We see each other all the time. He'd strap a polaroid camera around his neck, collect a picnic basket and me in the beat up old truck and we'd ride - hours of sunshine and starlight, laughing at the giddy polaroids gathering in the backseat. The AC pumped out an intoxicating blend of summertime and memory and we laughed more, drunk it in, heady as an October evening. The stereo was the sound of our heartbeats, ribboning forth like a kickdrum, eternal as the wind.
We stopped often at first, doing nothing much - checking the headlights before it got dark, keeping time by the blinkers, taking laughing polaroids of the rest stops and state lines, of the two of us chewing sandwiches served from paper sacks. Lately, we've just driven and driven even though the farming towns and railroad tracks are forgotten before they're even seen. We ignore the exit signs now, ignore the restaurants and their gaudy paper napkins, just keep on driving.
We could drive like this forever, you know.
I like it when you drive better. It frees up my hands to ruffle your hair when the wind musses it and to grip the consul between us when the road turns or you start going very fast.
I tease you about your grandfatherly driving, the left-right-left-again adage and driving slow being more than just a big laugh. But we laugh anyway, you and I.
Our favorite time of day is just before the sun begins to set. In this golden light, everyone is beautiful and even our polaroids look simply lovely. Maybe it's the colorblindness you have that perceives the world in whites and greens, or my rose-colored sunglasses, but even we are beautiful at twilight.
Sometimes, late at night, by moon or clouded skies, we pull the car to the side of the road and look at each other in the silvery grey light that follows the golden evening. Our eyes glow like nocturnal creatures and sometimes we grow afraid. Usually, we sit there in silence, our lungs heaving up the taste of memory and, still in silence, our fingers lace together like shoestrings.
Neither one of us ever stops the radio, except in those silent times without laughter. We need the sound to show us that the car is alive and will keep on running. We learn to listen for our heartbeats on the radio, proving that we are alive too. Because if all the polaroids are any measure, we're going to be here a long while yet. The wind and road signs remind us that we have a very long way to go until we get to the Pacific Ocean or Mount McKinley or the Continental Divide or wherever this old truck is taking us. The silences will grow and the pictures will discolor. But as long as we're still here and not hitchhiking back alone, we know it's all going to be okay.
"Okay," I say, and we miss another turn.
"Okay," you reply, and crank up the radio, where our hearts beat in stereo sound.
And we know that no matter what happens, if the radio is running, the car will keep on going, and everything will be golden.
Sparks of Illumination
Love is preeminent.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Even so, it is well with my soul.
Behold, a new thing comes like a dove.
The nails in the door glimmer with light and my head is light.
I stop.
I start.
I am back to fishing. Fishing to forget.
I have bit my nails to the quick.
He says to be a shepherd.
I will feed his sheep forever.
Then you do not hate me?
Let us love and sing and wonder.
I grow excited again.
There is no because.
Just a go.
a do.
a believe.
a love.
Yes, I am excited.
The nails drop to the ground.
Surely this man was the son of God!
And the rain begins.
I do not care what the gardener has to say.
I am weeping. And I do not wish to be told to go.
He is speaking and I do not want to listen.
Why? Because they have taken my Lord from me.
There are lilies and sand.
I loved him.
He says my name.
I am altogether with him and my hands find his, the places the nails pierced
He says My God and Your God.
Never again will demons torment me.
Like a lamb
He was silent
Like a child
He did not weep
I am ashamed
I nail the door shut
I weep for him and
wash my hands
Tell me you love me
Take me back to the start
It's not as simple as that.
You're a bad person.
You deserve your lot.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you
rrrip
TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE
amen and amen
i have calmed and quieted my soul
indeed, this is a new thing
The nails fall broken
Love is always a new thing.
We do not understand.
So
show
us
your
grace
We believe
in the name of Love
our Father
who art in heaven
We believe
in It is finished
in the water
and the blood
We believe in Joseph's wasted tomb
We believe in John's death
We believe in Peter's life
We believe in Mary's disgrace
And Pontius Pilate's downfall
We believe in the faith of a thief
Our sleeves are torn
Our hearts are whole
It is as simple as that.
