Flowers Growing in the Street

There is something about Jesus telling the religious dudes that rest serves men, and not the other way around
I imagine he said it with nonchalance, as when he drew on the ground, refusing to engage the crime of judgment or hate—
The very thing religion breeds when grounded in anything but love

Rest is for me, and then,
“The world is not for me, but I am for the world"
That’s not a bad mantra for liberty 
You start trying to do something, with the right motive
And then, since you can’t do a pure anything on your own, you have to let God in,
Laughing, as with an old friend who wonders why you were so long away

Or you can just pretend you’re good enough and then take precious things, like Sabbath rest, and make of them a contest
To prove how desirable you are, and good

Meanwhile the dog lapping at your feet
And the flowers growing in the cracks of the street
And the fire that rises into the night
Give not one thought to how good they are and just want love and sun and light

Let us always remember:
Jesus was accused of being drunk and loving bread too much
And, in general, having too much fun

The West, 1850

There is the reality 
Of long, hard salt flats shimmering in heat
Desert parched and cracked, longing for the sea
And dust and smoke
With oases and forests which, even still, do not yield much rest, and only dust for gold
And the long ribcage of mountains, old and wise but miserly, tearing earth asunder
Breaking men’s hearts with beauty and the heartache of endless obstacle 
Since the Rockies and the Sierras are, perhaps, the perfect metaphor for life

But above all the dirt floats the great idea
The West and Gold 
And somewhere northwest of here or there, a gentle god, the Pacific
Cools the dirt-clod feet of weary travelers, penniless and poor 
Who finally break down and sob, but still will say, 
With an adamant start and a sincere stare into the long, blue nowhere 
"I loved the idea which broke my heart"

What the Sage Said As We All Listened with Rapt Confusion

Well, of course it’s easier to chase flitting images, illicitly
And dismiss this as natural, our true longing, than it is to truly touch flesh,
Let alone press hearts
But if there’s no spark of love, we are left in fantasy,
Which is why pornography is not so much sin
As utter waste of time and attention 
Remember, boys: Even wanting love is enough for love
As the first bud of flower, no matter the size, is always enough for the morning and the day, and never to be despised 
And who said we were made for easy things, anyway?

Pastor and Priest at Starbucks

Perhaps she did not know for certain that I, too, was a pastor, with a flock to tend that morning
But her collar spoke of her lot in some Lutheran or Episcopal church, no doubt
The black and white, a muted frock, still bold enough to speak that the world is full of opposites and absolutes, 
Of bad and right, of dark and light

God, I miss the days of such clear notions
And categories in which to place all things
Though, perhaps, back then, the tradeoff for certainty was a lack of wind
Bereft the joy of a cooling breeze
And the colors, perhaps, were not so bright or full
They shook and wheezed, straining beneath our demand for righteous clarity

She nodded at me, knowingly, like you might before jumping out a foxhole, some line to charge, and I tipped my head, respectfully, as we stepped then into the morning, the sun just swirling the sky into magnificent orange 
The world clearly in its state of longing once again, like a dog waiting for its master at the door

But we knew how patient the day would be with its mystery,
Unhurried and unfolding its secrets slowly,
Never leaving them beyond arm’s reach, and such strong arms with which to hold them, too
Content—the world is, always—to leave so much unsaid
The earth and morning at peace with our unknowing
As we sigh and face the wind

And All the Stadiums Were the Same

Outside the fence you could still hear the crowd,
Their susurration interrupted only by whistles and the country boy voice of the announcer booming like a wounded bird from the stadium speakers,
As they plowed into each other, and the bystanders rejoiced at some choice display of gallantry on field of play

But you could fade the sounds away as you walked from the bleachers, the lights also pooling more quietly behind you, spilled like water clinging desperately to the ground, with miles of endless dark around
In the countryside, 
Where teenage dreams screamed like engines down country roads, some divinity to dare,
Where lust lived and died like summer thunderstorms, chased by the grip of winter wind

In the first grasp of autumn, the Southern grass turned yellow and hard with frost
Bodies gasping at the sudden cold
In West Blocton, Wedowee, Chelsea, and Pleasant Grove
The places changed, the scene remained the same:
The gravel parking lots, the hot chocolate, the chain-linked fence,
The high school penance, as we paraded, nearly apologizing for ourselves, to make our way through the world  

