March 5, 2009

Job 19

i purposefully trashed
my basement today,
bagged up my needless things
to take to those in need.
In the midst of my ascetic
task of worship, alone
with the sapless taste of
half-used cans of brick-toned paint;
in the simplicity of making less,
i uncovered a blank canvas.
Stored recklessly on basement floors because
times of organization induce belief,
i can envision shape and color
and reproduce without practice or technique.
In one of these harmonized manic states,
my grandmother gifted me a 1 by 3 foot
quadrilateral of opportunity. i covered it
with suitcases, boxes of clothes, baby
accessories, dictionaries, and all
the candles we'll sometimes need.
i have found it is difficult to decide
what to create in permanency.

February 20, 2009

Isaiah 41

i know i need a frosted cornfield,
wide and quiet, empty and undefined,
with thousands of collasped ears to help me listen.
i must remain still, but there is a
devastating silence in dead woods, cracked branches;
overwhelming and stagnant, needing action.

So i know i must clean and clear,
stride through snowy wheat to fallen trees;
renewed order entering the scattered reaction.
i must move, but some movement trips, slaps,
and distracts. The limbs and leaves are beautiful,
but i lose purpose in this wind and confusion.

Then i know i need a frosted cornfield.

February 19, 2009

As the snow returns in winter,
i return to simple desires;
my wife's head upon my shoulder,
my son's hands through the back of my hair,
Your voice soft in my sleepy ears,
and a deep chair, to watch and hold,
and finally close my eyes until spring.

February 10, 2009

Matthew 16

Warm winter with
lapsang and Parmesan,
mac-and-cheese and children;
each one at a different
age of tantrum.
We are the young in You,
we yearn to tell You what to do.
The devil dwells in
our mouths and in our Macs;
behind our backs, beyond control.
Smarties in the hands of toddlers
long to be sweet, not crushed
and ground in carpet,
We rush to stop it, we rush to
say "no," to refuse and remove;
silently unsure what to say "yes" to.
Rules to life, attempts one and two:
close computer screens early and instead
join my lovely wife in her lonely bed,
and then wake early, to cereal
and self brewed coffee,
with wanton sips of priority.

February 7, 2009

Romans 11

i want to be the morning light,
slowly dispersing over hills to
drive the dark off the rocks.

My unbelief burns brighter,
for where You have abandoned
mountains, dug lonely caves

i wish to explore, to invade
these unelected quarries with
my oscillating flame. Underneath

i may find those uncalled by You.
i don't understand. i want to.
Lest i flare indignant, i must admit,

if there are some You do not want
then i will go, offer sorrow, apology,
and perhaps a cup of tea,

then hopelessly hope they will walk back to You
with me.

Day 8: Morning

1 Corinthians 1

"Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are..."

i have no fears.
My steps shake up the staircase
with complete certainty on knees
weak with exhausting hours.

But i do not doubt
the powers of reason and order.
For the record, the arduous duties
of early mornings and unattended evenings

do not register a ripple
in the cauldron where my emotion
tends to grow thick and black,
dark from the corner that it sits in.

In its uselessness, it is
unrecognized as the only useful part of me
left. Unadmitted, but without weakness
i am worthless.

But i will bottle the shame,
deep and outwardly forgotten,
so i cannot be shamed, i cannot be wrong,
i may never join in God's foolish song.

Day 5: Morning (2)

Romans 8

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Not the yellow of cigarettes
on your hands, nor the smell
left on patchwork couches.
Not the despair that lurks in
frazzled voices, caffeine eyes,
and seeps forth from every
sagging shag-carpeted corner.
Not your excommunicated past,
nor mistakes that made them
lay hands on your head, shake
theirs lowly and in self proclaimed
holiness send you away.
Not your daughters left in
Lafayette, not yet able to deal
with the dreadful understanding.
Not the unpaid bills, the
snow that sweeps in underneath
a battered doorway, nor the
tattered heater that fails to heat.
No, shambles have not the last word.
Instead, it is the circle
of semi-strangers, stomping
the snow off their boots, tossing
their coats on the plaid couches,
taking a knee with hands grasping
the tiny shoots of the shag.
You will never be separated from
the true last word, love.

Day 5: Morning

Romans 8

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory..."

An acrylic nail sketches out my tension
between my waxed eyebrows, powder tapped temple
the place now traced with my worry. Will he
storm backstage and give me another dressing down?

Under the lights of the filtered cylinders, i am hiding
but i am comfortable there. My fear and my pulse race when
the applause is at my back, the curtains are pulled back
and he is standing arms crossed and forehead creased.

