If I Knew the Words

2010-01-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

Oh, the things I tangled up and gave
to the wind I loved,
oh, the strings I watched blow away --

just to know I held them once and
that they were taken for wanting.

Oh, the footsteps I could count watching,
somehow never starting up to follow,
knowing they were leaving --

just because I thought they never would,
just because I knew how to believe

in nothing. Because I could. Like words,
it can be anything you want,
like I thought I could.

And oh, the greatness of the vacancy,
the tightness of the strings untied and gone,
the angle of the memories just enough

to remind me what it takes to lose,
to remind me what I lost to wanting.

I love you like an orange.

2009-11-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

It takes me five whole minutes.
Standing there, pulling off the skin,
picking off the white stuff,
separating the wedges,
and picking off more white stuff.
Seems like I never get it all.

Even eating it,
I'm still picking off white stuff,
still spitting out seeds.

An orange is not a simple snack.

But I'm not thinking about the peel,
not fretting all the white stuff,
not hating the seeds.
All I think of is the orange.
It's really good.

And I love you.

Dusk

2009-08-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

Funny how it gets dark now,
leaving me behind,
inside,
as if something has gone on
without me.

It's hard to remember now
the things that hold me
together,
hard to think that even
while I fall invisibly apart,
somehow I remain.

What adds up to me?
Which sum am I?
Who is there now to find
me when I've lost myself?
How will I know where to go if I
don't know where I'm starting from?

Will I be able to love you
into survival if I've never
known how to love
at all?
Will you someday forgive
me for bringing you to life
in me?

Maine 2008

2009-08-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

I saw an old man in Maine,
he was nailing plastic to his house,
wrapping up for winter.
It was cold and time for dinner.
Within my borrowed walls,
I wanted to be, like him, in occupation,
with a house to keep and a family to hold
and someone to go inside to.

Always waiting in the waves, we are
boats that hesitate, till harbors fill
and everyone is gone.

Calling

2009-06-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

How far is too far?
How long will it take
till you figure out
every word I say
is a promise I'll break?

How long is too long?
How far can I run
till I'm too far gone?
Till you let me go,
till my weakness has won?

Why do you still call my name?
Don't you know I'll always come?
I take what you give, then walk away.
You're a fool
to stay
calling out my name.

Collecting Myself

2008-12-25T07:47:00.001-08:00

breathe
in and out
don't think just
survive this
day this moment this
night behind

me and you i can't
live without and can't
hold in my hands and gone
now it rends
my soul like wet
paper killing
me as it falls
apart it's what i knew
it would be but i
believed

anyway and it's
this that will suffocate
me as i bend to
breathe in
and out

will it ever be
okay
i can't

breathe

behind front lines

2008-12-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

he, undefeated
untaken, unmatched, unbeaten
by design

invincible

he, unmarred
unwounded, unwon, unscarred
by design

invisible

what is unknown
cannot be forgotten
what is unseen
cannot be abandoned

unbloody
unbroken
untamed

invincible

unwounded
unhealed
unfound

invisible

Stay the Night

2008-05-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

For the first time I want strong arms tonight just because I would do anything to keep this darkness from closing me in -- for the first time I would beg without shame for safety and offer nothing in return. Just be there -- someone be there -- anyone be there

to wrap me up in real, in the middle of this vast -- I won't say you're beautiful or make you feel -- I'll claw your arms around me and shake like a child -- let you think as you will,

and when morning comes I'll rise trembling with relief and leave you there because life doesn't leave me time to store up arms for the night that's always coming, even when morning has begun and I should sleep the day when fear is at rest and you --

I would pay. I would do anything, I would say anything you want to hear, not because I would take from you but because I need you. I need you, I need you, and I don't think I can do one more night

with this fear, this alone, with this sleep that takes me in and leaves me wide awake with the terror, praying for rescue, praying that I have not been abandoned, wanting to not be alone

with this.

Bliss

2008-05-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

The perfect soul to
catch eternity as she passed,
to lose everything I need and hold everything
I ever wanted --

I take it apart, piece by piece by piece,
childhood hatred my lot in the end, trying to learn
each touch, each turn of the head, each step
to greatness, to wonder, to
worship.

Stare. Life takes this.
The raven carries it in her wings,
the sunset throws it lavishly away,
even worms feed on it like bread.
Here am I, with my books and my pen and
my self-made teachers, following,
yet all I ever learn is that what I see isn't
what I get.

