The Shortage of Pillows

The Shortage of Pillows

(“And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’” Luke 9:58)

Without a moment to spare I caught up with
the prophet who had exited through the double maple
doors.
An entourage surrounded him; suits, but no guns.
And I was afraid I might have to run to the end of the
parking lot to catch him.

Instead, I found him winded as I,
I looked in his eye and asked,
“Do you have any word for me?”

I had been in tears. I had pledged to follow the
Human One
years before and wandered from California to
Spokane, from San Jose to
Oklahoma, from Sacramento to
North Dakota and to the west coast again.
Every time I was certain (sometimes with deserved pressure
to go somewhere and do better);
every time I was certain I was following a divine plan
that would make my weeping cease and wring every selfish
craving from my tongue.

And so, a pastor on the plains, I was pulled by self-interest,
echoes of successes, and words in books that made it look like
the Spirit would bowl me over if I only lost my footing. If I
only scraped my knees long enough on silent tear-stained carpets.
I sat, mostly. Got bored, mostly. And never met the expectations
from holyghost shouts and unhinged inner dialogue. I could not
breathe without crying.

“Do you have any word for me?” I asked.

He was Italian, I think, and stretched his neck as he talked.
He glanced at me, stood straight and, without a moment’s pause
said,
“You will open a Christmas present soon.”

I had flown across the country (pastors often confer in
other cities to be anonymous and hope to be refilled)
and flew home two nights later.

I looked in my closets, I looked in the back of my jeep,
I read every letter, I prayed every steep and graded hill, but
never found gift wrap or ribbons. And my hope for
beatific visions
faded into dark February.

II.

I wish the
Human One
had answered me.
I wish I knew better how to follow.
The lonesome road can be the
closest thing to pristine joy
and needs no prophetic imagination or
central affirmations.

I wish I
knew earlier
about birds and foxes
and the shortage of pillows.

Today, my feet are in sandals,
my heart enjoys rambling (more
than ever before)
and I do not have to wait for a
published author
or a windy spirit
to knock me on the floor.

Moss-Covered Rocks

Moss-Covered Rocks

(“We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7)

What did you expect to find underneath
the moss-covered rocks? What might
crawl out
from crouched tunnels in the mud?

We wait hours for the sun on our face,
we sit in steel-backed chairs wondering
how much blood they will take
to test our disease.
How we pass the time,
how we cross the generational lines,
how we turn our faces and
align our minds toward darkness or shine,
how we offer up questions or
resign the debate with silly answers
no one believes;

How we measure the invisible waves
all decides, destination or journey,
how wide our world is and
how far we can see.

What did you expect to find up above
the world so high? What might
crack the night without making a
sound?

Enclosed by medical appointments,
grounded to the couch for more than a day,
it is easy to see time leaving us behind.
And we wish for more candles, or
shorter distances,
or instant telepathy that would
play our affection completely for
every person and every place
that brings them to memory. Some
have launched me like a dad lifting
his daughter to the sky.

Angels never masquerade; it is we who look away.
Happy boys who tell the patients in the waiting room
that he
hopes they have a good day,
and nurses from your hometown
appear like something solid yet
surreal.

There is more to find in a child’s smile
or an advocate’s laugh
or the life that teems beneath the soil

Than time can ever fill.

Let Me Begin Again

Let Me Begin Again

(“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17)

The curtain closed on one more day
of the part I’ve been playing. I could
read the lines
time and time again.
I used to think about fences, like words,
like scripts,
that kept me in line.

Preoccupied with getting things right,
I feared missing a step or forgetting a line.
I tread the boards so carefully
I tripped over the first crack in the wood.

Without an audience or with limited applause,
the fault fell at my feet. It is not
that improvisation was disallowed or
frowned upon,
it was my fear of diving headfirst into
the deep end.

But you, gentle one, danced with me instead.
Your words were unrehearsed,
your eyes an invitation to swing around the moon,
pick daisies on Mars and
tour the stars one by one.

I was not as broken as I supposed,
I was born with atoms in my skin
that existed before the rivers, before the
globes and spheres,
before the sun we both felt on our faces.

You taught me to dance and sometimes cry…

Let me begin again:

I intended to use the stage, scripts, blocking,
props, sets, and lighting
as a metaphor
for
constraints.

I intended to describe the freedom of ad libs
in a culture of carefully drawn lines. I
intended
to write about sweet freedom,
complete with descriptions of ecstatic
experiences with the
God of words and the
Lord of dance.

Instead:

Today freedom means…

I can tell you honestly,
directly,
soliloquy,
that I am of more than one mind.

The theater never hindered me,
though another culture nearly did.
I am free to tell you
I never had a divine encounter

Unless it was in the presence of my cast
mates.

