Poem

Time…in a bottle…or not…

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Time is a funny thing.

It flies

It pauses

It groans for tomorrow

It longs for yesterday

It moves

In waves

While the world continues, as it seemingly stops for some

But it is.

Time is

And we grovel at it’s feet

And we wonder where the break pedal is

And we clasp onto what we can hold

And we long for bricks to put on top our children’s heads to stop the growth

All the while praying they will grow, healthy and strong, and prepared for tomorrow

I watch you grow and I beg for it to stop and continue while I sit like an Alanis Morissette lyric, contracting truths against each other.

And we grow and move

And live and have our being in the moment

Sweaters on backward and inside out and all

Until we feel the most of a new day

And breathe

Deep

Because today is wrapped in tomorrow and yesterday at once

And I am you and you are me together, bracing for the impact

Life is more than we see

Life is wrapped in the endless toil of a day well lived, and a tomorrow, begging for something

Whatever that may be

My tomorrow is different from yours

But it’s the same

The hand of God, making meaning, while we go

And that’s enough

At the end of the day, it’s enough

Forward motion makes for meaning

So RUN!

Then look at yesterday and today and smile

Knowing tomorrow is breath

And we’re all running

The embrace of more than time

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When time stops do you feel it?

Is there a moment when everything is okay and the world is right and stands the test of time?

Or do we wait, with hunger, for another moment?

Maybe that’s the beauty.

Maybe the hunger fuels the fire for tomorrow.

I don’t know. I’m just you, reaching into the void, waiting for the voice of God to smile on my weakness.

Maybe clay cries out to potter longing for completion.

But the journey is worth the wait. So I’ll stand in the light, knowing the dawn is brighter.

And I wait because you’ve always met me there.

Nothing becomes something beautiful in your embrace. Sometimes it just takes a minute for me to catch up.

Exhaustion

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Few times, in my life, have I ever felt this exhausted.

Blow me down like the air pumped into a balloon and I will pop

Mull me over with words and I will implode to nothing

Sink me in the earth with a step and I will cave to dust

Sleep is underrated to the, truly, tired!

The promise of heaven on a pillow where nothing comes in but surrender.

These are the nights that test the soul.

And I stand waking with the promise of dreams while the world slumbers.

Life is messy

Sleep is treasure and my pillow is screaming lullabies that should be quiet

In the place of the mind where the quiet goes to die, I wait

Until tomorrow when the siren blazes another day has come.

Until then, don’t speak or I may blow away.

When steal hearts rust, the breeze is threatening.

Goodnight world. I’ll see you on the other side.

Hidden

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Maybe there’s something poetic about hiding in plain sight.

Or maybe it’s weakness.

Or maybe it’s strength to stay composed while the world crumbles and stirs around you.

Maybe it’s survival. Maybe it’s faith.

Maybe I’m not hiding at all! maybe I’m standing.

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job 13:15

Sing for the Light

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Call me into the deep where you are waiting

I’ve missed the feel of you

My head can hear you and my sensibilities know you but my emotions have fallen out the window.

Who have I become that my emotion is absent?

I was passion now I’m passive and that isn’t enough.

I don’t want to live in a world without feeling

It doesn’t satisfy

Reason is enough in a world of black and white but let’s be real we live in prisms

It isn’t enough for me.

I need the sunshine and the breaking of light over dim

I need to feel it

It’s who I am

And I’m not alone

We need to feel

Emotion carries us through the mundane

A world without feeling is nothing but muted strength struggling to hang on

I want to feel the daybreak

And cry when the light strikes the perfect pose

I’m not alone

I can feel it

So sing with me seekers and cry out for the dawn

It’s coming

Hang on tight

Listening

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The dark can be so daunting

The light can seem so dim

Still, from heaven, you are calling.

Can I hear your voice again?

No fear in death or life, though all of hell presses in

Your voice, the roaring lion, shatters mountains and hangs on the wind.

Still small voice, speak to me. I’m listening!





I wonder

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I wonder if there is a haven for lost poems deep in the recesses of time…some magical place of calm & noise all jumbled together to form meaning.