Question

2008-04-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

So,
if there is something to believe in,
then my picture of it couldn't have been all bad.
In fact, I believe it was the perfect snapshot
of what I believe something to believe in
should be.

So,
if life wasn't designed to teach us all
that we're just puppets on a stage, and bought to boot,
and if you really wanted us to love
holding life in our hands and smiling
in the evening,

then
why did the pearl I sold everything for
turn out to be a fake? I thought it was supposed
to work like that. If you want me to believe,
why evaporate what I believe in? It's no case
for faith.

Don't
think I blame you. I don't.
I just don't take chances. I won't be duped again.
I wish I could be. I wish life was out to trump
my hand, to be everything I cannot dare
to dream.

But
if there really is something to believe in,
don't let me go on not believing. I'd give my life,
and gladly -- in fact, I want to give my life --
consider it given. Forgive me if my faith remains
as hope.

Orbiting Lost

2008-03-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

The universe is circling Orion.
I try to force it back, reset the stars;
my fingers fade like sunsets,
and everything I touch slips right through.

I go east, away from you,
then west, to get to you,
but if I walk away, I find you,
and if I walk toward you, I end up far away.
East and west trade places and I am caught
off guard every time.

So here I live, splitting moons,
separating hemispheres and sidestepping tides,
dreaming of an empty sky,
hoping someday to escape this gravity and
find a world with a road --
any road --
that doesn't start or end with you;
any road
that I don't have to walk alone.

Schoolbus Tuesdays

2008-03-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

"Let's both quit our jobs," he said, "right now,
and go to the Islands.
We'll work on my friend's boat and have nothing
but good times."

"What about After?" I said.

"What if there is no After?" he said.
"Maybe we'll never come back.
I could get a job."

"There's always After," I said.

And later I wondered if he disliked my practicality,
and if I did,
and I wished I could want it bad enough to go.
But the problem is, I really believe
in After.

I wonder.
Is life what you return to after the side roads
that take you away from it,
or is life the side roads themselves,
the things that catch your heart enough
to pull it away from the duty that doesn't,
that holds you back,
in one place?

God with sore arms

2008-02-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

I ache today, because of yesterday--
yesterday when I held my nine-month-old nephew,
sick, crying, tired, wanting his mother.
He was so tired his cries were like a child talking in his sleep.
"He's half asleep and doesn't know it," I said.

It took him awhile.
I didn't feel like home to him.
My arms weren't right, my chest wasn't right,
my voice wasn't right.
His head would sink down against me
but he'd jerk it up again,
determined not to let himself go.
His eyes would close,
but not for long.

But then his weariness got the best of him.
He relaxed in my arms and let his head rest,
till a few minutes later he woke himself up
crying for his mother.
I wasn't what he wanted.

Then he slept.
He slept so deeply that his pacifier fell out of his mouth,
and still he slept.
Resting on a stranger's chest,
cradled in a foreign love.
My arms ached.

I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

And now here am I, stumbling on,
sick at heart, weary, crying,
determined to stay awake and get through this.

It strikes me that God would love to have sore arms
from putting me to sleep.

Sundays

2008-01-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

It's one of those sentences thrown into the middle of a page, the kind no one remembers reading when they've finished the book. I feel a little sorry for it (and perhaps for myself, too), wrapping itself up in a strange mixture of muffled steps, a roomful of dancing kids, beignets heaped with sugar, and trees falling in a forest, debating whether or not their fall made a sound.

Tonight Joshua is singing about holes in his pockets just her size ("But I think everything is gonna be all right--yes, I hope everything is gonna be all right...."), and I lay out my mind an empty sheet of paper but all I can think is

if perfect love casts out fear,
then why
am I
so scared?

Gathering

2008-01-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

Remember me?
I am you
then,
and you are me
now.

I'm safe here.
They're all gone.
In this frame, the backdrop behind me
disappears.

Your shadow isn't big enough anymore.
You keep putting more of us
behind you.
When there's nothing left of you,
where will we go?

I like it here.
I feel free again.
Everything of me I want to keep
is here.

Take us with you.
We answer the questions.
We fit the holes in your skin
that life falls through.

I thought I could be whole
by taking me apart.

I missed you.

Are you ashamed?

Come.

The child in the corner, awake from a nightmare,
afraid to open her eyes?

Yes.

The one in the middle alone, with nothing to hold on to?
The woman behind the door, hoping no one sees her?
The girl singing in silence, praying no one hears?

Yes. And the daughter bleeding rage,
the murderess rampant with revenge,
the thief with empty hands.
The liar, too, with the price she's paid, and the love she's won.