There’s the courage of warriors and of poets, and each faces its dragons
And we were battle-swept, each of us, and armored
Taking the long walk past all, so full of longing as to come undone

Every age has its promenades
Its way of creating time and space for ceremony, for masquerade
And sport, to prove our worth
And we were all there to find our birth 

For a moment I would wonder what would happen if I wandered away, 
Scaled the fields and just walked, into the night 
The sound of the game would fade like unwelcome day, the harsh white light crowding out the sky would suddenly grow dark 

But then my mom would say “Let’s go, come on,” and we’d get in the car and turn the heater on
The night both merciless and kind, and endless on every side
As a thousand eyes burned from the sky, full of curse or grace
The whole earth breathing
With a thousand arenas ahead of us
A thousand journeys yet to face

God Bless and Thank Him

May I never forget the man whose name I can’t recall, 
Who called English pounds squids instead of quid
As a dollar is a buck and not a duck, I’ll never know why he did it
Nor why he never smiled, since I thought he was letting me in on a little joke
But no,
He just ordered another pint and told me of his woes
With no self-indulgence, no pity
No invitation to carry his laundry 
Just an honest man, in reality, pointing out all the things that shouldn’t be and icing them with a swig of lager, before a glass of ale
Like we were all old friends

Some sorts are out of sync with life, thank God
We need them, jesters of a mad age
The knaves who personify our frustration, and our longing 
Who refuse to run and duck but look at life with pluck and stand out, the sore thumbs, 
Shirts untucked,
Who just take a cigarette and smoke it and hope for luck
Stewing in their lust and love, 
Waiting for the bus
Crayons unable to be pushed into their place within the box

God bless them, those un-coy foxes, and may they find happiness
And may we all find, each of us, trust 
On hearts unruffled by time’s dust 
Throwing down a glass upon the table, pushing over our squids,
And saying “One more,” with hearty lust 

While Spring Opens So Softly

I have found that each human—myself and all others
Have a place inside them all dry and damp, both desert and swamp, into which they are tempted to go

And when they do, they low the song of how they cannot be loved
Some crying it, growing addicted to their tears
Some pushing it down, to avoid facing that awful lion they fear

In that place of dark woe, where every atom of existence shudders before the light of knowing
The soul becomes a mouse, over whom the hawk shadow passes and the coiling snake sings
And all this while the pink spring opens up so softly, as a dancer who does not have to think,

And the earth, heedless of its own grave beauty or the thought that there might be no sky to rain on it,
Gives not a glance at its own tender self,
Instead feeding all things with dirt, and soil, and green
And so gives us spring

Miracles

Even if the world were full of talking bears or beasts 
And no one stared or thought it strange in the least
And even if by thinking we could fly
And with our wishing touch the sky
We would find other fantasies that render incomplete
This world of dirt beneath our feet
Our hearts still longing for the next thing
The absence of which would smart and sting
Which is why
We miss the many miracles, endless, and all around
Begging, longing to be found

Somewhere there may be creatures dreaming of a blue sky 
And machines that pierce it, taking people from here to there, over oceans, deep and blue
To great cities encircled by forests blooming green in endless hues, in springtime,
And full of things called flowers, called forth by mist and rain and showers, so chock full of scent it’s shocking
And nights rising on endless plumes of orange and pink, as evening falls
And stars begin to blink 
While the miracle of a hard rock, with dirt and sea, sails around a sun 
Their heads shaking at the wonder of it all

Black Jesus

The first time I encountered Black Jesus was above the Mass Avenue Baptist Church soup kitchen
I was sent to do some errand and passed through the sanctuary, where I met him on a huge canvas, above the pulpit, baptizing souls lost and found, his dark skin so different from the white Jesuses I grew up with

Of course, Jesus was a Jew, and I realized we all want a Jesus to look like me and less like you
But Black Jesus met me in some other part of my soul, where I had been long in waiting, as in a room, tapping my feet, knowing there was someone yet to meet

His eyes, piercing, invited me
And I sat in the cavernous sanctuary for an hour that winter afternoon
On long blue pews worn down by so many souls sighing in the longing to find something beyond a vague
sense of love:
A scent specific as fire 
A look as knowing as a lovers' desire
Something we’d not only live but die for

Love, always specific, in flesh and bone, is why I believe, after all:
Love cannot be other than eyes and skin
Not an idea but a hand, to open a door and let you in, and say your name

A mouth, too, denying difference, saying “All is the same”
But revealing, too, that all is resolutely different 
To humble you, to help you fall 
Which is the only way you gain your sight
And just enough light 
To see anything at all 

The Labor of Language's Long Wander

I.

