Beyond our Reach

Beyond our Reach

(“He will once again have compassion on us; he will tread down our iniquities. You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19)

Yet my heart still yearns for more love than I’ve been offered,
and I cannot admit it to the faithful and devoted
for I should be content with the love they espouse,
the love they says is unending,
(and the love I know to be true).
Yet so few grew in their affection for

a stumbler who trips over mere gravel,
a bumbler who constantly unravels plans and acquaintances.

Still I’ve groveled to earn back the friendship,
the kinship I admittedly broke. But I haven’t dug
deep enough, I think. The smoke still hovers over
embers of anger and rejection. I haven’t shoveled
long enough to prove my grief is great as their scars.

Let’s all go for a swim on top of the ocean,
let’s all go for a hike on top of the world,
let’s all seek adventures on top of dunes,
let’s all skim the top of rivers again.

I fear I’ve let the cat out of the bag,
I’m not as confident as my weekly proclamations.
There are few who care about my daily palpitations,
my constant mental storms and wilted white flags.

Let’s all glide above the atmosphere,
let’s all picnic above the earth,
let’s all round dance above the dust,
let’s all sing as if our hearts will burst.

My feet are calloused, my eyes itch from sand,
my directions are misguided, my arguments are obtuse.
The journey has been painful, knocked all my certainty loose,
the navigation is not at fault, but the way is weary,
and every sense assaulted like moth-eaten quilts.

Still I embark, never on time. Later than ever these days,
and watching my thoughts unwind. My destination has
always been the same; a tribe, a gathering, a clan,
a caravan, a band that loves to sing the same song

Out of tune because the earth keeps rolling.
The instruments enter and exit while the voices
find a common song,
An early song,
a folk song,
the music that encircles top and bottom
and leaves the air cleansed by the exhaled version of
the eternal song.

These Days I Rarely Understand

These Days I Rarely Understand

(“All scripture is inspired by God...so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else prophesies about dead end days.
How many days on the calendar,
how many decades in the rear-view mirror,
how many centuries of waiting in caves,
how many isolated on mountain peaks with
their stashes of canned goods and guns?

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone else preaches about conspiracy certainty.
How many people does it take
to keep a secret from the rest of us?
You swear everything you see with your eyes
is invented by newscasters and forecasters of death.
But everything you find in your head,
or is invisibly said by unmasked hatred
you swallow like chocolate cake.

These days I never understand a word you say,
while everyone divides the garments of the poor
and casts lots for the leftovers to carpet their bedroom floors.
How many lungs without breath
until you put on your boots and join the rest
who cannot stand for one more chokehold in the name of
law.
Remove the blindfold to see what is in front of you,
and sell all you have to join the hidden,
and tell how long it took to find the forbidden words
that set the prisoners free. Don’t speak of equality
until you can imagine traffic that accelerates the moment
you become a pedestrian. Watch the crosswalk son.

These days I rarely understand a word you say;
but love. I’ll scrape my knees for love,
cross the street for love,
eat what you eat for love,
take the heat for love.

I remember every face that said Christ was a white man’s
religion,
and when I tried to convince them otherwise.
Today I would listen. I don’t know how, but he has become whiter
in this stolen land haunted by its ancestors who knew grandfather better
than we think we know his son.

Please dream with me about undivided skies,
plains that grant us bread,
rains that soften our beards and faces,
and streets that bear the names of original blessing instead
of original sin.

Listen with me and let us understand (grandfather, son and holy ghost)
if we will not love, we have not listened. And if we have not listened,
we have not understood.

We Build Again

We Build Again

 (“The breaker goes up before them…” Micah 2:13a)

Justice will wing its way through every shout,
every aggression, and take to the sky with
the hopes of the forgotten trailing behind. 

Justice is no blind counterweight; it is the perfect
vision of love when the children of trauma are forgotten.
It sees the invisible, the erased, the stolen, the refugee,
the frozen and the effigies of cousins roped to the trees.

 And we keep marching, we keep coming,
we will not be moved, we will not be undone.
And we keep shouting, we will overcome,
for one by one we’ll cross any bridge to see
the work of mercy done.

 But some backs are bent, some feet are bleeding,
some eyes are dim, some arms are reaching
for the goal set before them that is receding
with every determined step and limp. 

So we keep marching, we keep moving,
we are not yet done, we will not be erased.
And we keep singing, hard rain’s gonna fall,
for arm in arm we’ll cross any sea to find
the promised kingdom come. 

Justice is our banner, never forgotten,
the rains will not wash away the message written with blood.
Mercy is our weapon, our hands up and empty,
our faces soiled with tears for the wounded and wounding,
the rain will not wash our grubby cheeks and noses
until the floods have come to drain the streets
and leave behind
only empty lots where 

Arm in arm, we build again.

My Life Has Become Smaller

My Life Has Become Smaller

(“He must become more important, but I must become less important.” John 3:30)

My life has become slower, smaller,
creeping along the afternoon blades of grass
between morning and noon.
No longer racing from book-page to onstage,
from hammer and nails to scanning emails
for anything meaningful.
My life has become smaller, a square foot at a time,
hemmed in by the pain that wrapped a braided
steel cable around my mind.
Stuck in the driveway, walking the same ellipse,
seeing the same cracks in the sidewalk, waving at
people who pass in cars with blackened windshields
never knowing if they wave back.

