Go back
Go back to the place you lost
Your courage
The battle
The war with fear
People were never intended
to walk on water/
Raise the dead
It requires things of us
We do not possess
Gravity
A voice to calm the storm
And turn ghosts into this
Man who calms the sea
You used to stand
In the doorway of winter
Receiving the Russian men
With their flowers and words of love
As transparent as their motives
Never letting on
You were a sucker
For their swarthy accents and abundant facial hair
But not that much
That you would fail
To mark each hour of rising light
Not yet
The full Twelve
He speaks of so casually
Before dark.
Unsay me
Uncall my name
Unbraid this coil of hair
Unspeak these things
Unspell these words
Untie this knot
Unhand me, fear
Unbreakable Love
Unquenchable fire
Undo this curse
Under this tree
Unbearable pain
You spoke for me.
You draw love
As you drink
Like a bored housewife beside her
Rotary phone
Judicious sips
When you should
Gulp…
Deep well, girl
This is a deep well
Look down into history
Up, into the face of God
But you are right
About cliches–
playing with fire…
Springs eternal
In the end only He will draw love
With his right hand
And we will hold ours out in supplication
For living water
I would have written this as a letter
I would have used the proper
Format:
Dear You,
Only…
That is the point
Dear you, not me
Not God Himself, quite real
Your appetite for bacon
Recalls to me the reason
Why?
We are not family anymore
Friends with the devil
Need to count the flies
Attending him
I speak the oblique
Because you have a right to be angry
We all do
But only on the pallet in hell
we lie down…
So close to Jesus.
We sleep in boats
Strewn out across
An unending sea
Cling to blankets, shelter, each other
An archipelago of contained air
All that holds us
Up inflatable dinghies,
Flotsam unstable
We call to each other
Sun-drenched dazed
Testing our new words
Like… beach balls….
Flood….
Antediluvian–
post-apocalyptic always
Cup your hands
Across your eyes
Look to the deep
Where the leviathan hides
Home.
There is something I want to put in this box
A new year
An old debt
Things tangled like a net
Dresses I should sew
Miles I should run
When this sadness is the warm blanket
Remind me why
There are no pictures in this house
Nothing so permanent as you.
Always you.
I have been a little off today. Not looking in my side mirror enough, burning the toast–I wanted several times today to nap. Just nap. Today was a beautiful day and I could see myself caved up under a quilt.
The old dude I did not see in his shiny jeep would have preferred that.
This time I know what is wrong. It is more than my usual December malaise. It is more than my customary invisible arrow lodged in my sternum.
No. This was the weight of grief. The unavoidable heaviness that accompanies grief–knowing that ordinary families like mine are facing hell for the long haul, knowing we are not safe.
I do hold my children tight and I am constantly aware of their grace in my life.
It hurts to know the terrible thing we all face in death. The sign of a torn universe, waiting for consolation.
What if there was a list?
Of things no one wanted
The emptiness in a room
Blood memory
An unrelenting ache
my baby/my baby/my baby
Cannot be…
Worse than death
Stalking us at every turn
will we be
Safe?
No.
Not this time the children’s story
Man with a song leading us into the mountain
because our parents will not
What?
What is it we have not done?
Have not paid
To the coroner
To the cops
To the teeth of the dog
Who guards this hell we have
become
a houseful of memory
Of a Christmas most like the very first, second and third
When armed men broke through doors to wrest
Babes from nursing
Women who retain with their inmost thoughts each scrap of life
This child
This child
Don’t turn away.
It is a simple enough word
Cover
A blanket over me
The cleft of a rock
A bit of plastic tenting
as the storm blows in
.
These angels,
Fierce angels
Stretch wings of splendor over our history of blood
Turn your head to the side little girl
To the past where we both came from
And imagine for a minute
A world without cover
The shadow of majesty
Passing over us
Leaving us all
alone
Carrying Light 