The murder of ravens on the green hill got me thinking what other groups should be called
An awkwardness of teenagers, perhaps, or
A wilderness of stars, or
A gossiping of trees
A murmuring of breezes 

As the great, gray highway lifted me beneath the conspiracy of mountains
I had a moment of marvel as the absurdity hit me, 
Of language—
That we should make sounds to name a spoon or the moon, or loneliness, or emptiness 
And they’re all so different the world around, so many sounds, 
Which is proof: many approaches to a mountain, but the mountain remains aloof 

II.

The endlessness of mapping starts, perhaps, with a false promise: that we can put words to everything 
First, objects concrete and sure, as if the work will be a cinch 
Until the gradient increases, inch by inch

We name finer things, then, like forgiveness,
Labeling the ability to move our souls into release, into letting go, into peace
That this is so human a thing we need a name for it—
What strange reality

But soon, language evaporates before our eyes, into ideas and abstractions which can feel like lies 
Until all our longing becomes too fine to put any point on it, 
A mist always eluding the mind, leaving us only hearts, beguiled, betrayed 
As we grasp, in fits and starts—blind hands grasping through a maze—
To name things too pure for us to talk about
As sailors wrestling with a wave cannot comprehend the depth on every side, the vast sea and sky  

III.

The brood of desire, untamed, we fine at last will not be named
As damned language, dearest friend, fails us,
Inviting only our love and pity as its shrugs and almost smiles, straining, as we all might when we find at last our limits, and knowing it’s just pretending to keep on trying
Unable to lift any more the avalanche of rock under which we know, somehow, our salvation lies, if we could but name things rightly 

To name is to wander and wonder no longer, but, since it is our lot:
May we come to love the void, and not to curse the unfound shore 
And embrace instead the endless exploring
As in a great labyrinth 
Through which our wild, long-bearded souls shamble
Under a great wilderness of stars
A conspiracy of mountains
A longing of hearts 

The Ordination of All Things

After my ordination, with ritual and ceremony, enough pomp to feel we accomplished something
And after the party, 
I walked down to the corner, for to parlay my own self
For to introvert and breathe, sigh and smile, my mouth finding grace in the surprise taste of a last bit of pound cake, in dried sugar on my face

Then light fell in the holy hour, when things bow before the shower of coming night 
Everything lifted its head, then set it down again, like a dog welcoming its master, with wagging tail
The trees, the flowers, the blades of grass in the park just across from me
But also the wood and concrete and the city street, all flush with longing
As orange and pink cascaded across the sky
Like warm incense, a languid mist
The incandescence of holiness

So light fell in the daily reminder that all will be well 
The celebration of the ordination of all things
And a reminder that God, too, vulnerably dreams
And feels the sting of human being
And the loss that evening brings  

San Pedro, Mexico

We would walk to the bandstand at the plaza on Friday nights—
to behold the great cacophony of life, drenched in neon, as Mariachi music drifted across the parking lots and lawns, the speakers wailing the dirge of a desert town, to synchronize each human heart—
And after buying tacos and a coke, we’d sit on the curb as the wind stirred the dirt 
While novios walked hand in hand, in promenade, in Sunday best, above the fray

Those evenings seemed to speak:
Work hard all day and once a week, you can have your say, and a little drink
And lean in to love or lust, on tired grass 
If that’s your lot, then chin up:
A kiss beneath a tree with no business blooming in the desert redounds with miracle, and maybe you can
make it last
And hold it long within your grasp 

All the while, the great sun would burn down as if too sad to stay
But we hardly noticed the holy shades of orange nor the shape of the world’s temple nor its crown of thorns
And certainly not all the things we couldn’t name or say 
Ghostly within us, just kept at bay
Like how human longing is all the same
And we know its shape but not its name 

