The Inner Critic

The Inner Critic

(“…one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:6)

All you ever wanted was to be heard,
to be seen,
to be understood as
simply a boy who wanted to play
under the trees with half a dozen friends
who lived next door.

But you ran away sometimes,
you hid in the garage sometimes between
the musty moving boxes filled with photography
magazines.
You ate the candy you bought from the neighborhood store.
There, with a home-made crystal radio plugged into your ear
you heard
“Stop in the Name of Love” for
the very first time.

You knew you would be found,
you knew you couldn’t wait it out past
supper time. You wished you were
somewhere else where moods were quieter,
where
you knew how to build a playhouse out of
wood scraps from the back yard.
Or how to make a paper kite from yesterday’s
Herald Examiner.
Or were smart enough to know when to cry.

One day you started away toward downtown,
a half mile from home,
six blocks south where you bought your first
walkie-talkies that barely worked a block apart.
You dropped your bag filled with coins you had
saved since
Christmas and walked home to try them out
with your brother.
Nothing ever was as good as you hoped.

You made robots out of tin cans and pipe cleaners,
models of the San Gabriel mission out of shoe boxes,
and read encyclopedia articles randomly.

The voice you liked the least was the one
that critiqued everything you tried. It was
not your father’s nor your mother’s nor even
the voice of the principal at school. It was your
own
that scolded you, that told you how short you
fell below the norm. Even getting straight As
could not silence it.

The voice chased you, didn’t it, right past
the age when you married, had kids, and then beyond
the day when the last left home. And you tried
everything to make life sing the way you had
read about in those Faith Magazines.

Nearly 70 now, not 7, you rummaged through
storage boxes in the garage and drank a glass of
wine midafternoon. Some days the critic is
silenced while the divine soothes the DNA
that it damaged with its harangue demanding
perfection. The critic needed to

Feel loved too.

We Should Try That Again

We Should Try That Again

(“You, too, are being built up together, in him, into a place where God will live by the spirit.” Ephesians 5:22)

Arms-length can feel like miles away.
I’ve seen too many cornered smiles to
believe anything less than this moment.
Every space you leave between me and another
multiplies by the time it takes to reply.
And so we sit on mudbanks quilted with the
apple blossoms the rains knocked off the trees
the night before.
And we long for velvet instead of hardship,
sanity to replace excused absences from our
place in the circle. You had me on the ropes once;
I cannot allow it to happen again.

I apologize for the shields I’ve built upon the
back of fears. I’m guilty of it all. There is something that
bubbles hot like Yellowstone geysers
every time I remember
the way social lunches erupted into
debates we had no way to adjudicate.
Some people appealed to a higher authority,
but the secretary put them on hold

Indefinitely.

Then there were days, decades previous to those,
when a breeze blew through from the southern skies
and our picnics ended with frisbees and kisses.
Our babies laughed and looked for worms beneath
the gingham tablecloth. The puppies never stopped playing.
The salamanders sunned alongside the stream. I can
remember the faces even if I cannot recall the names.

We should try that again.

To Photograph the Moon

To Photograph the Moon

(“I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers.” Ephesians 1:16)

It might have been luck that brought us this far;
it is hard to tell between the rain, between the mailboxes,
between the houses, and between the minutes slowing
everything down.

One thing we had not counted on was
how seldom we found the cracks in the sky.
It was our habit to number the stars at night
and to photograph the moon like a goddess casting
spells over the trees. Shadows moved in and out
of each other.

We can talk on the phone for an hour,
we can catch up after 20 years. Where are the
connections we’ve prayed for? Where are the
the parties we used to plan?

If you painted a picture of what you see out your window
I would follow it like a map.
If you allowed for just a hairbreadth inside your heart,
I would leave everything intact.
If you spoke the words you never sing for anyone,
I would memorize them and inscribe them,
I would make them part of this poem,
I would enshrine them for further review.
I would never forget how the words are you,
and you full of paragraphs yet written, tales still
untold.

I appreciate your prayers, but next time

Let me see your eyes.

Fragrant Air

Fragrant Air

(“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3)

Fragrant air:
like the tiny pink cherry blossoms new;
like the golden flowers on the broom bush;
like the rows of sweet mown grass yesterday old.

