Why Are Some Days Narrow?

Why Are Some Days Narrow?

(“But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God…so that our God may enlighten our eyes.” Ezra 9:8)

Why are some days narrow slits letting through
only a ray at a time?
Why do the silent clouds
drown out the robin’s songs?
Here in this heart, vacant for so long,
there is room enough for
the universe.
Here in these eyes, darkened for so long,
there is light enough for
all of us.
Why do some minds that
should have been opened long ago
profess love and
push the stragglers off the narrow road?
Why are most peoples’ gods a filmy image
of animus and prejudice?
Here in this room, filled for 100 years,
sit only 8 or 9, maybe a dozen next week,
decrying the leaden darkness when
the air outside is alive. Hope is the
title of humanity’s verse. Love never
needs a dress rehearsal.

Not all epiphanies happen in a moment,
most are slow-motion.
They hit your soul first, the ocean’s breath,
before they mist the air, your mental unrest,
that drives you to voice
everything you have always known.
And then you ask the questions

About why
you let the narrow slats
limit your attention to a universe full
of butterflies visiting poppies.
The rest stops come easier now.

You Are Not Broken

 
You Are Not Broken

(“If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13)

Who told you that
you were broken?
Do you burn the trees for the
leaves they drop on the forest floor?

Fantasy can be dark, the soil can be rich,
shouting confirms nothing, the campfires dance
like miniature
Auroras Borealis.

Why do you think
you are broken?
Did someone tell you to stop counting
when you missed the third beat in a waltz?

Rules can be granite, the instructions can be concise,
apples can be crispy, the pet dogs prance
like miniature
angels-in-waiting.

When do you think
you were broken?
Did someone know more than you
when all you needed were wildflowers and summer fields?

You are poetry, you are unmetered,
you are porous, you are transfigured
like miniature
hypergiants

In blue before
anyone viewed them.

Looking For the Cottage

 
Looking For the Cottage

(“When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their apparel stood with trumpets and, from the Levites, the sons of Asaph stood with cymbals to praise the Lord.” Ezra 3:10a)

I need a break from myself,
the asphalt has been rolled across my
soul for too long. It does not help to patch
the cracks.

I want a whole new foundation,
a life I do not need to defend,
a place to park my unkempt buggies
and chariots of expiration.

I know I’ve run over your inspiration,
I know it’s been hit and run and then
hit and miss.
I know now how pleasant uncertainty
can be
but I’ve lived on a diet of prepackaged
meals for too long.

So when I drive up in my new hippie van,
or walk in the fields barefoot again,
a few will say how wonderful to see someone
old and depressed as me
happily hunting butterflies after the mists
have moved east at afternoon.

Others will greet me, then hear me,
then wonder why I ever let the cinder blocks
crack the way they did. Why didn’t I read the
upkeep manuals,
why didn’t I play the music that resonates
with the prefab homes we lived in so long?

And me? I imagine a coffee date,
a friend who doesn’t hesitate to grab my neck
and won’t let go
no matter how much I’ve changed. I don’t even
mind
if it scares them some, just so long as they
wrap me in memory. My desires are out
of my control.

And that is what scares me. What angers some.
What leaves me on the edges, misunderstood and alone.

I’m still looking for the home where the foundation expands
every time there is another knock on the door from
wayward travelers who smell the chili in the dutch oven and
the smoke from the wood-burning stove. I’m still
waiting to join the house where hands are devoted to
healing the gaskets that are encrusted with grime.

I’m looking for the cottage made without hands,
and the family who was expecting me the whole time.

Marinated Phrases

Marinated Phrases

(“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6)

I am completely serious and
honest this time.
The pain clamps my jaws until
my teeth nearly bleed.
It grabs my neck, glues my skin to my
bones. It stops the best words from forming,
the best days from flowing,
and leaves me restless for hours at a time.
It is a cage-match with an inexhaustible foe.

So, you’ll understand how satisfaction
is a goal too far.

But then I hear a saxophone and trumpet riffing
in silvery smoke. Noon becomes a jazz club
for a moment’s distraction. I may pour a whiskey
or take a nap.

