Living in a Fog

the fog has soothed her mind
like a cool wet washcloth
dampening skin, dampening sound
wet, yellow leaves cling to soles refusing to be shaken off
like the busyness bogging down Imagination’s boots
a muddiness heavy and opaque

as if the ground was suddenly elevated
and thrust into the misty clouds
the fog enveloped
and she was high
higher
than the world
and the planner had fallen off the edge
into someone else’s hands

she prefers the fog
the unknown
when every next step could be every last step
yet it silences her fluttering heart
masks the commute, the lectures, the screaming children

for a moment only she exists
in the fog of an early autumn morning
the leaves sigh with her little breaths of relief
as she makes her way among them

but life still lives its busy commute
fog deters only school buses and airplanes
in any other world our souls would be quieted
by the misty air that soothed her mind one morning

media memorial

five years
two hours
fifteen minutes
twenty-nine seconds
since glass sprayed
like a blizzard of crystals
since impact spun her like a ballerina
in a pirouette of death
and the custodian swept remains
off the stage, left no memory of accident
but parallel burn marks soon washed away by rain.

here the grave of many gone before
though memory-less
the brothers and sisters purged pain
by eliminating evidence
to forget the cause
leave the effect behind to imagine
the unknowable was never true

we will build a monument
a white metal cross
commemorating the unexpected
a life lived once but snuffed out
or maybe an excuse for tears
as media hypnotizes us
as the movie box tells us is the norm
the norm for death
the norm for the unexpected.

the predictable for the unpredicted.

I will rehearse your dance in my head
hear the screaming tires
your screaming body
to the tune of the summer afternoon
when your heart stopped beating.

I will
                shed tears
I will
                fall to my knees

I do not know your last name
but I will.

to silence time

May I have a thread of eternity
may I cloak the beast of time
        like a caged bird
and may I play childlike in an unplanned cloud

Eternity is the sky
and we are lost in it,
lost so that we know not where we are
so we can do nothing to help it.
worry is the horizon we never can touch.

Time is claustrophobia
a tunnel small and dark
stifling lungs and mind with fine seconds of dust
too small to turn back
killing us more every minute inside

Love lands on my shoulder
like cottonwood fluff, my thread
careful not to depress it with time
let it go again
to skies of eternities

Worry not about the end of this
worry not of ache that buzzes restlessly
        within when he goes again
and quell worry with a drink of immortal raindrops

You and I are born of eternity
born into time
and our love is the flame
that keeps me clambering forward
to reach your heart.

To My Father

I wrote this poem as a journal entry one night, sort of as a prayer but mostly as an overflow. Enjoy.

What if grace came in gusty winds
that blew sand onto my skin
blasted me raw and open
and salty spray of sea burned clean
my wounds, my sin, opened me
wide or instead
just blew me
away…

What if none of me was left to see
but a light that cannot be moved
by wind or damaged by sand
or washed away by the flood
And You a light inside me
showed grace by giving what no one
else could,
yourself.

Grace flooded, gusted, opened deep
my soul and washed it
like river rocks, smooth,
no trickle will do
to save me from myself
No grace comes in sprinkles
no grace feels comfortable that is real
for it is sovereign, heavenly;
a tornado,
a tsunami,
a cross,
a death,
and then blinding light.

The Tide and the Torrent

I learned something about grace once, sitting on a concrete wall listening to music. Their voices sang together a familiar song whose words sailed unnoticed past my ears, wrecked, and sank into the crevices of my heart. So much of my life has been spent trying to explain the deepest movements inside me, those that I cannot see, not even with my soul’s eyes. In poetry, in prose, in measures of 4/4 time, my mind struggles to translate the tides that roll in and out, spill over the barriers of my eyelashes and cut rivers through my cheeks. The tide was whirling out of control in some unpredictable torrent. I choked it back again and again.

Each time I saw another cause for the disturbance in my soul. Abandonment. Apathy. Worry. Pressure. Loneliness. They fell on me, threatened to drown me in the waters of my soul. I felt like a bobber, under and up, under and up. The fish had taken the hook and I was in for a wild ride. There was a chance I wouldn’t surface next time. And there was a chance I’d make it back to the tackle box. That evening, the odds seemed against me. I begged and pleaded with the maker of my soul to sweep me away from that place in any way possible. Even failure and death seemed to be pleasant alternatives to the hellish turmoil that churned inside me.