I wonder if there’s a mystery to the soul that will never be solved until we meet our maker and then in His light, all will become clear, like a translucent breath given form and substance beyond its particles.

I wonder if there are places where two & two add up to three.  You know…like me & you & we.

I wonder

I wonder at wonderful and it’s subjectivity, how the universals collide with perspective to form the moment when “it is good”

I wonder what happens to our dreams when we wake

I wonder what the substance of a prayer looks like from heaven and if mine have created something of beauty or a blob of selfish ambition. I pray the former. Still I wonder

I wonder about today, if I’ve lived it well or if it’s joined the overflowing tombs of the wasted.

I wonder if God allows “the wasted” to resurface in the mind & heart of those who are quick to hear.

I wonder if I can join that number & revive the moments of truth I’ve squandered.

I wonder if I should stop writing now, if maybe I’m digging too deep and will be found buried tomorrow beneath the pebbles of thought that pile to gravel in my head.

I wonder if this makes sense at all.

Some things I may never know…still I wonder.

A Day Without Zombies

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I haven’t written much this week, which is unusual for me. I haven’t been able to. It’s not the ideas or inspirations haven’t come. It’s not that the words haven’t rolled through my brain singing “Crazy Train” while plummeting frantically to the caverns of lost thought below. It’s really been a joint effort between life and confusion, each one vying for my time, sucking at my mind with their imbibing tentacles. They long for me. They long to steal away the moments of vision and clarity as they once did. I’m not easily shaken. Not anymore.

This week I’ve realized how truly blessed I’ve become. That seems a strange thought in the midst of the situation that presented itself which I cannot share with you, but trust me, it was a doozy! I realized that I’ve come to a place where problems (real problems) are rare. That is such a miracle since I once lived a life in which problems (real mind blowing, “how much more can I possibly take” problems) were the norm.

Then you sink to uncomfortable numb. Feelings stop so survival can take over. Your heart beats, you breathe but laboriously in an effort to dim the panic. Breathe in, breathe out. Hide the heart another day until maybe it just disappears. Who needs emotion anyway? My place in life is among the zombies, walking dead with no heart (excerpt from poem called Zombie I wrote in 2009)

Now those days have passed and I am alive. No longer the zombie I wrote about in old poems. I am fully awake. I am free.

So this week, though life hit hard, I find myself thankful. I’m not thankful for the circumstances. I’m not thankful for the pain. But I’m thankful that I’ve entered the realm of the living. I’m thankful that I merely have a problem instead of my entire life being fraught with a myriad of problems. I’m thankful that I am confident in the God whose brought me through so much before and will bring my family through this situation with good in store. I’m thankful that no weapon formed against me or my family can ever prosper or succeed. My confidence is in a BIG God.

I’m grateful for the promise of tomorrow, a future and a hope. I’ve always believed and held tightly to that promise. But now, I’m thankful for the promise of TODAY…knowing that God is with me. The creator of the universe holds my hand and loves me deeply, passionately, and furiously. I am overwhelmed by the wonder of it. I am captured by the enormity of its effects. It leaves me breathless. 

Today I am fully alive. 

 

Sunset

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What do you even call the color where all the shades & hues of the spectrum collide and meet  in the middle of the sunset? It corresponds with the nature of soul and spirit itself, a mixed kaleidoscope of beauty; inspiring, inviting, connecting to the core of me. It slides and fades; brightens and deepens in mere seconds. It’s just like your voice, a constant of brilliance, a myriad of excellence, a conglomerate of majesty before me. It breathes in and out freedom and wonder, intimacy and radiance. You sing and I am new.

The waiting world holds its breath now eagerly anticipating that moment… that flash when you speak. Explosions of color emanate from your mouth. You breathe and we live. Then when the fire of your glory touches the earth, light transcends shadow. Meaning surpasses the coming night. The promise of morning looms heavy in the salty air.

Brilliance becomes you. Color and light grasp in vain to describe you. You are vast.

Speak Lord, I am listening.

Color meets Sea

Collision