Like Rustic Bread

Like Rustic Bread

(“But he said to them, ‘You give them to eat.‘” Luke 9:13a)

Remember when we used to meet for lunch;
Denny’s, Round Table or the shop on Monument Boulevard
with 50 kinds of hamburgers? Meals were
our sacrament.

Remember the pizzas we ate hurriedly halfway through
dress rehearsals? We never thought
two dollars
could go so far.

Remember picnics in the shade and
the dogs misbehaving while we protected the
potato salad
from ants on the ground and the sun in the sky?

Remember the bottle of Almaden when we
could afford it? Otherwise, it was Boone’s Farm.
With the stream singing in the ravine
the birds harmonized in the tree above our
makeshift eucharist.

These days I am shy about
dinner invitations. I am less sure.
Conversation is pizzicato in my trembling fingers.
Blood rushes to my face
belying the uncertainty of gravity.

Do you remember sitting in grand circles
waiting for all the relatives to arrive at the
memorial? It was January and the roads were
frictionless. The friends of the departed
did not mind the extra time.
The food never stopped, and our laps were
precariously full in
the great hall
where coffee was poured all night.

I would give anything to be
brave enough again
to break off part of my heart
like rustic bread
and entrust it into your hands.

Time Hugged the Curves

Time Hugged the Curves

(“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:20a)

Time hugged the curves and could have turned
bitter (the over-brewed tea in the bottom of the cup.)
The ad libs did not come as easily
and the faces of everyone I’ve ever loved
met my thoughts through the fog.
I have auditioned new recipes, new shortcuts,
new days walking to school a dozen years old.

Today you know what I know,
another hit and the engine sputters to the
bottom of the hill.
It will not climb another, overheating and
coughing, I watch behind me for a ride
up the road.

Today I’ve told you the news,
(though the headline might read differently tomorrow)
I would rather cruise through your world and mine
hiding the wear and tear. Repaired or not,
I hear the voices of my children and Dad
is the sweetest syllable. The generations mix
from memories of floating sticks in the gutter
to the times I muttered my apologies too indistinct
to matter. (The headlines are not always honest.)

Wait for me at the top of the hill,
I’m not there yet, but I can see it from here.
You are my exclamation points; my friends,
my loves, my family. My unmapped
meander seeks an endpoint, a place where
we all can gather. A picnic that will not end
with sunset, a week of improvisation,
a year of touching the skin;
sound waves only wear out the heart.

No matter what I uncover, no matter lost or won,
no matter if my movements are slower than when
I began,
I still watch for a ride up the road,
a split second when everyone I’ve known
sparkles with the wink that says,
“I understand.”

Oh, Impetuous Spirit

 

Oh, Impetuous Spirit

(“Then the Spirit lifted me up and I heard a great earthquake behind me and the glory of the Lord arose from his place.” Ezekiel 3:12)

Oh, impetuous Spirit,
rumble behind my hearing,
shake my seat of knowing,
open the earth below me, the sky to
show me
what escapes my comprehension.

Or send a new wind unpredictable.
Whether from the mountains or the sea,
I’ve held my breath too long, wasted my
sighs on
unreported sightings of new
rainbows
astride twin hills outside stained-glass
windows.

Move me like smoke,
breathe on me, caress my cheeks with
blood warm breezes. Seize my doldrums
while I catch my breath ascending
the next hill.

I’ll stand or sit,
or, never fearing flight, only heights,
I’ll resist the urges of inertia,
the prophecies of entropy,
while you distill my tears mid-sky
into prisms. One fragrant rose

Married the freshening morning.

My Ears Are Wooden

  My Ears Are Wooden

(“Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the tempest of water, and they ceased, and it became calm.” Luke 8:24b)

In the meantime my ears were wooden,
I could not hear the beat set before the song began.
The winds whistled, shuffling the rhythm, and I
played on as if the damage was not done.

But we never finished together, the band and I.
I took the hard passages, the ones that were effortless
in my youth,
and now my fingers played on muddy fretboards,
I sloshed and panted my way through the solos.

I thought I was tired. I thought I was bored. I thought
I had grown old and would never touch the same tunes again.
I thought it was temporary. I thought I could come back.
I thought more practice would restore the agility of my youth.

But each solo my fingers were out of breath. Each melody meant
to take the song to the heights had to be edited,
my songs were discredited,
and my wooden ears only wanted to hear the way
I once played
before all the murmuring began.

Shiftless, lonely, angry, and afraid. It was another storm
among many. My energy was taxed by all the others before,
there was nothing left over. How to tell everyone that one more
crushing wind
has taken one more piece of my life
away again.

Without a band to rehearse. Without the skills I once had.
Without the tempo beating true. Without reserves to get me
through an entire song unwinded…

I’ve ended waiting alone for the winds to shift,
(if they have a mind to)
or send more bandmates to drift on the breeze
where we can easily play old songs like
old men do.