He speaks very differently than i hear, words
wrapped in makeup of love and grace. When i imagine his
face, anger like lightning streaks from the spots
where softer tears should fall like rain. But candidly,

i've never actually seen him. Earnestly i strive to play
my part for his praise, but unlike on stage my real life character
seems a fake. Bit parts for joy, but mostly i am cast in shame.
The spotlights frame my first entrance, the auditorium

is wide and expansive. i can't see the back, like entering
my parents closet as a wide eyed child. It is enticing me
into hiding, escaping down the front of the scene,
into the crowd that is clapping aloud, just to not face him.

As i leap into the arms of applauding audience, i glance into
the depths. His eyes are not glaring, his fists are not clenched,
he is not back there. But among the ticketed, i see he leans back
illuminated by the exit sign. He is here among us, and he smiles.

Day 66: Morning

Psalm 131

At the end of this day,
i will lean back on Your breast;
and i will rest. Father, i will not

ponder politic or purpose,
but my fingertips will rise and fall
like gentle breaths, softly

across Your bearded countenance.
i will bury bloodshot eyes,
rubbed red, raw, and stressed,

into the crook of Your neck.
i will run grasping hands,
opening and closing in pursuit

of affection, through the lightest
locks that fall from Your hushed head.
i will lay down in that bed

and neither toss nor turn,
as You lay a blanket over me,
renewing me with sleep.

Day 65: Morning

Isaiah 65

"They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit..."

My hand longs to lift
off these keys for weeks.
My eyes long to look
away from other men's sons.
i have long been brother,
finally let me be father.
i would gladly trade in
struggling to stop the talking
for struggling to understand small
babblings, tears, and waving hands.
Am i putting in the work?
Or am i plowing fields
that i do not own,
where i don't see harvest,
do not taste the fruit,
do not enjoy the rest
because i have my own home
where i must move stone
lay sand, pave it flat,
and watch the wheelbarrows haul
the dirt back and back.
There is still a lack
of blessing of my choosing.
Losing time and losing sleep
and losing chances to play
nursery games, say his name,
catch his head, put him
to bed, jump and smile,
all while building love in
the home where i dwell.

Day 65: Morning

Isaiah 64

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down..."

She speaks becomingly,
with youthful common sense orthodoxy,
in these diagonal halls of change
we must rearrange our books
and look to do the impossibly dull.

She listens unbendingly,
but like the rigid twigs leaning
by the thousands on the rails,
being uncompromising only breaks
and cracks her, each piece smaller
and more inferior. That's the
feeling that makes her speak.

She prays a universal paradox:
If You are here, where are You?
She cannot see You rallying,
drinking Monster, getting dared,
being close like a sleepover night
that has been shared. And if
she can't see You, You're not there.

She is the request,
a cry from the drained soul
of change, a prayer for presence.
They reach up but You must
unveil heaven to simple us.

Day 60: Morning

Psalm 119

"Turn my eyes away from worthless things..."

Dualistic options of who to be
faced with ancient written word:
believe, be warned, find sustainability,
or believe after suffering similar failure.
Nobody listens, we all pursue
Solomon's same path, running the ruthless
ruts of gain, aspiring to the repetitive new,
unsettled to find everything still worthless.

Day 54: Morning

Psalm 108

"I will awaken the dawn"

My morning praise makes no sound,
many newfound apperceptions
are only written down with the syncopation
of keyboard clicks, pauses, yawns
and page turns. If you pry long enough,
pour over coffee and leather,
through eyes rubbed red you can find harmony.
That blessing, that lucidity, like the intimacy
of the first evening spent sleeping
head to heart, hand in hand.
It is a shout that catches in the throat
and never makes it out, never sounds aloud,
but the inner secret causes waves
that shake the silent ground.
Tremors through the dark wood trees,
my morning lantern leads
the rising of the eastern sun
and certains my refreshed peace.

Day 52: Morning

Psalm 106

In the desert they gave in to their craving;
in the wasteland they put God to the test.
So he gave them what they asked for,
but sent a wasting disease upon them.

They exchanged their Glory
for an image of a bull, which eats grass.

We eat chinese on the floor
right next to our prayers.
Amazonians walk miles,
all the while eyes stay
fixed ahead, asking.
We nail mezuzahs to the door
right next to the unpainted.
We stained the symbol,
chiseled the word,
expect blessing.
We ask the wind what its for
and whom it winnows away.
The Elkhart ends in
the Lake Michigan,
we jump in.
We rise again and praise our
buoyancy, our lucky stars,
all that is "ours" screams
that we are missing
all the Glory.

