head lines & heart breaks

I want to not want
But God’s wisdom has decreed:
All life is needful

I don’t want to be angry with you forever
perhaps
if I could just articulate
my disappointment
my heartbreak
my betrayal
accurately
with my truest fittest words
I could let the wick of this anger
burn down
and out of memory
I think I could let this
—you—
go
like a dove
over the receding floodwaters
to alight on redeemed ground
freeing me at last
to see what the Holy Wind
does with this disgusted exhausted
last breath of trust
I could enjoy a martyr’s sleep
and lay this burden down

December 2019

authority declares itself
(of course)
how did I not hear it
you declared nothing outright, original
you only ever quoted
underlining furiously
so many texts
proving others’ points
keeping every book
I ever passed to you
like justification fodder
I gave you the benefit
of doubts that might have
given me pause:
you took on any other voice
and its authority
(were you afraid
of your own?)
I doubt you now
to the depths
and wonder
if if I ever knew the you
full of imposter fear
beneath your veneer
of righteous acceptability
I was only ever real
in weakness and hope
and you—
whose every reminder
is a surprise gutpunch
wine mixed with gall—
you are thoroughly revealed
for what you
simply aren’t
Mark my words
you truly have none
to speak to me now

December 2019

the job of incense
is to bear fragrant witness
and gladly burn up

despite social upheaval
institutional betrayals
waning bodies bent on mutiny
irrevocably charred relations
unmoved grudges
reasonless fury
endless supplies of fear
wars and rumors of wars
merciless widespread hunger
arbitrary genocides
unsolvable disarray
universal chaos
and irreparable brokenness—
there are these inexplicable promises:
we are not alone
we are loved
all will be made right
peace is upon us
the kingdom of light is near
God is with us
love wins all days
decisively

how could this be true?
we’d never believe it
if it wasn’t deep in us already
a primordial fact
as basic as sentience
the smell of Home
inciting specific memories
we have not yet had

all this strange provision
smacks of truth
like a quick jab to the nose
and tears fall
instinctively
the signs are baffling:
not a victory shout
but an infant’s cries
not rousing drums and trumpets
but cattle, sheep, and goats
not a battle-ready army
but the curious, hungry, shuffling poor
this was—and is—God’s good pleasure
we are confounded
and compelled
this victory baffles us
because it feels like losing
it doesn’t feel like healing
but blessed suffering
this alien hope
arrives not as we hoped—
no lightning crash
overwhelming the dark
just a small candle
quietly defiant
bearing witness
to the fact of light
even while darkness
lingers

december2017