Trace

what if it was perfume

or acorns stashed in my pockets?

Bits of things remind me 

of you

Lost to me for now

I trace all the 

Alternate 

timelines of our

Would-be existence together

How did you 

sprint past me, Dear?

Leaving perfume, acorns

emptied from the inside out

This pocketful of 

Birnam Wood in my hands,

in my hands, this forest floor

Dirt, mulch, fallen leaves, roots, baby trees…

Saplings, timbers, interlacing 

Limbs outstretched toward the warm 

Light of God who takes away the sins of the world 

…the story we will be.

The Faraday Box

Close to 

La noche de Los muertos

I open the

Faraday box

Keep one leg out, door ajar, 

Bit of light

Lent by a friend

You inhabited when

The world was still

An old wine skin

Blood and Spirit

I tell myself this 

New litany of 

Places for the dead

Who will all 

rise

Because of you

They kept it 

sealed for centuries 

Told ourselves we could 

be tourists there

Run our mortals’ hands along the stone

Ledge, trace rock, and DNA

Rise 

Rise 

Unshrouded Light

Already Rome.

I am not much of a pro-sports fan, although I try sometimes for the sake of my partner.

I feel less inclined to try now that the famously laconic Gregg Popovich had words for this recent election and the folk who voted red.

So many things you said worth noting Mr. P, but the one that stuck out the most?  Like if I could only pick one thing you said to comment on–You are afraid we are Rome?

Long been Rome, I would say.

 We have not only tolerated legalized infanticide for the last 43 years through Roe v. Wade, we now allow the concessions which provide the service of salting, vacuuming, dismembering, and dehumanizing small, voiceless humans through the months of their development in the womb both federal funds and deep privacy in order to abort and also harvest the bodies of these exploited children.

If you were to ask an ordinary person, say a woman or a disabled  person–would you rather be verbally belittled or carefully vivisected for spare parts?

Belittled, thanks very much.

The latter-death by legal and medical caveat.  Pretty disenfranchising.

To be clear, very clear–we, the citizens of the United States, have long been Rome.  Infanticide is infanticide is infanticide, Mr. P. 

How many millions of female, minority, Muslim, immigrant, disabled American voters did not vote in this election because we legalized their murder years ago?

No words will bring them back.

Minimum

He says

The least of these in the language of childhood

Neither emperors nor governors nor bards

Gather the little ones

…least of these

Army of small

Wanderers in the world 

They look for a Savior

Older Brother King

Who can 

Calm the storm

Speak peace to the wind

And tell all bedtime stories

With hope at the beginning and the end

Of each hard letter 

INRI

The  least of these-

M.

Roll the stone away

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the…

Minimum.

Weighted Blanket

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

Real One

A System of Touch

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.

“Hear My Voice”

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

Protecting the guilty?

Viola Davis has recently joined the long list of celebrities who have spoken out against sexual assault–rape, often in the context of their own victimization.

I could write a list of the men and women who have helped other victims by speaking out as sexual assault survivors.  I could not give you a list of the names of the perps.

Why?

The ongoing controversy surrounding abuse allegations made by Corey Haim before his death gives us some clues–

  • Victims are often related to their perps
  • The perp has power in the community
  • Fear of exposure 
  • Fear of legal action

And yet if we are honest, we all have a list–the creepy uncle, the duplicitous coach, the father who harms his own child, a neighbor, a brother-in-law, a once-beloved actor.  People we know abused someone because that someone said so, maybe at great personal cost, maybe with no positive protection of the law.

Keeping silent about predators gives them freedom to continue to abuse.  

So here, a name–

My adopted son is short, overweight, ginger, born February of  1994.  Last I heard he worked at the automotive center at a Walmart in Kansas City, KS. His name is Charles Allen Lee.

He has sexually abused very young children.  He has exhibited cruelty toward animals.  He can be very persuasive and does not tell the whole truth.

And if you asked him about me?  If you ask him about me he will tell you I just bring the drama.

And if you ask him about him?  He will not tell you the whole truth.

…because the whole truth is…

Devastating.

Heroin Gone

Looks like deep

Sleep

Draped across the seat

across the bodies of these hungry

Children

 Immobilizing poison

Shot into blood vessels, skin 

I call to you, no answer

Try to warn you

This venal monster 

Hunts then kills its prey

No answer, Sleeping Beauty

Already heroin gone

Who takes apples from strangers in a storm?

Do you believe in ever after?

All the tropes of fairy tales will not save us from 

The story of a little girl trapped

In this worst kind

Of nightmare tries to call

for help

Nothing left

As the anatomical apparatus for sound and breath:

Lungs, rib cage, windpipe 

Collapses beneath the weight,

The force of  blows to this chest,

All alone,

Of the used-to-be

girl.