That night, grace came in a way I did not expect. I drowned. I died. I found myself at the very bottom of the glass that day. The glass was so full, the glass was abundant and alive. It was alive for all of the other people singing, at least. I sat alone on the concrete wall suffocating in sobs. It was cool and dark. The stars were out, like God, but the lights above us kept us blind to them. I felt he was just beyond the atmosphere–the atmosphere of my mind, my heart, my planet… Though I suffered my turmoil alone, I felt he was nearby. Not next to me, not above me, not in front of me or holding my hand. He was in me, whispering in my heart in a language that only I could understand, nothing I could vocalize.

Grace came that day. Whatever grace is. I know it came because I lived, though at the bottom of the glass. I cried alone under the stars and a God who were not physically evident to me but were instead a movement within my being. I did not understand it, but with a word, the swirling tide calmed and I was drawn from the silty bottom, a bobber, a doormat, a girl. I was alive.

silent song

midnight, starlight
moonlight glow hides his face
still she reads those eyes
like lines of a poem, words literal
meaning mysterious
like a poem that bypasses the head
and drives straight to the heart

makes no sense
makes perfect sense
silence filled with connections
filled with language turns
her mind, a puzzle
or a thought once lost but
at the edifice of her tongue

so close but so quiet
she wills her thoughts to one desire
perhaps he is in her mind
perhaps there is no spoken word needed
his eyes penetrating to the heated core
he must know
he must feel it

his hands translate
as the moon hides his gaze
behind the wispy clouds
and his shadowed face
leans in, breath
like the hot August breeze
whispers drops of honey in her ears

goodnight, goodnight
midnight moonlight
starlight on her face
frames a smile
sings a silent stanza
a hushed melody heard
by two hearts one starry night.

Meet You There

It was something straight out of a Disney movie or a C.S. Lewis book. I wasn’t wearing shoes when I opened my eyes. It was the first thing I noticed because the sunlight blinded me, but the thickest, softest grass graced my toes. It was truly terrific, nothing like carpet at all, but rather like a sponge that molded to the form of my arches.

The grassy knoll overlooked a river about ten feet across but no deeper than my calves. Clearer than air itself, it streamed over algae-covered rocks in its quiet, therapeutic way. I couldn’t resist, so I danced my way down the hillside and splashed my toes in the frigid water.

He must have been missing me. I felt him before I saw him, a presence, a notion in my chest. And then so overwhelmed with emotion that I drew in a deep breath of prairie air, I caught his eye. He shaded his face and paused though he knew it was me. He always does, as if he must observe me from afar… as if he can’t take me in all at once.

He started down the hill with a stride of pride, shoulders square and grin gracing his face. Either I was radiant or he missed me terribly, for he never blinked nor did his eyes wander from me. Maybe it was just that we only had a few moments before the world closed in again.

I’ve missed you.

We spread the picnic blanket on the hillside and watched the clouds roll through the sky overhead. We didn’t need words. I ran my fingers through his hair. He hung his arm around my shoulders and stared into my eyes like he usually does when I see him. Time didn’t seem to exist which frightened me there. I didn’t know how to appreciate our time best because time wasn’t time. It came and went and paused and flowed like a bee working from flower to flower.

He leaned over to whisper in my ear and the breeze started playing with my hair. Time was back to steal me away.

“Hurry,” I said, but no sound could be heard except the wind in my ears. Soon I could hear nothing at all, only a silence like blackness, like a void. He furrowed his brow and stared back with those longing eyes that killed me inside. I had called it “The Look.” He stroked my cheek, and at once, time stole me away. I woke up back in the flood of reality. I turned over to the white glow of my phone next to me and checked for messages.

He was still asleep.

Sorry, I whispered to the night.

At The Kitchen Table

she reaches out
a timid appendage shaking,
extending to his strength in 
shoulders rippled
with curves of power

and he,
unaware of her,
hunched over a study,
an authority on the subject
carries unbroken concentration

with a feathery touch
her fingers walk the platform
of his back, broad and smooth
so she breaks his thoughts
as she molds her hand to his muscles

she studies, outlines
shades the angles with a fingernail
until he cranes his neck heavenward,
meets her bright eyes with his,
dark and shaded and mysterious

he is a canyon wall
a steadfast protection
as he envelops her with
shoulders wide as wings,
wide as his love

he suits her fingers in the armor of his hand
plots a course for her lips
plans a future
asks her
love.

Roadtrips With God

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wished it was a straight road to where you were going.

Thought so. Now maybe in a joyride sense you’d rather have some fun, curvy roads and lots of scenery. But in a real life sense, we all like things better when they come easy to us. Take money for instance: college students like me could always use a couple of twenty dollar bills in their wallets. I can think of so many things that 40 bucks could buy me right now. I think of all material things in terms of cost and value. Can I afford that? How much of my checking account will that drain? Do I have that in cash in my wallet?

