Pockets Lined with Gold

Pockets Lined with Gold

(“He has toppled the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.” Luke 1:52)

Pockets lined with gold,
people queued for food,
tyrants on the throne,
beggars inhabiting the pews.
Turn around now,
spin out of your cycle,
let the eyes of the needy capture
you by the hands and pull you in
until you understand your
riches are not the blessing of God.

Instead, let justice roll down like thunder,
let your assets account for your deafened ears
and give thought to the ways
the mountains stay suspended as they
send their snows in streams to the sea.

Do you see how humbly God answers?
Do you observe the prayers of the poor?
Have you ever seen the tables turned;
have you given away what you have already earned?
You are not that innocent.
You are not that ignorant.
You’ve seen them cross your street just to
miss the subway on their last day of work.
And now they do not know what name,
or what denomination,
or what currency will ever buy
their dignity back. You have seen them
and have pushed your way through the
crowd to the penthouse with the secret code
only cudgels know. Document your
oblivion and send it down the
U-turn postal service to remind you tomorrow
of everything you ignored today.

I Could Listen All Day

I Could Listen All Day

(“When the king heard the words of the law scroll, he tore his clothes.” 2 Kings 22:11)

The flock of geese flew overhead sounding
like children on a playground. The fog had turned
to rain and
they felt closer than ever, flying under the
misty domed sky.

Don’t stop browsing these pages, they are never
exactly the same. Never assume you know the
answers because the question will be different each time.
The cattle lying in the rain-soaked field are
commentators of the scripts we read.

Once around the neighborhood,
skirting the road where new developments form,
there is a cemetery just north of the edge
of the mudded field where you can see the river from its
its gentle hill. There is little boredom when the
river punctuates the occasional verses testing the
waters,
testing the distance to the end of the day.

Though the sun is not shining there are rays
that pierce the heart even on the most clouded elevations.
There are voices reciting lyrics and faces leading
the band. I’ve heard them before, but today they
sound new, like a baby’s first words: colors, books,
up and down, mom and dad. I know thousands more
but the babble of babies is its own interpretation. I could
listen all day.

Mornings Are the Best Time

Mornings Are the Best Time

(“Don’t panic! You’re looking for Jesus from Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been brought back to life. He’s not here. Look at the place where they laid him.” Mark 16:6b)

Someone left the door open and all the breeze
searched the corners of the room and the dogs
bayed
at the intrusion.
Something swelled from within,
something we had not seen before;
something breathed like an open yawn,
something we had not heard before.

Angels sit on the porch announcing the
sunny morning. Angels, like fierce beasts,
flustered us; angels, like tender rain,
assured us.

Someone was free, someone defeated death.
Somewhere in the raising of the day,
somewhere between my house and yours,
behind locked doors that never kept him away we
found what escaped our perfect reasoning and
we swallowed our tongues at the thought.
Reality was more concrete than our theories
of life and death.

Didn’t our minds spin at the thought of it?
Didn’t our hearts dive at the weight of it?
Didn’t our hearts fly at the sight of it?
Didn’t our minds rise at the grace of it?

We could barely speak at the jolt of it.
We could barely believe, but we caught our words
and remembered that mornings are the best time
for celebrating stones that have been rolled away.

A Pathway Home

A Pathway Home

(“His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1:23)

I think I am ready to go home or
at least meet someone for drinks. The streets
can be so lonely this far down the line.
I think it’s only a couple of miles from here,
I think we could be there by noon.
I’ve been to the wildlife refuge and only found
ducks and crows,
but it’s a good place to be alone.
But sometimes solitude is louder than
a baby grand piano in a starlit shed.
I can hammer the keys now,
I can freeze the melody between
octaves. I can miss my notes more easily
until everyone can tell I haven’t played well for
a while.
I think I am ready for some shalom now
or at least chant the words to pre-christian
tunes.
It is all so big now, so far beyond my reach;
it is daily decreed that my silence will increase
as the hours slowly turn toward afternoon.
And yet I still believe, below the surface,
above the moon,
within the moments, outside the fine-tuning
of string after sting, there is something larger than
the hole I carry within my chest.
There is something closer than the rain
that falls on my forehead and shapes my footprints.
There must be a star that sits above the sky;
there must be a vision that sees dreams like candor.
There must be a pathway home that takes me
past the homes where friends a half-century ago
we had coffee and talked about god and northern lights
and record collections and our favorite bands.

