Wipe the Mist from the Mirror

 Wipe the Mist from the Mirror

(“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10)

Fingerless, I might play the piano with my nose.
Noiseless, I might write music by ear.
Sightless, I might learn the codes of braille.
Senseless, I might miss the first note of the rest of the song.

Painless, I would dream forever.

Imagine a room, maybe 10x10, in which everything you own,
everything you are, has been collected. There is room

For nothing more.

Imagine that room shrinking by dimension, by degree,
by minutes, with no guarantee which possessions you will keep,
and which will be inaccessible for days at a time.
What dreams can fill the shrinking hopes you
once wrote on vision boards of the mind.

Maybe a walk will expand the walls,
maybe a kiss will ignite another passion fit for smallness,
maybe another drink will cancel the claustrophobia,
maybe another vacation, a trip around the globe, will
force the rusted doors open,
maybe you can begin again.

Blind, I could sing. Deaf, I could read.
Dumb, I could hear the music of love and play it loud.

But Pain is a thief, Pain is a headband of steel,
Pain is unrelenting, Pain rarely gives my spirit relief.

If only my heart could be clearer, if only an unknown hand
would wipe the mist from the mirror. If only I could remember
the chord patterns of expansive youth. If only less time
was burgled by the black-robed pain.

Sometimes kings take advantage.
Sometimes dreams are recanted.
Sometimes second lives never make it to the fair.

Pain has deferred the dreams. Create, O God, a world fit for
these smaller dimensions of my lately visions.

No, I Would Rather See

 No, I Would Rather See

(“Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, including those who pierced Him.” Revelation 1:7a)

If you look with the back of your eye
you will see the solid tree that has stood
for decades in your yard
is full of atoms and space. What we see
depends on
eyes and brain
and everything else we have been taught
about how the world should be.

Can clouds be the medium where the divine
paints the beginning and end of all things? Or
is that only for our marbled vantage point?
Visions are written over midnight musings,
dreams keep the isolated company when banished
to islands full of caverns.

Lately I’ve wondered how our thoughts become
so concrete that
the must be jackhammered to be
broken. While the clouds shift like ocean foam,
opinions become dehydrated remains of something that
once was joy in new wineskins. What shall we see if
all we have to offer is the dregs?

We have become religious wrestlers, pay-per-view
tournaments of cage match philosophies. I’d rather
be laughing at a potluck picnic with
agnostics, heretics, sous chefs, and preachers
than be confined to the corners of cinder block orthodoxy.

But who am I to talk (I would rather see),
who am I to make my thoughts the new mastery
with syllabi and mystical syllogisms
proving the points that may be debunked tomorrow.

No, I would rather see. And know, although language
would escape me, that beauty is better than definitions
and love is fuller than solidified catechisms.

Quite Unconventionally

 Quite Unconventionally

(“To my dear friend Gaius, whom I truly love.” 3 John 1:1b)

My dearest Andrew,
You asked me recently if I thought you were a true friend and
if people considered you
ugly.
I cannot read minds, I can barely read my own,
but this much is sure,
you have captured my heart like
a wood-burning stove on an autumn evening.
You are the one who takes my weeping heart for
drives in the hills when you know I am trapped
between walls and fences. And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there was cabernet in glasses and a couch to cry on.
You are better looking than most dare to be;
our hearts are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

My dearest Sandra,
You told me recently that you thought you were not pretty.
And, why, I wonder, would you consider such a harsh opinion?
You say you have a voice that no one wants to hear,
and yet I cannot wait for each time we get to chat.
You have captured my heart like a walk in the woods,
like a field of wheat waving in the breeze while we
unpeel layers of trauma without fear. You are the one
who takes my fearful heart and, with the voice of a child,
gives me more space, more grace, than most would dare.
And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there were the silences that filled the moment fully,
and I sat on your swing remembering everything good.
You are more beautiful than most dare to be,
our voices are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

Leftovers From the Fridge

 Leftovers From the Fridge

(“Notice the innocent person, and look at the decent person, because the peacemaker has a future.” Psalm 37:37)

Bought and sold at the outdoor markets,
a price is paid for counterfeit. A price is paid
for every elongated elocution that batters the air
and supercharges constant fear.

Offered in unkempt homes,
a loaf of bread is as good as a
prospector finding gold. The children
are noisy, the neighbors are often mowing their
lawns at dinner time,
and the hosts apologize for only offering water
to drink.

Judged and juried, injured by those who know how
everyone else
should behave,
the best and simplest are barred from front row seats.
Sometimes they are locked out. Sometimes others walk out.
And the decent heart, sans deodorant, sans decorum,
dries out and shrivels where it should had shined.

Some sit in the round, faces to faces, less hidden
and invited to speak of god without interruption. Glow
ascends from the back row toward the center where,
all together,
the sacred meal is served.

Well, yes, I suppose sometimes it is fish and chips,
sometimes tortillas and guacamole, sometimes the
leftovers from the fridge. But the sacrament is the same
when all look with blameless eyes at the neighbor who,
barred from better doors,
shows up to partake. Shows up to
celebrate.

Love Does Not Float

 

Love Does Not Float

(“Beloveds, let us love one another. For love comes of God. And every one who loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7)

Love does not float.
It digs.
Love sometimes smells like sweat and dung,
coming from the last one you expect and
going to the hot fields to lift bales for the
neighbor who lost everything when the fires came.

Loves does not tiptoe.
It stomps.
It is earthquakes with baskets for the falling.
Love often lives among the ruins,
coming from the survivors you missed and
going to the shattered concrete remains of
houses where only the poor could afford
a building that tumbles with the slightest wind or
shaking.

Love does not fly.
It crawls.
It is smaller than kings and ruffians.
Love always seeks the silent ones,
coming from invisible wounds still healing and
going to the fading echoes whose voices have lost
their song. Their names are scrawled on the pavement.
Impermanent chalk.

Love does not speak.
It holds.
It is spacious as the saddest tear that needs a circle of existence.
Love will stay until the void is filled,
coming from the song of the fields and
going to the decayed kitchen where a widow
wonders how the dishes will ever be done. Her
name, though unknown, is present for everyone.

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.

To See Invisibility

 To See Invisibility

(“The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.” 1 John 2:9)

When I was a child I thought
invisibility was the greatest super
power.

I could egg friends’ houses unseen,
tickle the girl on the playground,
tackle the guy with the ball out of nowhere.
Shenanigans would abound without
having to sneak around.

But today I would rather
see
the invisible. I would see your
song long before I heard the melody.
I could see the scars on your soul
that you never show
and see the truth in them,
the truth only you know.
And I would sit with you in silence; we would
see each other’s words.

I would watch the sky
and see every ray of sunlight;
waves dancing in unnamed colors,
particles spinning under and over
every wonder. A leaf, a tree, a cloud, a mountain,
a butterfly, a bunny, would
all be
one
in the spectrum of invisibility.

I would look at the footprints of my
ancestors and see
their muscled pain, left there unsigned,
a cairn,
a guide, to bind all yesterday-tomorrow
in a single unseeable point of time.

I could see the brain waves of the hummingbird;
metallic red,
and three.
Dancing above and beyond the trees and me.
Like the Aurora Borealis their instinctive thoughts would
light up my eyes.

I would not be surprised to see
that you, so distant in time and geography,
have wished the same thing too;
to see the unseeable soul and
love it like your own.