A year later
I still try not to look
To the left and the right
In the toughest parts
While I traverse again
To remove a foreign object
Pierced and slowly leaking
Hissing when I stop
I wonder if another patch
Will hold
Or how much of the original remains
And the looks
Of utter pity
When they remember why I’m here again.
I don’t want to talk about it
With a week
Of special reports
And remembrance coverage
Maps with a path in orange
Like a tourist trail
It feels like someone’s peeping
Peering into our private pain
Placing it all in plain view again
For their profit
Tearing apart what we’ve so purposefully repaired.
Let me put my head down
Pull away and be protective
Of me and my people.
HCMC
Have you come here
For healing or wholeness
Completeness or shalom?
With caution,
This is a stony place to land.
It’s not like they don’t warn you
Built in the manner of a classic fortress
Running spikes on every available ledge
Affixed pebbles just to be sure
Nothing is, can be, or will be smooth
As a speckled egg
Left perched behind the glass
Filthy from care
It must be warm must
Not be abandoned on the stony surface
And sure enough,
It’s not.
On returning the deep grey
Of rich business suits
With deep feathery weight
Protects and preens
There is no resting here
Not with finger pricks
The OT, PT, TBI, CBC
Roll this way and that
To dislodge the delicate skin below
We know that healing
Has come and will come
Sooner would be better
Says collective wisdom
And until it does
A schedule will be drafted
Turns will be taken
Prayers will be prayed
The Word will be proclaimed
Through squeezes of eyes and hands
Tight smiles and God bless yous
About to do a new thing
In these walls?
More miraculous events
Have occurred
Single fledgling
Incubated here
Tubes for just a minute
A moment
To be heavy
And remain
In hope.
Good Friday
Granny always got the peas in their beds
By Good Friday.
Which made perfect sense
As a small child I even knew
Growing seasons were different
Below the Bridge.
How did I miss the tide
That ebbs with the date though?
The moon pulls and tugs
On when we hang him high
So that it’s never as constant
As say the Fifth of April
I’ve spent too many of them
Too similar to separate
Holding hands while sitting bedside
Where the news is rarely good.
Nails pushed into my palm
That leaves their little crescents behind
Deep breath taken upon deep breath
Chased out to the parking lot
For a much needed reality check
Of the odds.
You win more throwing dice.
My peas are still in the wire spinning rack
Down at the Co-op
We will see if they get planted
Or tended
Or harvested
This year.
Can I be honest?
I mean really honest
About stuff you don’t want to talk about
Hard as the butt of a gun up to your skull
Soft as the warm pulse beating on top of my sweet baby’s head
As I nuzzle in and drink her oily goodness
I cannot understand what changes in me
Until a trip out with more little girls
Lands one in my lap
Bawling for the pain in her thawing fingers
Grasping with terror for mommy calm
So I hold her tight
Warm her hands
Shhhh her and rock
Until she buries her face into me
And quiets
I stop short of kissing her head
Many years before this
I would have gone through the same motions
But now when I reach out
In love it’s more and different
As different as talking and walking
You can “it takes a village”
Up one side and down the other
But if you still cross the street
Instead of lock eyes and check in
I don’t want to hear it.
They are all our children.
Not in some hand holding metaphorical sense
But in the brutality of a 12 year old’s murder
And the whispering about his gang ties
Facebook pictures of mirror poses
Like some kind of proof
He is yours to protect and love and raise
He is mine to prepare and bury and mourn
And we will visit when the grass has grown in.
Do whatever it takes
So that this isn’t a water cooler discussion
But a way of life
Dying to ourselves
Enough to bring about change
Women’s Day Eve
I got to listen to two men today
(One of whom I respected)
Discuss at length
“How things have come so far
For women
These days
More are graduating from college
More are working for higher wages
The battle is fought
The war is won.”
And it took every ounce of my being
To keep my damned mouth shut
I will not negate the work accomplished
But I cannot stomach the back slaps
Of ignorance.
And trying to be someone besides
The angry bitch in the room
Really got me nowhere today.
Ash Wednesday
Blow the trumpet in Zion
Says Joel, Sound the alarm
He’s talking about the air raid horns
The sirens blaring a warning
Like when the tornado came
He wants to warn you
Give you a heads up
So that you are not caught unaware
Better than the bumper sticker
Jesus is coming. Look busy.
Honestly, we have not done our best
Using the trumpet for ill
To announce, “We are coming to give alms!”
Like some kind of perverse ice cream truck
So we can be praised and patted on the back
For being such good little Christians
In the sanctuaries and on the streets
Not in secret
With the door shut
It all makes us dusty
Filthy dirty
Full of clouds and gloom
That is ever before us
Spread across our face
For the whole world to see
Offensive and wicked
Sinful and evil
And all the rest
As if there could be more
So we come
Like God asks
Return to the Lord, your God
Return to me
God begs
We beg
For restoration, rescue, reconciliation
Create in me a clean heart
Cast me not away
Cleanse me from my sin
For our sake
He made him
To be sin
Who knew no sin
So that in him
We might become
The righteousness of God
And we are
Though in these cracked and dusty pots
Still not perfect
But wasting away
Devolving into ash
All the time
Is there a holier pursuit
Than becoming dirty and dusty and ash like?