If I had a constant flow of easy money, I probably wouldn’t hesitate to buy what I wanted. Or how about relationships? Academics? Employment? Reputation? The future? I’m in this awkward place where hindsight is 20/20, but the future is so different and uncertain that I feel I can’t really apply what I’ve learned so far. Quite frankly, uncertainty makes me throw up a little inside. I’m lonely but surrounded by people. I’m intelligent, but college is kicking my butt. I’ve got two jobs, but they just might drive me to insanity. And when I graduate next year, I have no idea where I’m going.

It’s really tempting to pray for God to make my paths straight, as I understood it. The easy way. The way of minimal effort. Or as I wish I could call it, the restful way. If I’ve ever had a life verse, a verse that got me through thick and thin, a verse that backhands me every time I read it, it’s this one: Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Or as The Message puts it:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
   don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.

I used to pray for God to give me the difficult path, the one that would exhaust me, keep me begging for more of Him, keep me clinging to His strength. I didn’t want the straight path as I had interpreted it. That was the path for wussies and wimps (excuse my juvenile French).  I prayed for all the worst things: patience, humility, understanding. I got every bit of it.

Then I compared the two translations of the Proverbs verse, and I did the math.
“He will make your paths straight” = “He’s the one who will keep you on track”
SO…
Straight path ≠ Easy path

Put simply, it means that God will get you where He needs you to be. The easy path really isn’t the straight path in this case. The straight path is whatever He wants it to be. That may not be on the well-beaten path, the path that you’ve chosen, or the straight shot to point B. It’s probably going to be the one that will teach you what you need to learn.

It maybe the path sans money or relationships or reputation. What you will have will be what you need. You never are without what you need. If you don’t agree with that, you must have a different view of God than I do.

And don’t try to figure everything out on your own. Now that’s a relief.

Chopin’s Lament

Chopin’s Waltz No. 6 trickled from the speakers and dripped into my ears as I pulled the pink tights over my clean-shaven legs. I wasn’t a ballerina until I put on the tights. Dressing the part gets me into the mood, gets my heart dancing, gets my mind ready. Despite the myth that dancing takes no thought, I find my mind exhausted by the end of a long practice. Toes pointed, hips square, shoulders over hips, first and fifth and pique, plie, arabesque. Remember your French, know your body.

I pulled the leotard over my body like skin. I was about to audition for a classical ballet company. Everything had to be perfect. Every piece had to be just so. I was patting my skin down with foundation for the stage lights when I remembered the purple stain he left on my skin. It still hurt to touch, but I covered it well. Nothing was going to hold me back.

The squeak of the bedroom door startled me. He leaned against the frame with his arms crossed. I waited for him to speak. After a few awkward seconds he said, “You’re still going?”

“Well, of course. Why not?”

“We talked about this.”

No, you yelled while you backed me into a corner. I started stuffing my shoes and makeup into my bag without acknowledging him. I slung it over my shoulder. He stood square in the doorway, keeping me inside.

“You don’t love me?” His voice was flat.

“You know I do.” I felt my eyes fall to the floor though I had reserved to harden my heart today. He caught my moment of vulnerability when he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Without another thought he tossed my head to the side just like he would have tossed a dirty tissue from his hand.

“You look like a slut. You’re probably auditioning to be some stripper whore. Put some pants on. You’re disgusting.”

He waited for me to back down, but I refused. I faced him, met his eyes, waited for him to speak. When he took a breath, I hooked him with a punch to the diaphragm. He backed out of the doorway as I shoved past him.

Things seemed to slow down as I processed what I had just done. How could I come home after this? I imagined that if he let me back in, I would never leave again. He may not even let me leave the bedroom. I pictured myself having to sneak out the window after he left for work on third shift.

Yet my mind was confused. My head was screwed up. I wasn’t sure he could or would ever really do that. He loved me. He told me those three words eventually every day. If he loves me, why do I treat him this way? Why can’t I love him in return?

I felt a grip close around my wrist. I can’t do anything right. He pulled in one swift motion, and my head bounced on the carpet when I fell. His arm swung back like a terrible baseball bat and came across my cheekbone. I thought of the audition. Of how I couldn’t cover up that bruise for it. I thought of how I would not be going now. He stood over me, nudging the toe of his boot into the corner of my neck and shoulder.

“I have never loved you,” he said.

A nocturne from Chopin cried from the bedroom, mirroring my heart but not my intentions.