Comfort girl myself
I rifle through the postcards from
The places you have been
Looking for things you loved
Always people, always broken
Then strain to hear your voice
As you tell them about the Luke 13 people
All dead, all tragic until you
direct our eyes into the deep
Pool of Siloam, reflected the tower before it fell?
Did the blind man know it was there before he could
See you standing there
Across the street from all my loneliness
Beckon me come close
Brace yourself, Love
So close
to a reclusive keeper
of memories, of wrongs
Shuffling among the forgotten objects
Placeholders for the barely living:
anonymous empty
water bottles, hollow and crumpled
Become the jury
Old newspapers still swaddled in
Their plastic rain protectors
Told to be
Witnesses or spectators
Instructed to rise
As a one-armed nutcracker assumes the bench
Rag doll court reporter records the proceedings
Mr. Vinegar prosecutes while
the defense attorney was appointed from among the
A pantheon of generic
Happy Meal toys.
But the victims are living songbirds
Twittering in the disheveled
cage of my heart of course
Always re-animating dried bones-
Off-kilter, neglected, wrongs
Will inexorably be
Radically, fundamentally transformed
When the true King
Calls them back
To life
Voice in your head
Kinda sounds like you but…
Kinder, wiser, more forgiving
Bright penny on the ground
In the most unlikely places
A posse of leaves long wrung from living limbs
Dance, alive in the winter wind
Sing your name
No matter
A big impossible
Promise unless it is Truth
Kind that sets a body free
Not unlike those ephemeral leaves
Dry bones
Bits of things found
In the unlikeliest places
Love will find you
No matter what.
Just an ordinary looking guy with an odd refugee backstory who comes along, works with wood, talks some smack, heals the crowd, dies for all, inexplicably
Rises again.
The end-the beginning
for all of us.
“there’s no base!”
Exclaimed the girl–green shirt, tiny dog resembling a toy…
only real in the crook of her arm
And suddenly I get atheism–
Darwin shouts in the schoolyard–
no base!
And unhinging the game from…
well, base-
Another name for
The trunk of the branching oak
we rest beneath
breathing hard
before someone says
One, two, three, get off my father’s apple tree
Not to be confused with
That one inimitable player who says
One, two, three, base all over me
And somehow, miraculously
Means it.
her voice is metallic-insistent-succinct
Fire! Fire! Fire!
Thank God she is there
10 dollar angel
suspended above us while we sleep
…when we sleep
You know it took me years to know You did that
And then years again to know few others did.
Vigilant love, calling us out of darkness
where angels who watch over us if we
had eyes to see
Always resemble the Firstborn
Fill the sky with light
Ring the children with wings and eyes
And teach them how to vanquish
Implacable darkness
with words of supplication
to the fierce Unstoppable
God of Light.
middle page of something
My words to you
unnailed, unpierced, still love
Disconnect. Disconnect
these broken
Bones, sinews, ligaments
Teeth and bones become
Rebellious things in the house
Unknit, unswept, unmade
Until…
what is left?
When I cannot walk to you, run to you
Reach the limit of the horizon
Lie awake old
Teeth, old bones
Grind out hours in the dark
wondering where was
Ezekiel’s army beneath
integumentary sand
Old bones
No longer insanguinate
They lie down, sleep children cuddled beneath
The coverlet of
God singing His
Bruising love song
Lullaby in the place of the skull
Has, is, will
Sing to the dead
Broke-bone army
Spoke to life
Grip the blade,
Fit to fight
I have thought of this, my little love
Rifled through the pockets of my diminished
Powers of speech and human governance,
To find you all good things:
Enhanced night vision
Kick-ass ninja skills
The irrefutable assurance of your loveliness
Not enough.
So let us add:
Dragons rise to your command
Eagles lift you to the place where air grows thin
and may you
always see
The clear road home.
Too much, you protest
So down to this,
voice of love
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.
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.