The lover forgotten,
the child with the story unbelieved,
the girl holding all her gifts untaken?

Yes, and even the harlot who's played her part
and gotten what she never wanted.

Come -- let's go together.

Welcome home.

What I Know Now

2007-12-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

I found a hole in my shirt today --
A piece of me fell out and blew away.

The Truth We Tell

2007-12-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

A room stacked with gods --
The worshipper tying knots
To keep her heart cold.

Pieces of What I Wrote Afterward

2007-12-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

Sitting here,
Screaming with the silence,
Holding onto hunger...

Writing words...
Thinking that You, unlike me,
Understand me better written down,
Like it changes what I mean...

Asking questions,
Telling lies just to see if You'll catch them,
To find out if You know...

If I'm here
Because I want to be here,
Because what I said I wanted
Isn't what I want at all,
Then I'll keep writing and keep on leaving.
But if I'm here because I'm almost there,
Then take away my pen.
I need to hear You say my name.

Baby, even angels cry.

Souls Be Not Silent

2007-12-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

I once knew a starving man. He was well-fed, healthy, and strong, and still he starved. Not for leanness, but for swelling. Not for meat, but for his own words behind his lips.

When I had seen too much of the hunger in his eyes, I dared to ask him why he did not speak. "Save yourself," I begged. "We are listening."

"I dare not speak," he said. "Like your stifled tears, the first word would be too much. I am afraid I should never be able to stop."

"Then I will trade my tears for your speaking," I replied.

The two were well matched.

The Way We Go

2007-12-03T16:57:00.000-08:00

In the end we see the stars.
In the end we hear the words.
In the beginning we hear the music, and love the sound.
We are far away, and cannot hear the words.

But at the start it is enough.
We do not need words. We just listen.
We shape our steps and train our ears,
and we move on. Things take shape.
We are closer.

The dance begins. Each one to his own.
We begin to live what we have heard.
Then I find that you have heard what I have heard,
and we dance together, moving on
to hear deeper with four ears,
to see farther with four eyes.
We are closer.

We begin to hear the words.
There are words? We had forgotten there were words.
With the words we see.
What we thought was listening becomes dancing.
What we thought was dancing becomes looking.
We must be close to the player himself.
Surely we are close.

Then we are all together -- this world of listeners,
hearing to see and seeing to dance,
caught up in the wonder of the multitude,
this crowd of people who have come to listen.
We begin to hear what others hear,
to tell what we have seen.
We show ourselves. Holding hands,
we walk among the lines, reaching out, staying close.

In the end we see the stars.
In the end we hear the words and find out
we had learned them all before we heard the song.
It took the music and the dancing
to tell us what was in us,
to make us what is more,
to give us strength to hear the words and go on dancing.

In the end the player puts down his music
and listens.

A Baby

2007-11-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

She is 21 and, as of today, a mother of two little girls. Adorable biracial girls. She is divorcing their father in a few months, as soon as their year of separation is up. Her daughters came by her mistakes. Yet they cannot be mistakes.

I watched this, her second pregnancy. Watched her grow, watched her begin to walk differently to carry the weight, watched her eat spoonfuls of peanut butter in the mornings for extra protein, watched her lie down on the floor by the copier or in her office when she was exhausted, watched her face crinkle into a shy smile when clients asked her about the coming baby. Every time I looked at her, I think, I felt jealous. If it was a sin, I confess it, but my jealousy was mostly an awed jealousy, a wonder at the miracle I was seeing.

It amazes me, this child-creating life-making. It awes me to think of the warrior placing his seed in the maiden, the king entrusting his heir to the queen, the man leaving his future to the care of a woman's body. He is the strong one, the one to change nations, to conquer enemies, to lead revolutions, but his child is completely out of his hands. His woman carries his child -- his successor -- inside of her alone. She takes on the task of forming, feeding, growing, and birthing his child. He cannot touch his child except through the woman. He cannot love his child except through the woman. The woman offers herself to carry the child of the man she loves, to hold a part of him inside her, to show him her admiration. He is a man she wants to be continued, to be remembered.

It amazes me how lightly we see this. We forget how miraculous it is, how impossibly symbolic it is.

I hope that someday I get the chance to know what it is like. If I do, I hope I take the time to stop, stand on the top of a hill in the wind, look down at my body, and think of the magnificence of what is happening; to let my soul hurt with the stretching of beauty -- this little thing with a meaning so great my mind will never be able to hold it.