I have this recurring impulse,
Like an involuntary reaction,
Fervently whispering, “this is false,”
With mounting distraction,
“It isn’t this; it’s something other.”
I’ve ignored it- I’ve reprimanded
I’ve called it sin.
I’ve tried to understand it
Through the lens
Of how I must be wrong.
But the whisper abounds
Deafening as I’ve grown
Until the sounds
Of all I’ve known
Give way to what I might yet know.
If God is real He must be Really God:
Not quantifiably predictable
As an algorithm we manipulate,
Nor blindly biddable
Nor impotently frustrated
Or uninformed.
He must not be some cosmic vending machine:
What comes out no mere derivative
Of what’s fed in,
Not bent into our normative-
Our projection and accumulation
Of idea and expectation.
He must be separate but not severed:
Distinct in Himself, but whole.
Distinct from man, but not removed
Neither sullied by the savage soul,
Nor cold and unmoved
By human suffering
He must BE and not devour:
Out of nothing, nothing comes,
Yet we are and continue
Not created, not destroyed, matter succumbs
To the dependence of our venue
On a source that sustains
He must be Himself:
Unique, with persona and agency,
Not some pet we overestimate,
Nor garden of our fancies,
With fences wherein we cultivate
What we want Him to be.
These things seemed and seem
Logical conclusions,
He must exist above dream,
Above demands and delusions
Above even my own logic.
A tender age, we met: a chance encounter
The impassioned, foolish child
Admiring nameless stanzas,
Metaphors, and syntax run wild.
Sudden fingers of sunlight,
Blinding gold through ancient trees,
Extending delight to me in verses-
Complex, reticulated leaves
And the tectonic plates of my existence
Shifting, suddenly shifting,
Steadied my continents of passion,
Ceasing their aimless drifting.
A treasure in a field, a secret thing of excellence-
Evidence God’s intentions
Bring order to our accidents, and
Beauty beyond our comprehension
As the first eyes to fall on the Grand Canyon
The world is the world unchanged,
And then a meter closer
It will never be the same;
With fumbling fingers and twisted tongue,
I stumbled on unknown eloquence,
And the world is the world and the world
has been waltzing ever since.
I take issue
With nights like these,
Hard to please,
But even if it’s about me,
It’s not about me.
It’s all so new,
And hewn out rough
When he grows gruff
I wonder if this life’s enough,
Will I be enough?
Here is what I know:
There was a judge, an infraction,
And a widow who would not let go
Or succumb to distraction.
Here is what I know:
Jacob took hold, wrestling,
And would not let go
”Until” he said, “You bless me.”
Here is what I know:
You’ve told us to pray,
And I refuse to let go
Until You have Your way
In this heart,
In this family,
In Your house,
In this city,
And beyond.
A morning lingering into day,
In waking, walking paralysis
Our finer natures overlaid
By an interlocking antithesis.
Waiting with breath abated
For any signal to divine
If affection is reinstated,
If value is reassigned.
Late afternoon I went to work
For You, to finish what I started
Not for favor, or fear of shirking,
But because the work is imparted
And I had the time to do it.
When I left, You began to speak
My fears are falsity-conduits:
I’m only in trouble if You are weak.
Then You reminded me
I’ve been gifted unspeakable devotion
A God who desires, who seeks,
Who set time in motion
To rescue me, to hold me close.
Your love rained on me all afternoon,
I saw You greater than the foe,
And somehow I’ve been hewn
In Your image,
Which is anything but hollow.
You alone set me to pilgrimage,
And equipped me thus to follow.
I began the day waiting to forget,
These frailties fading into embers,
But You reminded me You’re not done yet,
And what I need most is to remember.
As the once closed curtain of time
Falls open, by accident, down the center
Like your lover’s blouse
Inadvertently untethered,
I stare indecently
At moments unmeasured
Illuminated by the soft glow
Of the forgotten
Or forsaken
Or forbidden.
The unbearable weight of sadness
From the depths of humanity torn,
Where a wound to any is a wound to all,
And the blood cries out from the ground
Pooling in accumulated tragedy,
An affront to all intent of design,
And the blood and loss and anguish must be heard,
And it will be heard.
I measure these frailties
Against the scale
Of Your majesty:
My fears are a travesty.
An accumulation of tragedies
Becomes a bag of excuses,
A candy jar of delusions
Dampening the effusive,
Dwelling in exclusions.
The conclusion to trust
Won’t make it so, but
Baby steps make forward thrusts
In my guts
I believe and I resist
I escape and I enlist
I surrender, I sulk, I subsist
I speak and, sometimes, I listen.
Protect me in my frailties, and even in my sin,
Guard what even I can’t defend,
For You are The God, and my friend.
She sent me her soul,
Her song, and I sing it
In the dark I linger
Ancient sparks flowing
Lost years crooning
The vibrato rythyms we all
Tapped out on our prison walls
Our stretched voices in tune
Sing.
Sing these lost years,
Like velvet green leaves
Ripped from spring trees
The storms appear,
And we dissipate, but
We do not disappear.
We suffer loss, yes, and torn limbs,
But we live again, and
Our song is here.