We felt, too, there is nothing new under the sun or moon 
Culture, too—once you get past the music and the food—is all a dirge
A sweeping of the soul so we can order our long lament
And our brave facing of the dark
With food, music, and miraculous hearts 

The Presbyterian Reflects on Communion

It would be wonderful if we all took the blood of Christ seriously 
If we let it demand something of our souls
If we let it in 
Rather than setting it as a serum on the shelf, to cancel sin
As if the goal were to begin, endlessly again, rather than to break free into some God-stoked revelry 

But 

That is hard work and would require true goodness and getting past religion 
Which we have shaped as the thing to numb the sting
And let us wear our Sunday best
As if God looks down with a puffed out chest at how we dressed
At our knotted our ties, and how we rise and genuflect

I wonder if we have not become religious and right, 
The shield against God himself,
The thing that God despises

But, then again, 

Why would we become good when we can just skate by on the great conveyer belt of life, Picking from it, like custards off a lazy Susan, whatever strikes our eyes?
All while we hold the promise, like a promissory note
Of a great piece of heavenly pie, waiting for us above, handed out by a Jesus of our own skin tone and color, who will say “You got your catechism right, so come on in!"

Still,

When we drove away from church I think I saw God, if I saw him right:
He was washing a window with tatted arms, strong and sinewy,
And I remembered some verse: if you can’t love the seen, don’t think you love the unseen

Well, now…shit

Such thoughts would be a grenade among us—
Who trust that our right thinking is the key to St. Peter’s gate
Even if , lately, I’ve grown afraid:
It might be an anchor’s weight, pulling us into a long and lonely sea  
And a sunless morning, long and dull and gray 

The Unchanging Smell of Fire

I take great comfort in the universal smell of fire and flame
Which met my senses, an old friend I could call by name,
As I rode my bike beneath the bridge
Where someone near me must have stood, in their backyard, burning wood

I suppose Genghis Khan also stood in the same holy pause before a campfire
And wondered, perhaps, about his life and its constant strife 
Before brushing away his doubts, like wisps of smoke and spark 
And Caesar and Charlemagne, just like the Christ, they smelled the same scent 
And so it graced their cooks and maids, too, like perfume
The poor and rich alike to smell the flame 

We humans walk out variations in power—given us by chance and place—but our humanity, equally graced, has the same sense to comprehend the mystery, without end,
The same blood and brain to entertain 
That refrain of smoke and flame finds us, whatever our station or our frame 
No wonder the prophets said that all the dread earth (and all of us), would be burned in fire, and born again, then called by God, by name

I have stood in the smoke of fires in Nova Scotia, worlds away
And the yellow-clad forests of Maine
And the canals just west of Oxford, near the shires where fleet foxes 
Reminded me of Beatrix Potter and my childhood

Young years come to me as I smell the scent, 
Days filled with books bound in orange with yellow leaves inside, inviting us to walk, side-by-side, by forest brook 
Or, to sail the world, 
This earth of water and barges and the holy space amidst the darknesses  
All touched, on holy mornings and dark night, by the holy smell of fire
As if the world is its own priest ever sending up incantations for the dead
Always spreading incense, at its feet, that we should stop and say a prayer
Before lifting holy heads

The First Day of Autumn

The first day is not the equinox, when the earth tilts past its glorious prime, but rather,
The first day we smell fire and leaves on the wind, intermixed with pine 
Then we know it’s here and sit back and smile
In the promise that, though we’ll die, there’s life again on the other side

And in my private thoughts what stirs, always, is the third grade,
(How closely scent connects the mind to memory, closer than a kiss)
As I see a field trip to the farmer’s market, when Janet Clark's batteries dropped from her camera and I was there to pick them up, all the pumpkins around us applauding for me, for grabbing the stroke of luck, 
Right place, right time, aspiring to be a gentleman and kind,
Though such things go out of style, they seem to be hard-wired as the desire
I already knew then—for the whisper of soft skin
And her bright brown eyes
My heart already so lonely with longing