To mess ourselves
With the stuff of this world
Is to take on the work
Of restoration, rescue, and reconciliation
What the tornado splintered
Pulverized and obliterated
Takes on this endurance
So do the rest of our afflictions
Hardships, calamities, beatings
Imprisonments, riots, labors
Sleepless nights and hunger.
Who asked for the comprehensive list?
Did we forget the moths and rust and thieves?
Hardly.
Do you feel ashy yet?
We travel through this life so
We barely need the black smudge
To tell others
Once in a while we need the reminder
Of our own part
And God’s answer
To the ash
To the dust
To the dirt
The playground burnt
Behind Jordan Park this weekend
There was some ash
But mostly melted plastic
Firefighters pried up with shovels
To ensure the fire was out
Driving north the plume
Was visible
Hanging over downtown
From as far away as Bloomington
A smudge that started to disperse
Almost immediately
But the work remains
For the right hand
And the left
Barely knowing what the other is up to
Sounds like the church
On a good day
When our God is secretive
We do our best
And ask for forgiveness later
Knowing the truth is deep within
The treasurers are in heaven
And though we are dust
And to dust we shall return
We keep returning
To our God
Who covers us
In the ash of salvation.
A pair of prayers for a bishop
Oh God,
We are such frail creatures
Prone to all sorts of problems
Preening and prejudice
And yet you choose us.
Us to dwell in and love through
You have quite a sense of humor.
So, bring it.
Bring your Spirit
To build us up
To establish us
To hold us.
Because we know you love this church
More than we do. Yes, more.
Give us a portion of your wisdom
Through ballots and pencils
Flesh and sinews
So that when we leave this gathering
Having acted boldly
And committed to muscle memory
So that the next time
We feel a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place
We can call you out, and get on board, and move.
In your name we pray, Amen!
My Lord, what a morning
For the bright warmth of this day
And for refreshing and gathering us
We give you thanks.
Now put us to work.
Place into our hands the tools
For building up your kingdom on earth.
Give us wisdom and discernment.
Be not far from us.
Place hope where we can see it
If even only for a fleeting moment
We feel the flutter of feathers as
You alight on your church,
Let us leave here
Telling about the new thing you are up to.
In your holy name we pray, Amen.
Chronic Care
I believe in a good God
Who does good and loving things
Who created me
And all that exists
Called it good, very good
But as humans we tend
To try to make our way ours
Choose and move and act
Like we are the only ones
Who have to live
With the decisions we make
The whole “visiting iniquity to the third and fourth generation,”
Gets ignored
But it’s damned effective
So where do I turn
When my joints refuse to open or close
When my skin won’t be stitched together
And I’m curled up fetal position on the bathroom floor?
You know how cool the tile feels on your cheek?
To the one who created?
To the ones who carried?
To the ones who covered?
Yes.
Time and time again.
I’m not sure
How this gets better
Or where the stamina
Always comes from for endurance
But I trust
That it will,
Because it has.
My fervent prayer is for the ones
Who come after,
That they will not know
The ulcerated sore
That comes from disturbing the derma
Like a cannonball fired into a prairie hillside
Allows the wild roses to grow.
That I will be able
To create a childhood
For them where Mama wasn’t always sick
And they will know the love
Of the one who created them
In the same beloved image
That I will hold in my pocky arms
The love they create.
Bear Paw
Biting flies and sharp grass
Make the little pink wild roses seen
Scattered across the hills and banks
Of a battlefield long forgotten
Except for the historians
And the faithful families who come
With their pockets full of coins and taffy
The bones largely lie where they fell
Holes dug in the early winter snow
Allowed for only so much cover
Such a small rock for such a large man
Cannons hauled for great distances
To chase a people who belonged
Everywhere the wind took them
But this time they were so close
To ending the pursuit
Instead in a land well known and loved
The trails and the travels
Were terminated with the women and children
Not even a pole left to shelter them
Indentations and pale single petaled blooms
Cry out with how disturbed the earth is.
Good Intentions
If good intentions smelled when they started going bad
I couldn’t dig a hole big enough
To bury mine.
At nineteen I knew everything,
Like most nineteen year olds do.
And what I didn’t know
I turned to the experts and trusted
The trust of a still intact naiveté
So I packed my luggage full
And borrowed the sleeping bag
With a 70 degree below zero rating
I have no idea where we got
The sage and the buffalo heart
But I did run in and buy ice
At least three times.
We saw a man shot and killed in Albuquerque
We delivered food to the resisters
And I got my long black hair braided
By a woman old enough to be my grandmother.
And yet, though we were invited
And we brought gifts,
And we drove so far,
Why did we go?
What in the world did we think we were going to do?
Were we riding in on our white horses?
If so, this qualifies as the dumbest thing I have ever done.
Dug deep into my white privilege
I did to this community
What is now inflicted on my community daily
White people thinking they know all the answers
To questions that no one has asked
Bringing their junk and luggage
And leaving it behind
Because they need it so much more here
Well, karma’s a bitch
And she’ll get you every time
Now I live and work and love
A neighborhood and a church and a daughter
On the receiving end
So I just want to say
For me and me alone
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
I won’t do it again.
You can take it or leave it.
