faith

 Lord, what a wandering season

circling about you

stones in my shoes.

Lord, what a weary season:

I go out and come back

not finding

those streams, 

those quick and laughing streams.

The memory plays about these dusty days

like music.

Once when I was young,

creek wading in springtime,

the banks flushed and full

all the pebbles gleamed and shone

in the quick water,

the brown ordinary bumps transformed

to brilliance.

Manna, I think

must taste like the white wafers

at church: hardly a remembering

of bread, stale,

hard to swallow without wine.

Easy to grow weary of such food.

I hold out my hand for the white disk again

and again,

I go in and come back,

I return to you, searching.

I remember the press of brightness,

whiter than white, bluer than blue,

enough to crush me

into silence, a weight and light

to fill up heaven

to press into the earth

to fill up every fold of it.

I could not hold --

Oh Holy --

I would go on dying forever there

in that whiteness, 

but one does not hold glory

as one might hold a stone.

One goes on walking, in and out

returning, hoping.

letter to our children

 You are already clean.

Don't be afraid

of how beautiful you are becoming.

One day

you will look out and see 

the glory shining out of our skin

like light

spilling out of a cup.

One day

the angels will look at you and shout

in all the colors we cannot see.

Don't forget to notice

how beautiful this world is.

Don't forget

how to call shit, shit.

Cherish the beetles 

and the sweat.

Don't forget

this world is worthy

of your beauty

all of it.

Don't forget

how to be angry,

how to hope.

We are all made for beauty. 

One day the angels

will hide their eyes

at the light of it. 

You are already clean.

It is already shining out of you,

luminous in your blood,

your bone,

your skin and sweat.

Don't be afraid

of how beautiful you are becoming.

You are already clean.

a little song

 Today we work. Today we weep. 

With God's help, tonight we sleep

The sleep of God's beloved.

We mourn with hope. We grieve with joy.

We pray steadfastly, though we cry,

For we know God is love.

This little while seems long; the years

since Christ was born are centuries,

And yet we feel God's love,

We do not cease to work and weep,

And when we can, we rest and sleep--

All shall be well, for in God's keep

We all are held in love.

sky

The sky might go on opening 

forever, up and up, blue shining

into white light, Heaven itself

open and sitting on blue sky,

God's throne in the center of the sun,

and we beneath run, scattering, like ants, 

grasping our crumbs in mindless

jaws. We walk about with grief.

What little sorrows do we carry,

wearing them smooth like pebbles

in our palms, worrying over them

again and again. We turn around

our griefs until our hearts 

knot up like little lumps, nuts that

are hard to crack, until they crack

and show how soft they are, how damp

and black with rot.

What heavy little stones, what sins

beneath such ceaseless sky.

 

What seems like blue and ceaseless sky

is such a little layer, on a globe,

a nut, of such a smallness, in a vast

space, flung out, freckled 

with worlds--

And all this, curled

in love's palm, stirred

by love's breath, tended

until its epochs all are ended,

every soul ingathered, every thread

of fungus inspooled, every bond

dissolved and recombined, every turn

turned in at last:

 

what we wanted, what we worked for, what we earned

what we built, what we lost, and what we burned

these years beneath this little sky--

infolded now by boundless, bluest

Love

 

Jesus reigns

 You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge

When men oppress the least of these, the ones you made--

You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge.

When nations rest at ease, feast on fat meat, sit

on the bones of these, the ones you made,

and say "peace! peace!", knowing the bones

beneath them cannot speak--

You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge.

When the little, brittle birds limp, untended,

shiftless, and spend our pennies on their sins--

You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge.

When proud men preen, and vomit lies, and call it truth,

and fools leap up like dogs to lick up what they spewed--

You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge.

When greedy priests would weave another veil

between your spirit's power, and their flocks,

Or teach their sheep to heap self righteousness 

around their shame like dragon hoards,

or walk in judgment, blinded by the white boards

of painted over shame they cannot, dare not see--

You see, you hear, you reign, and you will judge.

And when still we go on stepping on our children's backs

to keep our ease, to keep our ease, to keep our ease:

You hear, you see, you reign, and you will judge.

The marriage of the Lamb has come; his bride has made herself ready

We sell our souls for privilege and power;

the church is no less guilty. An hour,

an age, God curse it. God have mercy,

we're worse than we believe. The curse we

bear we carry in our bones. We can't 

unknit it from our breath, it's printed

in the wrinkles of our brains. Stains

like commandments, God-engraved.

Our bread is poison--we consented

to eat, we called it sweet. How pure

the saints shine forth, unstained--

how full of shit. We eat the shit

the world sells, call it sanctified.

Was it for this our Lord was crucified?

When will the earth, revolted, spit

us out? We've sold the cure

for our disease for "peace," for princes,

for appointments. There's no salve

to stop this rot, this bleed. We need 

amputation. Christ, will this branch

that bore me burn? 

When will you, awful God, return

to judge your church?

God curse it, God have mercy,

who will pay for this unfaithfulness,

when your bride's idols splinter? 

Will you, in mercy, burn them

in our bones? Burn in the midst of us?

When will we tear out our eyes

that make us sin, that cannot see

past lies that were our parents'

inheritance? or are these lies

as old as Eve? When do we grieve?

Oh my mother, my brothers, 

when will you grieve?

 

daily

Alternate title: let's pretend i'm sixteen again. It's 2020, indulgence is survival.

 

I meet my dying every day,

going my way to work. She stops,

sometimes, to say hello, or raise

a hand to wave. 

No need to grab my wrist

for attention. She can wait

the years until I settle down

into my grave.

We'll have time, then, to 

get down to it: the conversation

we delayed, the real business. 

No rush.

She'll be familiar then

already, a face I've seen

daily, a white face, her eyes

a dark smudge

I can't read, though she seems

friendly enough.  Some days

I think, looking in the mirror

I'm becoming

less myself. My eyes less real,

like hers, my skin less flesh

and blood. She waves.

One day my heart too will

cease drumming

my blood cells on their tireless

rounds, it will all be still,

we will sit down

together

and she will put her arms around me

like a friend.