the tape is a blur of
ordinary splendor
songs sung loud in a messy
house vivid patchwork
some mention of a circus
close to the tear in the hand-made quilt
I touch your brow
tell you
take your medicine before you go out to play
Round, pink, chewable analgesic
as you lift your head to receive the pill
Eucharist in the living room,
old and beautiful
Words for “good” and “grace”
So close to your already liturgical
Beautiful like…
A rose
A ruby
A diamond
A butterfly
A boy in flight
in a fit of unease
she has an out-of-body experience
Rising above the squalor
Imagining what it would be like
To live inside the perfect house
Instead–she dusts the counters and all the edges
with cinnamon to deter the sugar ants
Beats the air with questions
Washes and re-washes clothes, stones, teeth
Delays bodily functions
To search for
-The weighted blanket-
Surrogate mother/synthetic comforter
Lyrics/verses
of a lullaby sung softly by the
preoccupied
with the ghosts of children,
She
hammers nails into the wall
for improbable angels
they float above
small, intricate, perfect
real girls
each flicker just a moment then
Snuffed out
Because they were not…
Because they were not…
born boys.
I still have unanswered questions for the hand-sized catfish I pulled out of the Blanco River today.
It was caught in some debris, entangled in some fishing line.
Hard to get to.
Weirdly specific salvation (if you don’t believe in a God who sees stuck fish).
But if you do…
You wonder who was the fisher with the broken line?
When was he last here?
How long has this darkish catfish been stuck in the line?
Will it live? Line cut, hook still in?
The Gospel is chocked full of fish stories.
But they don’t all get saved, hook or no hook still stuck in the craw.
And then there is me: fished out by Jesus, standing wet in the afternoon sun, inventorying fish stories.
…. Caesar’s likeness on the coin in its belly.
….No sign but Jonah
….The empire of Rome long gone
this one small fish wriggles free
marvels at the hidden depths
in the quotidian
stories of being
fished out.
having an ordinary name
(Think cow or child’s toy)
Means misnomer–
Betty, Becky, pieces left out
Or added
My favorite-gleanor
So close
To gleaner
I ask myself
What if it was George? Harold? Londerson? Jamal?
Would I still
Recognize your voice
Trace the familiar
Lines along
Your hands, your face?
Your gaze holds firm
Your love unswerving
Written, Word
come to the dark
stones skipped along the surface
will sink into concentric ghosts
these stars
hard to measure
Line up–
School girls in bright
White dresses
Wade in
knees, waist, chest
As if they had forgotten
They are luminous,
formed of fire and light.
these interlocking pieces-
a woman in the crowd reaches out to touch
Slowing down motion
to Jairus’ daughter
Take this stranger by the hand
(For science, of course)
Blindfold emotion
-While the girl lies dying-
Somehow temporarily
All of us
nailed to this single day in history
When you let go of
Everything you had a right to hold
Go where we never
want to go
Then tell Mary
Don’t touch me
Last trace of hell still on my skin
You draw us to your
Broken.
Make us whole again
With this system of touch.
I am a big fan of Jesus, even though he is a little scary.
Why? Well, there is the dying for the sins of the world thing, but there is also the stuff he idly seems to throw into his parables–weeping and gnashing of teeth, something about being salted with fire.
CS Lewis is right, he is not a tame lion. He is the only and original badass and he more than deserves to be the divisor of before and after in human history.
Years ago I cried when I read an article about a nurse who visited new and at-risk parents. She said that years later the babies she had visited would recognize her voice when they heard her in random places.
This mattered to me because I have a baby out there somewhere who might recognize my voice even though she was just 14 months old when she was taken from me.
The voice of love–that is what I hear when I read Jesus. He is, by turns, funny, deadly incisive, ironic, and passionately in love with us.
Crucifixion and resurrection kind of passionately in love.
When I lost my little foster daughter I grieved beyond what is comfortable to describe. I took my cry to God–why?
His voice was clear–if you have to choose for her to know just one of us, you or Me? Which would you choose?
Him, of course.
Always and only Him, baby girl.
Hear his voice.
John 10:2-5
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