And I remember, in ’85, standing next to the parade that filed all the high school heroes by us, their pious worshippers— 
We could not know their hearts stirred with any anxiety, how bright their smiles and their homecoming dresses, their hair pressed to impress us
And they did
And again,
The burning beauty of lonely longing was on the wind
Deep as any autumn orange
Smoldering the hole within every human heart, so desperate to be satisfied
We grow up, we remain lovesick children, writing the song of our hearts with dust and chalk 

I am strengthened in my climb by these memories,
Pictures in my mind which are ever mine and my greatest treasures
Gold which goes with me, consigned to some place beneath the daily pace of life, but always rising to remind me that, My God
The world is fair and bright
And that it is no small miracle to harbor such worlds inside us

So now, fire-on-the-wind, my old friend, ask me your question, once again: 
Can I enter in? 
Into the lonely, 
To make of it some poetry in verse or in how I spend my longing and my time 
And can I bless now the young hearts and minds being kissed of fire for their first time?

Perhaps at a table tonight, with wine, I will tell you, my love, of those places behind and hear of yours
Though none now shine for me with stars as bright as the light echoing in your eyes
As we incline the conversation back through time, tilting it like the earth’s axis
We, too, become turned until, at that perfect angle, all becomes still
And the firelight shines revealing the world that spins inside us

Our good glad work now is handing on some world, like wheat, to the children at our feet
To feed the lonely of their precious hearts
And eyes that are meant to burn like funeral pyres, the phoenix to give flight 
And minds that will carry memories, I hope, 
Always kissed by smoke and fire

For more poetry, click here.

The Widower’s Confession

I guess I was so starved for human affection that, 
I confess,
I let the barista's eyes hold me in a long caress

It was nothing, of course, as we stood there dressed 
In the polite niceties of daily intercourse, 
My throat hoarse for a whisper to be heard
Because, of course, there’s a part of every soul that wants to be deceived and doesn’t mind a line
“I’m fine” works swell for kindling a connection
And so I’ll pretend that we’re connected
Becoming the mark in my own long con

Sometimes a simple “please" or “thank you” can make me feel a part of something bigger 
It’s meager fare, but enough to remember the delight of sparks, without risking fire
So strange is desire: we avoid the thing we want

I heard a sex worker on the radio saying that sex has very little to do with it
It’s about people feeling they have a place, and that they are cared for, 
It’s an emotional connection, she said
I startled inside me as I hurtled down the highway, saying, “It’s fake!”
You can’t pay for such things, after all 

But, them again, some part of the heart knows and doesn’t care that the feeling costs a wad of green 
It just wants someone to stare,
Because that’s how very hungry we are:
Lungs screaming for air 
Ground so bone-thirsty-dry, we lap up water and cry for more

All this I reflected on as I sat in the dentist chair and the breasts of the dental tech brushed against me and I moved away while everything within me thrilled at the rush of a human being, greater than my guilt
I felt the need for blood and skin and understood why people go free-wheeling in violence
Or have a moment where they throw off their mask and go sailing head over heels into the winds of a great fire 
Burning out as a meteor on the sky in the great conflagration of their life
Because, my friends,
We all need to feel alive 

Old Men in the Coffee Shop

I admire the old men who have mastered the delicate art
Of conversations that don’t smart or spark too much bile—
The work of masters, really, 
A Mona Lisa smile in monologues that move sure and slow, without mincing up the mind nor touching the heart with acid,
But not flaccid, either, strong and solid their laments
Flowing in and out like rhymes and couplets, in time with their sips and the whining grinding of beans just behind them, as customers don polite smiles, bright on every side
And each man speaks his peace and says his lines, to define the darkness of the world 

It takes a specific talent, honed through years, to sit still between mouthfuls of bagel—
not over a latte, mind you (God forbid), but coffee good and black and hearty, to put hair on your back, 
In lament and stoicism they sip and spit, yet always they protect the hidden heart, where despite all their protestations, still are stored unspent tears they have yet scorched away 

Today, 
They talked of meningitis and a friend who had it
He recovered, but by God the hate with which they spat at it
“A terrible thing”, and fists pounded the table, like gavels, their graveled voices rising
As they always do, discussing war or this or that damn thing