Day 45: Morning

i do a lot of speaking,
saying nothing,
asking much and praying little.
And even as i break sticks
to symbolize release,
i realize i rarely
ask that You would hear
my rambling speech.

i do a lot of speaking,
but little hoping,
and less trusting. if i must
be honest,
You teach lessons too often
for my liking. Instead,
answer my supplication
with vindication, or victory,

or success, or blessing,
not simple listening.
Your frightening lack of
predictability makes You
frighteningly difficult to fear.
Give me more than ear;
respond, react, move.
Make me recognize,

still my speaking,
spread my eyes over
the fullness of glory.
Reality is only spoken
into being by the Word,
by Your breath.
Nevertheless, i continue to speak;
this morning, hear me.

Day 43: Morning

Isaiah 42

"A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out."

There You are:
August oak leaf, fallen and crinkled,
dry and crushed.
The wind that spins it across concrete,
scratching by unmindful feet,
tossing it in the winding creek.
The drooping backyard dahlia,
staring meekly at cypress clippings,
where an assembly of prostrate petals
sing posthumously of beauty.
The dazzling and the daily,
the sun's ascent and coronation.
The clouds that sometimes confine
the brilliance to inner, sacred courts.
The sharp, brown and short,
grasses stressed until death,
lacking and longing and waiting.
The plants in the cracks
of the tilted sidewalk, i forgot
to spray them, so feebly they live.
The bruised reeds that i feel
an anarchic need to break,
float the pieces in fountains,
splintered but unsinkable.
Why do i see the deteriorating,
the dryness, the dying, the weak?
Why do i see You there?

Day 42: Morning

When i don't see heaven awhile,
i hasten to the shadows
and i scamper to hide.

If i am absent many hours,
and return to release our
pekinese mixed poodle

from the comfortable but oversized
canine chateau that he knows as bed,
but we know is cage;

well, in his release he runs.
i don't know if he perceives danger
or freedom, or simply choice,

but he doesn't stay near to me.
He has missed me, thus sprints madly
over bared floor boards

skidding into cupboards and doors,
in his craze racing onto fashionable
chairs and throw pillows, threatening holes.

The circling is pointless, fruitless, desecrating,
concludes with crawling into some lightless
corner, under the guest room bed

or instead into chosen captivity.
i shake my head;
come to me little one.

comfort, comfort, Holy One,
i have not sensed presence,
that's why i run.

Day 40: Morning

Psalms 79 & 80

"They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead."
"Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved."

The balance of my mind is disturbed:
You attempt to bury the undead.
Pinched nerves and broken hands,
slackening belief stirred with unabashed doubt,
despite that we think and act.

Songs rise with movement, slow to repose.
Who knows the pattern to the merging
flow of work and prayers, repair and hope
that will bring attainment of victory?
Oh how I wish it were that way...

Day 31: Morning

Psalm 62 & Isaiah 30

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..."
"My soul finds rest in God alone..."

Holy desire heaves itself against
the cage of my soul. O my restless,
rigid soul, which burrows and busies
itself like bees that seek a hidden home,
beneath or between the concrete
bricks that wall our small tulip garden.
The shame is that their work is exposed,
it's shallow and the product of that effort
is easily plucked out, a small twig picks
the busy hive from where it fails to stick.
If not a human weld branch then
that nest naturally would have washed
away in the elements. The fragments
already dust the pavement's cracks, as
the wind that comes and goes beyond control
has whipped through, ungluing
the last hour's industry. Seemingly Your wind
blows unjustly, for i toiled for salvation and strength,
and the blessed eats the fruit
of his labor. The cursed mills the ground
and never looks around, never sees, never can
just be; stills churns and mills even now.
i, the cursed, hurry for the value of the
extrinsic, production of the hive. While
the blessed, they find quietness inside.

Day 21: Morning

Psalm 42

"Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?"

Where are You?
i've sensed that You often hide face
from me. Asked desperately, why?
i wantonly search for personal
seclusion in the private nooks of
Your vaulting sanctuary.
i've looked for You in books,
prayers, rituals, and layers of
silence, stillness and fasting.
El Shaddai, send forth your light!
Let Your face be uncovered!
If wickedness dwells deep in me,
certainly it is unshrouded, i am sure,
for i've visited every veiled corner
of my soul and torn all cloaks in two,
searching for You. Instead unmasked
unflattering darkness, so i still seek
Your shine. Where do You lie?
How long must i wait, wait, wait?
Delay tints my countenance,
my soul becomes downcast
when asked to be content with simply this:
what is hidden must exist.