There must be a pathway home.

We Put Out the Coffee

We Put Out the Coffee

(“Let’s not become discouraged in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not become weary. Galatians 6:9)

The evening came wavering like a
toddling baby boy. We knew it was pending
and kept working anyway.
We saw how the moon grew as it rose from
behind the bare winter branches of a walnut tree.
We had been serving the survivors the
food they deserved.
We had been playing with their children
on the die-cut lawn and listened to their
laughter while the pizzas warmed in the
double ovens. We put out coffee,
we poured the lemonade,
we unstacked the dishes for the families
who stayed. We had counted on half as many,
we had planned to be home before nightfall.
But these were our friends, though many we had never met.
These were our family, though this was the first time we knew their names.

We understood each other,
they knew we would stay as long as the food held out.
We knew we could sit with the silence,
or we could sing as the meal began.
We washed dishes and then we put them out again
for the next friends in line and for the next ones after them.
We sweat as the ovens heated,
we laughed as the children raised their Styrofoam cups
like goblets making a toast.
It was always “cheers”; it was always just a moment’s
wink of a day.
Though we worked well into the evening, we only felt
the time was a fraction of what we had to give.
We knew the play, the conversation, the coffee,
the elastic answers to powdered questions; we knew
there was more to do and we would meet again,
we would meet again, like tonight.

We
memorized the conversations and
learned the vocabulary everyone needed.
We invited the foreign language to share our
chat around tables of perspiration, around
lampposts of contentment.
We learned more than we knew,
we listened happily and silent,
we gave food and attention to assuage
the starving. And we went home, weary and
grateful someone had invited us to work
that was rewarded with new names written
on our tongues.

Open Their Hearths

Open Their Hearths

(“I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bandage the injured, and strengthen the weak, but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will shepherd them with justice.” Ezekiel 34:16)

Did you deeply believe you pulled the strings?
Did you think you could pull the rug out from under them?
Did you think they were blindfolded and could not see
the machinations and motives in your published screeds?

Where did you come up with such ill-advised plans?
Where did you find the words to push them down the
throats of those who waited for directions home?
Somewhere you decided to cut bait and run,
and leave the consequences to courts you thought
you controlled.

Once you closed your eyes, once you were out of view,
once you were alone, no one but you, only you; once
there was no one to perform for,
once the cameras shut down for the night, did you
allow the cries to reach your ears of all
those you stole from? Did you account for all you stole?

You called them strays, but they were herded away by
your incongruous religion. You called them animals while
you foamed at the mouth and lacerated compassion like
a butcher’s cleaver.

There is a day, indeed it is here,
there is a way that the weak will travel
that takes them inside the heart of all creation.
Your time is up,
your rule is over,
your words are zed,
you’re not so clever.
There is a moment decreed when
all the injured will find alternate phrases
to the ones fed from pompous and penal
pulpits.

You lit the fire, but they will open their
hearths to the sojourners of solace.

Better Than You Think

Better Than You Think

(“Restore all that was hers, together with all the revenue of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.” 2 Kings 8:6b)

Afternoon. The tunes were irresistible, the
thoughts coming sooner than expected. She
had learned how little changes when change is
all you want. Afternoon.

Midnight. The candles were extinguished,
the dreams came thinner than desired. She
went to bed later but was too weary to distinguish
reality and visions. All she wanted was a winter
moon to lure her to slumber. Midnight.

Morning. The warming was unreliable, the
thoughts from the night came swarming. She
had placed an order for peace. All she desired was
a space within where it could all begin. But storming
had taken her best thoughts hostage. Morning.

Annual. And ten times over the trip around the sun
tripped her up again. She prayed, she groaned, she
wrote it factual and substandard. There was nothing
left to do
that she hadn’t
done before. The shore kept receding from the sea.
Annually.

Infinite. And it all feels like it will never end. It was
once all innocence and expectations. Now it is
cold nights and restless days. Her mind stayed
ever vigilant while she wished for contentment.
Infinite.

Invitation. There was one place, one pleasant conversation,
that made a few moments easier. Together was a road
walked late in the day with nothing to say but
you
are
better
than
you
think. They always met at the same location.
Invitation.