My life has become smaller between the long ranches,
the southwest desert and the coastal ranges my feet
once roamed. Now I stay home. 

I try to wash my hands,
I try to wash my hair,
I try to wash my heart
and all I see is dirt
and all I’ve been told is
make sure to scrub behind your ears.

But over the years the dirt has stayed
between wrinkles, beneath fingernails;
vestiges of each moment my hands touched the
face of the earth (a planet that breathes withs
clouds and sighs with thunder). I no longer wonder
why I don’t hurry to scour the remains of stellar dust
that cling to my body. The dust I hold is the dust that,
so old ago, I am made of.

I’ve got nothing in my pocket except wadded tissues.
I used to carry business cards, credit cards, folded
phone numbers and family pictures a dozen years old.
I’ve got nothing in my pocket except lint and tissues.
I travel lighter and smaller and forget my wallet when
I go to the doctor.

I still do not see well, and will have my eyes checked
in a week.
I still do not pray well, and have practiced every
technique.
I sit on the porch now, and wait for visits from my
toddler neighbors.
I sit on the porch now, and the wind speaks for me in
whispered prayers.

My life is smaller now and somehow
I do not mind. (Although I may answer different
if you ask me a different time.) My life is
smaller,
but the earth breathes the name to my broken heart
of the one who never let me become lost,
the more microscopic
I have become.

Prayed Alone

Prayed Alone

(“He alone is immortal; he lives in the light that no one can approach. No one has ever seen him; no one can ever see him. To him be honor and eternal power! Amen.” 1 Timothy 6:16)

I dreamed I saw a man,
a small man,
a round man,
crowded on his knees
into the dark corner of
a half-pew. He prayed alone.

I dreamed he saw me,

just a guy,
a plain guy,
edging next to him
as he half arose from his
long kneeling. He prayed alone.

I dreamed, we did not speak,
two humans,
too precious
to despair alone;
I joined him in the shadow
cast by earth. We prayed alone.

I did not know him,
maybe me,
or a son.
Maybe a mixture
of everyone I’ve known who,
swathed in light, had prayed alone.

I Had to Apologize Today

I Had to Apologize Today

(“We trust in the living God who came to save all people. He makes a way for those who believe in him.” 1 Timothy 4:10b)

I had to apologize again today.
Sorry, more than once today.
I don’t mind making amends,
don’t mind much admitting I’m wrong.
What tires me is taking the barbs,
tiny snippets of arrowhead offense
and, backed into the corner again,
I admit I could have rephrased my comment.

But like storm clouds that crash without warning,
they want me to change my opinion too. Few are
triggered by the sunshine that warms their own garden plot.

But, I did have to apologize today. And then the silence.
Some who have never met me face to face,
or had an hour of music together,
or have forgotten the gentle frame that
borders our lifetime,
walk away burning and may leave the planet,
escape the gravity we both obey, and further from earth,
slung into outer space,
they are unreachable by phone, text or
a simple embrace.

Don’t we all have the same birthplace? Not the same
town or country, but the soil on which generations stirred
to drink the air from trees, breathe the one sun that bundles us all,
nurse from the fruit of earth, and sleep in the cradle of footprints
left by offspring who grew up before us.

So I offered another apology. And my chest is lead.
My fingers are shivering in the summer wind. My feet are chilled.
We kill each other, then kill back. And our hearts still beat,
but retreat more quickly the next time someone sends
a message in the mail. We used to like to open envelopes,
sneak the stationery slowly from its womb. But too soon
Some letters are just more darts spit toward the one
The author thought had broken him. And now no
safe place
exists between send and receive.

But I apologized again (I am a master of penance)
and I enter the space as I decelerate my engagements
with those I’ve offended, and hope their aim is off
just enough
to let quilt and rapture stitched by God
wrap us both inside.

The Music Never Stopped

The Music Never Stopped

(“Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly.” Joel 2:15)

The loudspeakers are not selective,
their frequency soars across the plaza,
echoes off the stone hills,
pushes the river further downstream,
ricochets off the banks and restaurants downtown.

The banjos announce the time to assemble,
the mandolins sing the same again,
the brass hold back until the crows settle on
the asphalt paths and parking lots.
Congas call the drum circles’ song,
while whirling banners and shawls dance down
the back streets; the streams overflow as feet
skip and hurry to the call.

Even steeples seem higher, enemies shyer,
and confreres delight in the deepening day.
The tables are spread like a village wedding
on the sidewalks, on the boulevard,
on front lawns, on courthouse steps;
The weeping is over and repentance has
washed every debate away for another day.

We celebrate like children again, laugh as we
sing like Dylan again. The borders have opened,
the doors are unlocked, we have opened our ears
and learned the stories of immigrants and widows,
and those from african, caribbean, muslim, cynic
and pagan descent. We bowed our heads just long enough
to hear everything we thought God had never said.

We shed tears for the sheep we kept out of the pen,
for the words we called those who sang the blues over
and over
again.
We repaid the stolen generations, we honored the
broken treaties, we learned the native tongues
we once called foreign and delighted in their unfamiliar
rhythms. 

We reviewed the outcropping from peak to valley
and had never seen the imported air the same.

The music never stopped; we still learned silence.
The feasting never ended; we still fasted with grace.
The churches did not close; we still chose the way
the light played over everything.
The lion, the lamb, the prayerful and uncertain,
the oldschool, the post-modern, sat on the lawn
all day long
and woke at dawn to start the festival
over again.