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Friday, March 29, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve || A thief
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
A thief
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
blood
in
my
mouth
in my hands
nails
in my hands
darkpainbloodblackingoutheartbeat
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i am not afraid to die
just let me die now
throw me in an unmarked grave like the rest
rest
i need rest
no one will remember my name
to be honest, i'm glad. i'm not a good person
blacking out again
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
memory and other things i don't need
sound and other things i don't want
beside me another forgotten
forgetful
what am i called again?
a thief?
a murderer?
a man?
there's another one beside me, wetting
me with his
black black black no air
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
words
words
i have no use for words
why are you speaking
you foolish
what do they call you?
i don't even remember my name
let alone who you are
ogodogodogod letmedienowpleaseletmedie
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
you are a fool
my brother
you are a fool
do you remember what you did to end up here?
i don't.
yes i do.
i can see the faces
don't you remember too, my brother?
and the one
the one in the center center center i can't
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i ask nothing of you
i have nothing i can ask you for
you who chose this
bloodbreathsourwineburningbloodbloodblood
i did not choose it
i do not regret it
what else could have been done me?
i would bow before you
but all i can do is struggle against these
nailsnailsnails
to say
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
o LORD
remember me
when YOU
enter
YOUR
KINGDOM
for i will never see you again
but you will judge my soul
stretching up trying to
breatheagainstnails
will i ever
see
you
again
.
.
.
out
Paradise finds its existence.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
A thief
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
blood
in
my
mouth
in my hands
nails
in my hands
darkpainbloodblackingoutheartbeat
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i am not afraid to die
just let me die now
throw me in an unmarked grave like the rest
rest
i need rest
no one will remember my name
to be honest, i'm glad. i'm not a good person
blacking out again
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
memory and other things i don't need
sound and other things i don't want
beside me another forgotten
forgetful
what am i called again?
a thief?
a murderer?
a man?
there's another one beside me, wetting
me with his
black black black no air
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
words
words
i have no use for words
why are you speaking
you foolish
what do they call you?
i don't even remember my name
let alone who you are
ogodogodogod letmedienowpleaseletmedie
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
you are a fool
my brother
you are a fool
do you remember what you did to end up here?
i don't.
yes i do.
i can see the faces
don't you remember too, my brother?
and the one
the one in the center center center i can't
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i ask nothing of you
i have nothing i can ask you for
you who chose this
bloodbreathsourwineburningbloodbloodblood
i did not choose it
i do not regret it
what else could have been done me?
i would bow before you
but all i can do is struggle against these
nailsnailsnails
to say
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
o LORD
remember me
when YOU
enter
YOUR
KINGDOM
for i will never see you again
but you will judge my soul
stretching up trying to
breatheagainstnails
will i ever
see
you
again
.
.
.
out
Paradise finds its existence.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Thursday, March 28, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve || Pontius
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
Pontius
The violins are a sweet song, and I like them much better than the cries of the dying and the ugly sound of a mob.
I like to think of myself as a gentleman. I'm not a bad man, not at all. I pay my taxes. Have a pleasant wife and a decent family. I do my job without deviation or bribery. I'm a servant of the people. Everything a governor should be. I'm not corrupt, not violent, just a genuinely good person.
So why do I sit here, cleaning blood out of my nails and pretending I can't see the way my hands are shaking?
My hands are clean. I have washed them many times.
But I can't escape the smell of blood. It's in my hair, in my hands, in the throats of the natives as they shout for it in the veins of the man who I am not responsible for, the one whose blood is running in rivers in Jerusalem.
He is not my responsibility. He is not my fault.
I stand up, thinking about going home. It's late, I think. My wife will be waiting up for me. It's long overdue for me to be headed home. And then I sit back down, feeling the olive trees around me and the weight of the world tipping dangerously. No. I can't go home. Not like this.
