More Than the Partisan Breath

More Than the Partisan Breath

(“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31)

Listen and let your mannequin advertisements
hear the announcement, the proclamation that there
are no more chants to learn,
no more verses to memorize of new songs about the
old and dusty windows shielded from the wind.
There are no more rules to post on your sidewalls,
no more careless canyons of echoing sand, no more
patronization of the high voices that pretend to know the
pitched perfect when all they truly know are
the chapters they have repeated from living sun to
dying moon,
the uneasy accidents that sometimes they find
while acting out on their own.

You are closer, if you will only slow your drawl;
you are imparted, if you will only blow out your candles
and watch the smoke rise weakly toward the ceiling.
Did you see the migrant combing through the fields so
late in the day that his sweat looked like halos around his
head.
Did you see the homeless family encamped under the
freeway access, wondering if all of life was just an accident,
a fate to be erased.
Did you see the mothers with holes in their calendars
where festive parties should have lived.
Do you see the fathers flogging themselves to pay
for the sins the gravel preachers could not be expunged.

If you will see them you may be able to love them.
If you hear them, you will find the medicine you need to
heal your disorders before you ever invent any for them.
Let the days bring you home again and let the nights
invite you to explore more than the partisan breath
that loads the shoulders of those who have already carried
labors and lesions, sadness and seasons of gray which
never seem to change.

Will you see in them the God you insist you love with
all your heart? Will you spend the time? Will you make a day?
Will you send them invitations to walk the forest paths with you,
to breath the misty air with you,
to dine seaside like royalty or family
listening to the seagulls fight over scraps of food.
Will you open every locked thought you’ve had
and remake your household with a faith that refuses
to walk past anyone without

A breath of wonder that you learned the lessons of love
too late. And you exhaled the dust from your unstuck
throat and found a sandwich to share with another child
of God
along the road or sleeping on the sidewalk. And learn
that their story is deeper than time or apprehensions ever
allowed.

With Joy Our Common Chord

With Joy Our Common Chord

(“Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation.” Romans 12:16)

If you inspect long enough, you’ll come across my worst
faults. They are not hidden, though I don’t wear them like
a banner day to day. Some people hide them, don’t they,
and burst into slowing hearts to declare they are only their
to fix the situation.

Others call before they visit and once they arrive, they
show their delight in our friendship, knowing every failure
On my platter. We don’t laugh; we have both been caught short.
We don’t laugh at our light sentences, we laugh because we
share the same humiliation we once thought other people deserved.

I am ready to ride. I am ready to walk downtown with sandwiches.
I am ready to befriend the homeless with nowhere to go.
I am ready to wait for the next boot to drop.
But until then, with joy our common chord,
we will invite the friendless, and take their loneliness
into our own being for an hour.

There is a student at the high school who is transitioning.
Some parents forgot to instruct the children in understanding and
empathy. Some parents attending meetings, pleading for
simple kindness toward them. It is everyone who knows everything
that keeps our world from the warmth of humble words
and wisdom’s love. I’d sit at table with you, spend the day with you,
and listen carefully to your heart, and hear your story like
it was always the first time I had heard it. If you wept,
so would I. If you laughed with joy, I would join you.

I’ll join the dawn with the same resolutions. Nothing controlling my
mind
except for the universal, uncompromising love of God. I will
find the sorrows and join them as long as I can.

Between the Stars and Planets

Between the Stars and Planets

(“I’m now eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or drinks? Can I still hear the voice of male and female singers?” 2 Samuel 19:35a)

Late into the day the light dims and the sounds around us
are interpreted by the rattling cages of hopeful listening.
We once heard the frogs calling by the pond,
the owls hooting above the trees,
the folksongs sung by young lovers in the meadow.
We remembered that though our children thrive,
our footsteps have become more halting and we
wish we could twirl like them in playful squeals.

We had spent the prime of our days like castles built
above canyon walls. We had armed ourselves with word
after
word, and forgot most of them by the end of the day.
We explored food and the music that accompanied it.
We recited memorized planets from first to last and
all the asteroids dancing between them. We had a way
to look at the sky that discerned between the stars and the
planets and could see well past the end of space, at least
in our minds.

We stayed up late with the best of friends, played music
like it was a carousel. We were serious about our joy;
we played the homemade cassette over and over, two
sisters harmonizing to simple guitar accompaniment.
They sang of oil anointing the head, of sheep imitating
the shepherd and all of it so simple we dove into the songs
like angels swooping the skies.

Today the voices are crackling, the fingers are swollen and
the lyrics escape me. But I remember the people, the warm
smiles
we could wait all day to see, the voices that calmed our
unnecessary anxiety, our uncanny laughter at the silliest of jokes.
Today we would wait even longer because we are spread
across the miles like dots on a map spread across the floor.
And our days are warmer for the joy of our youth.
Some days the evening claims too many of our memories,
but sometimes, unexpectedly, a friend calls to say,
“I miss you.” And you can hear the music one more time.