And then a crow squawks atop the pine in my
backyard, warning the other mystery fliers that
the chihuahua is nearby. Robins and stellar jays don’t
mind, but the crows are the guard dogs of the sky.

I still am curious and
promise this time to
listen for the lyrics in the birdsongs,
though the translation is spurious
and the electricity still scars my eyes
and hog-ties my mind. Sometimes

I just let the hours accelerate
with no other choice but to
pass the time.

(I cannot pull phrases out of thin air,
I will use the ones I marinated overnight.)

Pacing myself
I dream of events that never happened,
wishes that never were fulfilled,
loves beyond definitions,
and occasionally
the fault that lay at my feet from
craving the sweets in the tension between
 health and happiness.

Oddly, I can see my soul healthy in mental
landscapes inhabited by nothing but unleavened life.
Sadly, in my waking hours
I feel a fraud and wonder where the
truth is.

And another hour limps by. 

Once Sweet as Eden

 Once Sweet as Eden

(“So Josiah removed all detestable idols from the entire land…” 2 Chronicles 34:33a)

When you pack your belts with bullets and
conceal your violence with bibles, amendments
and squandered chances to layer the generations
with passionate dance,

The images once sweet as Eden
become blurs of unlucky happenstance.

I will still walk with you,
but leave your fantasies in the yard.
What caliber is your copper
and iron,
what are the shredded shrieks,
the frantic aftermaths
of your crass obeisance to
deafen the voices that cry from the land?

Notice the skyline, the upward arc of grass leaves
and tree branches. Notice the poppies gilding the
untended slopes dotted with occasional daisies.

Don’t forget the warm mud, or the voice of Abel.
The masquerades of oblation and
retreads of weariness have blistered too many
old tires rolling through the desert
on old station wagons between cacti and dunes.
We need to master our AM playlists again,
we need to let the sanity come full circle where
heart, prayer, peace and human touch meet.

When you pack your trunks with lunches and
open your car doors with sandwiches, repentance
will be complete. Every layer of humanity will
find the words

To sing the songs of redemption again.

Finches on Fenceposts

 Finches on Fenceposts

(“He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.” 1 Timothy 3:16b)

When you see things that cannot be heard,
when you hear things that cannot be measured,
when the clouds are ellipses,
and the sun fades the print on the page;
when distractions no longer need explanation
and the breeze turns from inland without provocation,
then islands will rise and hills
give up their advantages.
Minds will make use of algebra and art,
songs engage the full spectrum of light.

But when faith is reduced to research and development,
and God already believes the same things as you,
nothing changes except caged imaginations
chained to iron links of cause and effect.

Today I observed a finch believing it was an eagle,
roosted upon a tiny fencepost.
Then I remembered that I imbibed of nature
far before I understood a thing.

Facedown in Moonlight

 

Facedown in Moonlight

(“And Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had provided for the people, for the thing came about suddenly.” 2 Chronicles 29:36)

You could make me a king, or
nothing at all.
It is so sudden and unexpected:
the river overflowing its banks,
the sun washing the hills,
the castles crumbling like mud,
the rifles melting and the clouds arranging
the shadows like flocks of lion and sheep.
Will it be an imposition on some?
Will jobs be lost at the local brick and mortar
where bullets are dispensed
like medicine?
Will you ache for your place in the factory
mass-producing every remedy and selling your
quackery?
You could lie facedown in moonlight
and still
the golden rays would find you,
if only to remind you that you cannot
cut the cords
to the life that fills the transitions between
sacred songs and
backyard barbecues.
Whistle for the neighborhood dogs who
are convinced the entire block belongs to them.
Ring for the wounded,
call up the oppressor,
mow down the weeds that choked the rain
right out of the garden.
One drop lands and the dust expands just
an inch above the toe-line. Another glances off
the forehead of a toddler playing in the sand.
You could make me the mayor,
you could make me dessert,
you could be on your best behavior,
you could sound the alert like
church bells
that reckon time by the hours, the
chimes
that pray away the barbed wire we put up
against imagined defenses.

You could make me sing just
by relying on friendship one more
time again.