They’ve earned it, this anger tightly held, through hard years, 
Survivors hard-shelled on dark beaches, whose secrets they’ll never tell 
Now ascended to their rightful benches 
Judges, passing righteous sentence on all the painful world 

I don’t begrudge them it 
You wrestle enough bears, you should have your due, sipping coffee and decrying hard truth, 
Your heart safe atop a bench of stone, where it can rest, and calm the bones
Frayed by the wisdom of so many storm-swept days

After all,
Sometimes all any of us can do is shake a fist at the sky and turn back, hoping good company can defy encroaching shadows,
And enjoying with what will you can the good dark drink of mother earth, you hope against hope for some new birth 
Trusting that what lies beyond will, like a scythe, cut from you all the longing you had to despise
And throw you, at last, into the skies

 Perhaps heaven, will be, in a way, a great golden sea of coffee shop 
Where old friends meet and, at long last, have their cry 
And say still, “Even for all that, ay,
Wasn’t there beauty under every sky?” 

Cursing in the Temple

They did not see me as they passed through the trees, down hill and trail

I sat beneath a spreading tree, on a fallen pine rail, above the dale, a hundred feet up, eating fruit  
And they were quiet, so I said nothing and even stilled the crunching of my apple 
So they could pass by like a deer, heedless of any prying eyes, minding the aura of the untouched all around us

But I felt a small pang of guilt, too, thinking that, should they see me surveying them, they would think my
hiding was spying 
And perhaps I was lying by laying by, breaking some unwritten hiker's code, but I simply could not bear to break the quiet
Or the peace that comes among wild things

Suddenly, one of them—the woman—kicked a rock which bounced off a log and back at her
And she yelled a curse word, laughing

It hung so strangely on the morning air, that profanity, glorious in its gory piercing of serenity 
As it echoed down the trail and against the rock wall a hundred yards across from us

Like farting in a temple, it was
Profane ink spilled on white sheets
But
The morning just lapped it up, 
As a mother wipes up spilled milk 
So effortless it absorbed it all, overpowering in its intensity, then gently 
Restoring the sound of footfalls and, after a few moments, the crunching of my apple among the song of leaves and birds singing soft through stalks of trees

So Eden is restored not with banging cymbals but the simple mirth of quiet
Like loudness never was on this bright earth

All the while, morning billowed like a great blue ocean all about us
In the temple of the endless world 
As the morning whispered that nothing can defile it
And the mountain nodded with a knowing smile 

The Morning Does Not Despise

The cold morning does not despise the burning ember
As hikers linger, still long asleep, within its shade
Nor does it look askance as the aspens tremble
Or roll its eyes at the laboring magpie
"Get up, get up," it softly cries, 
As the black crow rises
And the fog surmises its demise, with perfect peace

But the real trick is that 
The forest does not despise the spring fire which burns it to its base,
Every branch scored and scorned and stripped of mirth 
The birch and fir will fly, but first must go to earth
With that faith that fire, surely, will give new birth
And the morning, once again, gather all her children in

A Liturgy for the Morning

This morning I cleaned up the cards that we left out on the couch
After you routed me in Go Fish and I yelled “ouch” in mock pain as you collected the last three sets, prolonging your reign as champion

This has become my morning liturgy
Of praise, reminding me of all good things, as the sun comes up, 
You pull me away from tea, to say
Our Father, 
Our Mother,
Four kings,
Four queens
And this is a good order for starting things

Prayer changes with the seasons and this time is fleeting like a little fox
(Just yesterday you told me you’d like to walk to school alone, and so it goes)
But I am praying now this Psalm of you, in the only moment I can hold, like any—the one just here and now
Beholding you, and how
Full of miracle you are
You of the little hands and face and the laugh of grace
Whenever you steal my final ace

Oh thank God, the Faithful, for thumbs to hold these cards 
And to lose to you, as you learn how smart you are
And thank God the warm sun cutting through the dusty miracles of morning
Of which I am one

And above all, you, my dear
A doxology of promise
A prayer inviting me to remember that love is always loss, the pain of hope and longing and that we only choose between griefs:
Of regret and sacrifice 
And that only one, in the end, is loss

I will count that cost

As sets of aces fall, and jacks and eights
At this gate of you,
Through which God’s face shines, each new day
Letting bright, good mercies through