An Uncaptured Bird

An Uncaptured Bird

(“For Christ is the end of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4)

The sounds that surrounded you were solid
as they recited every rule you had ever learned.
You thought it was freedom, but it was a prison cell instead.
You thought your efforts gave you wings and forgot
how the remains piled up and held you down.
You insisted you were open and untamed but everyone
saw you tied down by all the effort you took to prove
how you could break through every yoke,
see through every strand, stand on the precipice of
pirouettes like magnets unwinding every attempt
you took to prove yourself, to convince yourself that
every vow you took could be an endless loop of
righteousness. You believed that every hour of prayer
turned your solitude into rhinestones of proclamations.

You were not untrue; you were only bidden by
recoiled words that suggested what you learned was
hidden
from the unconscious and uncommitted. You imagined
you were flying with your feet nailed to the ground.
You partook of the cups of canon rule and never gave up
on your attitudes of holy effort.
You only fastened your hopes to how much better
you had become.

There was a freedom only measured by confidence that
you no longer needed to show off for the everlasting or
the mortal. You stood like the light of day, like the light
dew of the morning, and felt the breeze rise beneath
your wings as you stood and leaned back into the
grace that, unattainable, had enveloped you,
from beginning to now,
without you noticing it. And the joy filled
your lungs, and the wings flew like an
uncaptured bird carrying its song toward
the sun, toward the sun. And the bird carried its
song free on the breeze and singing like
a zephyr celebrating the day.

You Had Little Choice

You Had Little Choice

(“For this is the word of promise, “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” Romans 9:9)

This cannot make up for the promises I made;
I always hope to be better, to play the scales more carefully,
to walk the log across the stream more cautiously.
I probably should have stood up for myself when
seated in front of a dozen accusers trying to get to
the bottom of my offense.
I never defended the charges, never insisted I was
innocent.
But I lived with a crowd of people pushing my pedigree
like they were judges waiting for my next indecent apology.

There is no one to blame but myself. My only wish would
have been for a phone call now and then, not to catch me
in a verbal twist of fate, but to prove there was grace when
I was convinced there was none.

Sometimes babies are born by accident; sometimes they
come like blurry little hailstorm. Some come right on time
and some drag their feet when entering this world.

Sometimes children hide in plain sight, thinking they
are invisible. Sometimes adults shroud their intentions thinking
their privilege projects their intentional interrogation that
sucks all the faith from the room.

You cannot stop the coming nativity,
you cannot prevent the child that is to come.
There is preventing the birth that accompanies
the dawn.

After the pledges come the completion.
The acceptance following the words pregnant
with promises. There are no more words to surround
your preoccupation with squeezing the souls of miscreants
like sweltering lemons in the sun.

You had little choice; we all know that. You had fewer
options than we understood. And yet, and yet,
even the sinners can be cured by a word, or maybe two,
about babies that carry on the unfinished consequences
created by God’s partnership with mere humans who,
surprise or not, trip themselves up, stubbing their toes
like toddlers learning to walk.

Words in Single File

 
Words in Single File

(“They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Jeremiah 32:38)

Hungry and breathing on our own,
we played darts in the low-light bar.
We never saw the bullseye, never scored
a winning high. All our research had come to this:
The water was green as jade and the air puffing
like tobacco ash.

Walking and waiting in the sun,
we looked for frisbees on the browning meadow.
We never threw it into the brambles, though
we picked some black berries to share.
Nearly winter now and our thinking came this:
dogs are the perfect companions for Autumn
afternoons
when we saw winter looming high above the hills.

We adopted new languages we all could learn,
angelic saying and quotations of the sages.
We came out of the corners when we heard
the sun raise its head; just a single ray
piercing through the clouds.

Forgive my for being here before,
I don’t think I had learned the lesson.
But no one offered me a beer when my
thirst is all I could feel. Some stayed around
for a few more orbits, some jumped off at
the first stop of the sky wagons we flew.

We can be family; we can be sheltered.
We can withdraw the blame that rose from
the words of those helter-skelter ones who wore
gloves to sanitize the entire procedure.

All he wanted, (I should write in the first person)
All I wanted was words in single file,
inviting me to the party again. But, with their
enhanced theology I never stood a chance.
I am guilty, I’ve known that longer than the
accusers’ memory. But that does not exempt
(you or me) from covenants of siblings, of
celebrations of family.

On the Telephone Wires

 On the Telephone Wires

(“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11)

 

Stuck inside that space between longing and hope
I felt the deepness of Autumn walking December
through the cedars and pines. And my heart,
silent like a dog sleeping during the day,
hoped for so much more that could be imagined.

We made the arrangements the best way that we could;
we never imagined that no one would show up,
that everyone acted as if they had never heard.
We were surprised when there were 100 birds
lined up on the telephone wires.

We spent most of the day watching our imaginations
wander away. We listened for the words that
silence could not douse. We listened for the songs
that sounded like home, that translated every word
into a language we always understood.

It doesn’t take much to move me off-center so far
from home; a password forgotten, a car driven to slow,
a name you remember but who has neglected you.
I am too old for tears, and someone would surely say,
“get over it”. But I cannot remember what it might be
with my memories becoming o so muddy.

So I turn toward the sun and remember it is
hiding behind the shrouds in the sky, the
gray fog that makes its home halfway
up the hills.
I know we return one day and until then
I’ll read and hope, write and condense my
longings onto paper. I’ll commit them all
to song carried along by tomorrow’s freshening
plainsong breeze.