you sing along with AM radio, crying and laughing before the song
is done.
We pull in stations from Mexico and wonder why FM
was ever invented. We keep it tuned until the signal sounds
just like the tires across the inky asphalt. We turn the wheel,
we tune the knob
searching for another list of night songs to take us home.

It seems I’ve always been on the road, and now I sit
in a tight rectangle, wanting the sun to burn my face,
the wind to wake me as the white lines hypnotize me,
and feel like the first time I ever ventured out alone.

I never feared a wrong turn, never wept my failures;
always watched for the screen doors that looked
on like lemonade stands operated by children. We were
the proprietors
of a season that leaves a hat blown into the desert,
a heart that watches for midnight dwellers in the
air from afternoon until night.

Come, let us ride. The highway still needs construction,
the scenic route awaits your company. Though you have
always been with me,
I ask you

Come ride with me again.

The Simplest Dances

The Simplest Dances

(“Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13)

I did not do it brilliantly,
not even just short of perfectly,
but initially and everly I yearned for the
greatest to evidently be
the trajectory of my life.

I’ve seen Jesus in the eyes of my drunken friend at Taco Bell,
I’ve heard Jesus’ cry from the man who yelled, “fuck you” when
I had no more to give.
I’ve seen Jesus beg me when the unbathed teen knocked on my door
and asked for a ride home
for the thirteenth time in a month.
And his mom rarely answered the door.
I know the ache of Jesus when a husband and wife take two
weeks to cool down; one stubborn, the other a steel trap, but
both want something to unleash the love that lies beneath
their lifelong scabs.

And the lonely one who everyone thinks is unsocial,
and instead
cannot speak for all the judgments in her head.
And the bellicose who thinks he’ll save the world
and instead
drives people away with the angry hues of red
that swirl around his face. They replace the words
that should adorn the air with grace.

I’ve seen the wounds on Jesus’ face when a wife
who should be a princess is cut with wounds so deep
that even relief feels like another reason to wither in the sun.
I’ve walked with Jesus on solitary roads, wondering why he
traveled alone. And he told me, (I only surmise, and do not know)
that as we traveled, he was not alone.

I’ve watched the hands of Jesus as a man, my better, my elder,
knelt in a simpler way that I had seen, and washed my feet with
apologies for the obscene cruelties of super-apostles
who had laid my heart open for the world to see.

I’ve heard the voice of Jesus in the mentor who knew me best,
an Oklahoman, a gentleman, a father of fathers who I would rather
have never let down once; but did more than twice. And every time
he called me all I could hear was liquid love that filled the empty
room my heart had become. Long gone, a score of years ago,
I still hope for his phone call when I am shopping or crying
or talking to another one

That needs to hear the same voice that keeps me connected
to Jesus in every act of love ever given, ever received;
that keeps us entranced (if we’ll only give it the chance)
and invites us to the simplest dances. Choreography be damned.