He says
We do things a little differently here
And I guess I didn’t see
How literally he meant it
the shady pecan, the shotgun shack
Give me
Give me
these tokens we have in our hands but cannot staunch
Such indelible grief
my little ones
all gone
What if God were just twice as smart as you? Twice as nice. Twice as precise. Would you worry then, Darling?
Worry about the things He would tell you
Before, not after, the flood
The possibility of both
Righteous anger and a casual
Ordinary
Blast of glory
Refuting all the
niggling details of narcissism
And all your little monsters
Eyeing you hungrily from their corners
Waiting to take all
The clues, the love-notes, the blazing stars
He has strewn about this place
Only hope for
Ransom.
First of all, let me reiterate that I do not expect you two to go the distance–not that prophetic considering where you are today and the inauspicious nature of this ceremony of disaster.
Most weddings are full of shi…..ps, little paper boats people fold along seams, scribble on, and push out onto whatever river they believe in. They write platitudes for the pain, use costly words all wrong.
Then the little boats float off
Leaving you there at the altar, no more substantial than cake topper avatars
Not ready for this:
Loves fierce resolve
To begin and end/end and begin
Together.
I left the paperwork on the books with the state of Texas
Left the judge in the shade of the beautiful burr oak
Walked away from the running lights
Left that old me behind
All I got left for you, kiddo
Is these words, these prayers poured out
In a language God understands
I ask the children who would win
In a foot race
Einstein or Newton?
S. says the wearing of wigs would matter
And I picture Newton trotting gamely behind
Losing precious seconds
As he tries to keep the wig on.
Gravity is something you might believe in
Or streams of consciousness
But not Jesus, my subjective friend
Whose fury you have misjudged
Like the smallest of figures in the distance
Moving inexorably toward you
Fire in his eyes
–Revelation 19
In my grief I sit on a park bench with you, both of us just cartoon characters feeding pigeons when I turn to you and say, it’s going to get cold soon
Better find shelter.
You take the burn boat out
Should have been used to
Ferried day trippers
Or taken provisions for the larder
But not this–
Watch a man built then burn
His own funeral pyre
With the ease of a fraud or
Automaton
Feigning the act of breathing
In and
Out
Just to
fool us all.
Last time I call you darling
Birds fly across
Crane toward heaven,
still see/only shadows
As the crow flies
light flies faster
-sound far behind
But shadows, old friend
In cold pursuit
And you so sure you can
Outrun them
I have sometimes heard
The voice of God
remarkably salty
And full of fire
He is both
Placable and implacable in His anger
The first with sullen men
Then unsparing with his only Son
No siblings without the unendurable
No blind and lame set free
Without his blood for me
1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV
[1] If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I were to write a book of fiction for my children I would construct people for them, community, a family, let’s say, a big, sprawling, messy family
Maybe they would live next to some kind of river
Maybe the dogs would talk or the fish would taste like brightly colored jello confections.
Or maybe these fictional people, these purely hypothetical people, would just be back up
The silhouetted figures you might see on the crest of the hill above the sycamore tree as the sun sets
After the dam breaks
When they-you-we
Might need the vigilant ones
The most.
Carrying Light 