Cotton sky:
like forgotten dreams unmemorized;
like nameless candles mid-center of the room;
like flows of honey on a sticky afternoon.

Satin dance:
like triple robins home for a rest;
like hummingbird snapshots of a Wednesday afternoon;
like elementary children flush-faced after school.

Ageless One:
like mountains and moons light-years from now;
like anthills and anthems, geysers of simple songs;
like laughter and weeping, signs of questions on the

Fragrant air.

Today I Will Chase Joy

Today I Will Chase Joy

(“Christ made us free. Stay that way. Do not get chained all over again in the Law and its kind of religious worship.” Galatians 5:1)

Do you want to be a part of the gathering
drinking beer, shouting across the room with
questions about what else is happening this afternoon?

Do you want to share in the secrets they reveal
once the tavern is full? Do you still want to
laugh like you did nearly every day of the year?

How we turn. How we display our faces which
are not our faces at all. How we decide to
de-occupy the places that once
opened us so wide the tears flowed on tap
and we didn’t mind.

We used to believe that God was the center of it all.
Then we decided there were places the divine
would never stoop to go, so we stayed away;
that became our newest goal.

But today I will chase joy. Today I will laugh
and spill my secrets. Today I will still be shy
(like we think god is shy), and put sticky notes
on my friends to remind me who will laugh with me.

There are people who drop the holy spirit right on
top of you
when they turn to you and smile.
And they didn’t mean to. It just exploded
on their face
and suddenly you are thunderstruck.

Yes, I’ll join any gathering that sounds like
children breaking pinatas at a birthday party.

A Rabbit Scampered

A Rabbit Scampered

(“Let us know, let us pursue knowledge of the Lord; his coming is as certain as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the autumn and spring rains come on the earth.”  Hosea 6:3)

When I looked up a rabbit scampered
at the edge of my vision. I suspected nothing.

I will not waste this day. But I will write honestly and
say—in my mind, not aloud—I’d rather have lunch with
a well-worn friend
than sit like a solitary monk. I was not made to be
a hermit. I was not created for this tightness in my chest.
I worry that I’m less than enough for anyone.
I worry my reservoir will overflow and everyone will see
what I’ve been holding back. So I stay alone in a town
where the river calls campers and dogs to sniff out
the steelhead and salmon.

Circles are better than points on a map.
Guitars passed around the group until everyone
has their chance to introduce the newest tune
born of love,
or lament,
or laughter,
or loneliness.
The four-bar ending of every song always includes
a quartet of hands upon the singer, a place in the
circle’s center
to see the heart that broke or bragged. The soul
that confessed its fears, its agony at possibly
leaving there unrenewed.

When I got up to leave, Emmit the blind
met me, licked my face like he knew me
and walked me to the door. I think I like
old dogs the best.

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

Cast Our Words with Flyrods

(“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 14:11)

Can you spare an hour, a sliver of time,
a coffee, a piece of pie,
an hour to see me the way I am?
Can we careen into the afternoon like
skis on powder?
Can you join me and then leave
a piece of you behind?
When I began writing this I
had no idea
where it would end. Starting on a day
when the walls enclosed my room and
then now in the sun in the early afternoon.

I was reading a new book, a book of words and
the word called grammar. I read slowly, letting
each sentence linger on my mind like wine on my tongue.
And once the reverie was complete, lost in pages
of scholarly guesses the

Breeze manipulated the bamboo windchime,
hollowly, wholly, and brought my eyes back to
blue skies, green scenes, and a hummingbird
spotted like a border collie. I had never seen her
before.

My invitation still stands. I have circles where no
one exists except in my imagination. I have a thousand
contacts in my phone,
but none of them live close to home. Silence
is untranslated. And that makes writing a greater challenge
than transcribing the conversations of a dozen tables
late afternoon at the bar.

My opinions have changed on their axis; my outlook
is a search for meaning on a sea of love. So, if you can,
if you will, sit at my table and tell me your tale. We can
cast our words with flyrods into the evening. We can
walk past the stream where crows try to sing and
children laugh at everything mid-July.