I don’t know anyone I can trust,
Anyone wise- strong enough to stand.
You know what’s just and unjust.
I know I am in Your hand.
I’m trapped. I’m scared.
God, I know You said don’t fear.
So I wait. I throw on You my cares,
I know You are so near
Deliver me.
I believe You
And I trust You.
Because You catch me
When I’m falling
And set me right,
Because You inspire trust
From orphans
Who don’t speak the language.
Because You are
And are always
Working all things
All things
Great and small
Beautiful and horrific
To the good
Of Your beloved
Whom You have called.
Of which
I am humbly one.
Forgive me
There’s an element of reciprocity
After the intentionality
Of my migration to this city
I pushed forward
Through the dense matter of fate,
And it pushed back
With equal force and weight
I purposed to end my earthly roam
I dug in my heels stubbornly
I looked to carve a home
From foreign scenery
I took a shovel and broke ground
The blowback broke me
It knocked me down
Hobbling my knees
If wishing and working could make it so
Perhaps I may have had a chance
To find my way back home
But I did violence to circumstance
And it returned the blow.
I remember, as a girl,
Watching Candleshoe
With my father; He cried.
I haven’t seen either since.
He’s dying.
I wish I could go
Back to that moment
And cry with him.
What I didn’t know yet
All I know now:
There is no one safe.
There is nowhere soft.
There are no guardians.
There are none who tend.
Only people who are hurting,
And the ones who hurt them.
My father swallowed himself.
My husband swallowed me.
The company drank up my love
Ruthlessly, remorselessly
Returning love with hate,
Refusing protection
Breaking my legs
When I most needed them.
And none of these
Were even about me.
I hide inside my own soul
Staring out at the passing days
Like a bus passenger watching out
At the scenery change
A bus that no longer stops;
There are no trusted stations.
My soul is a run-down cabin
That cannot protect from the elements.
In the inner room, I cup cold fingers
Around a small, flickering candle
The last remaining light of my faith
Battered and weak and alone
In the room, I keep silent vigil
To see if the light may outlive the night.
To mourn a thousand passings
To remember a tender thing
To grieve the innocence
Lost under the cold fist
Of arrogance and ambition,
Mercenary piracy,
Gnashing teeth and bony knuckles
The perpetual hunger for more.
The lost language
Of confession, repentance,
Sacrifice:
The core language of love.
I’ve been packing
All these happenings
And the people, too,
But slowly this time
So as not to run off in the night
Though I suppose a goodbye won’t do.
Once I embark
Leaving those stark
Yellow lines that tell no tales
Perhaps distance will heal much
Of the sharp edges time won’t touch:
Mementos of when all failed.
When the sun illuminates my absence
It’ll be like I never happened
They’ll go on as they’ve always gone
But I’m changed completely
They aired every corner of me:
I’m left behind, strewn on the lawn.
It’s hard in life, to do no harm.
At least they’re charmed
To skip conscience and confessions
They were very clear all along
They never did anything wrong,
They need no intercession
So I’ll leave them exactly as I found them
Because heaven knows,
Not everything that lives
Grows.
Last night, work was moving
At a fast clip,
And I was ahead, on top,
With room to spare
But I passed the engine room
With compressors humming there
Like a siren call
I was stalled and stepped
To the frame.
They were abuzz.
The brand name is the same.
I felt my friends beside me
In the world that almost was
Still echoing alongside my reality
Where I can, at times, peek and see
What I would have looked like
Happy.
Whatever I might say of me,
The me that I used to be,
I wanted safety.
HR disagreed.
She wanted me to leave.
It was her place to decide,
So I occasionally say goodbye
To the ghost of could’ve been.
Forgive me my sin
And bitterness.
How we hide our guilt
From our own eyes!
Forgive and cleanse
My Idolatry-
The lust, the flesh,
And the pride of life
I keep and feed
As a carnivorous pet.
Let there be peace
Between God and man.
Immanuel to ransom captive Israel:
God-with-us
Purchasing blood for blood
The Contends-with-God
As His priests of reconciliation.
I am Your bondservant
Direct my steps.
How much of my exile
Was their cold injustice
Or my shattered trust
Thrust into a peripheral recognition
Of my own layered grief
And the growth of a hidden relief
Born inside
The stupidest thing I could possibly feel.
Was I sabotaging
A thing insane to allow?
Could I not pull the root
So I burned it all to the ground?
I don’t know
That sounds like me.
And he is gravity
But insanity to indulge in the delusion.
Did I absorb the violence
In the inner rooms,
And pulse it outwards
To destroy the bloom mythical
Planted on my husband’s grave
A foolishness not fitting for
An old widow’s station
Has the enduring struggle
Only been my conscience in excavation?
I can’t know.
Was I forcing away the Masterpiece
I could never hold close
For the horror of having
A flood I can’t control:
A ludicrous thing…
I can’t know.
I was just starting to recognize
The dispassionate benevolence
Did I torch the evidence as tinder
With sore, tender remorse
Because I won’t be a charity
I won’t take half-measures:
My own pride
In murderous intent.
In my gut, I believe
I felt what could never be,
And I wanted it more than
I’ve ever wanted anything
Could I have smothered
Every good thing
To cover the shame
The aching embarrassment?
I can’t know.
It doesn’t excuse
The narcissist,
The Brute, or King Lear
But I fear I abused
Good People
As much as I was abused.
Am I such a fool?
Trying to kill the root underground
Under the forest fire
Before it grows
Before it breaks through the soil
Before everyone knows
Including myself
The humiliation that
I could ever presume
Such an inequality.
That kind of passion isn’t like me.
Was Canton only beautiful
Because he is?
Was it only a horror
Because I am?
I can’t know,
And if so,
What a putrid mess I made.
I must excuse myself
Quietly from the table
And flee
Under cover of night
From the complexity of the mess.
Flee until the dismay
Can’t keep pace.
Flee until the impulse
To lay my face on his chest
Or touch his hands
Somehow stops being part of me
Hide in anonymity
In all the threats
Wherein I’m native-born
To avoid the mortification
Of my indignity
To flee
To flee
That sounds like me
But I can’t know.
I can’t know,
But either way,
I should go.
I should go,
Because I can’t know him,
But his little grin
Is a gentle sunrise
Over a pink meadow.
His lighthouse eyes
Are two strong arms clutching
Pulling you from a raging ocean
His silence
Is a fire crackling on a hearth
In strength that need never
Bare the arm
Or strike the clay.
I have to get away.
I can’t know him
but I know what I am
and what I can never be.
This has been a spectacular defeat.
I always cut them from my map
All the places I’ve been.
I drive carefully
So I never end up there again
But every so often
Some corner I’ve cut
Cuts into me first.
Some unexpected turn juts
Into the landscape of my soul,
Etched forever in my rearview.
I can’t figure the exact moment
I fell in love with you
It took me til now
To realize it’s true.
Incompatibilities and impossibilities.
Folklore and fairytales.
How cruel it’s going to be
To carry you with me down my last trails
While you are off somewhere starting new ones.
It’s already you I weigh everyone against.
No one else is nice enough to let in.
What an unusual collision.
The thorn is still in the wound
So the pain stays acute,
But it’s a lie if my cries
Leave gratitude mute.
I am summarily thankful.
You’ve been generous in my need.
My praise derails because of details.
I feel shock as I bleed.
Don’t forget me.
Don’t let me forget Your faithfulness.
If only I could see this thing from Your vantage point.
viewingcamelot 