All of them shouted my name. Coupled it to things that I was afraid of. They say they know what they are doing.
No one knows the price of blood on your hands.
I don't allow myself to think about the one they call the king of the Jews.
He is not my responsibility.
If they had not brought up Caesar -
But they did. It doesn't really matter - I straighten and run my hands over the nails in the gate - I am a servant of the people. I will do as they ask.
My stomach churns. Somewhere, a murderer is laughing at his good fortune and getting drunk in celebration. Not that far away - I tell myself I can not hear the screams and smell the blood - there is a man on a hill who is innocent. I feel sick.
He is not my fault.
I never could get the hang of Passover. So many Jews. Underfoot. Smelling of religion and subversiveness and mumbling frustration. I thought at first he was one of them. Just another Zealot calling for Roman blood.
He calls for his own blood.
He is innocent. I can not get past that.
I am all that a governor should be. I listened to my people.
So why do I stand, scrubbing at my hands as if they will never truly be clean, which, I think, they never will be?
Strange. I wash my hands and feel more dirty than before.
My wife has been crying her eyes out. She will say she knew it. She did. She was right.
No! I did what was right!
I can not get him out of my head. The way his tears were blood and his blood was water and the water that pours from the fountain is all blood too. I tell myself he is a criminal. I tell myself that the Jews want it this way. I tell myself that the lash in my hand was the scourge of justice.
I ignore the women - I refuse to give them names - who loved him most. His followers, who, with inked in lines on their bitter faces and frightened chewing-of-lips, cried their quiet tears.
The man they call the king called this love.
Love! Is this what you meant, you ignorant prophet?
Why can't I stop thinking of him? This is not the first death sentence I've given.
My stomach turns again.
He is not my responsibility. He is not my fault.
I wash my hands of you, you foolish martyr!
I look at my reddened nails and my heart seizes.
I will never be rid of him.
I know this now.
He will never really leave any of us, will he?
His silence is haunting. As deep as the ocean. Mysterious as death.
Or mysterious as love. I can not reconcile what I know and what the king said.
I feel the tug of life and of love in my stomach.
My hands shake.
He is not my responsibility.
He is
not
my
fault.
Love is irreconcilable.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve || Mary
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
Mary
My mouth tastes as bitter as nails. I could swear that when I saw his blood, it was mine too. My skin all over hurts. I'm quivering. I vomit up fear and shake more.
This is no place for a lady.
I am no lady, though, everyone knows that.
I can't stay here.
I run.
Until my feet are sore and bleeding and I'm beneath a palm tree somewhere far away and I don't really care what they think of me because, really, did they expect me to watch him die?
I know it shouldn't smell like blood here. Why does it?
I'm still shaking.
He won't die. He can't. He's like Elijah, my Lord. He is like Enoch. He will be taken to heaven in glory, I tell myself. But I can't shake the image of him, if indeed that was him, covered in blood and flayed skin, holding his insides in and carrying the burden of it all on his shoulders. Nails all in him.
He did warn us, I think. But never like this. Never did I picture it going like this.
My whole life is wrapped up in him. I don't know what I'd do without him.
It's with a sinking feeling that I gag and ask myself what this means. I just really don't know. I don't know anyone like him, my Lord.
What is really a marvel is the fact that it's been just a few years. I can still remember the days before my Lord. I envy, to think of it, the girls who will come after me and know him forever. Or something like forever. He's gone now, I try to tell myself.
The smell of sulfur always and the momentary appeasement of seven inner demons brought about by doing what they wanted, all the while sleeping in trees and by rocks and in homes I did not know. Blankly, I think that I was taken advantage of a lot, by the men and by the demons, but I really don't think I was. I invited it. I wanted it. But once it happened, I really wanted to take it all back.
He didn't mind the way I screamed. The thing I had become. I am not yet at a place where I can think about the seven demons and the way I was without crying. Maybe I never will.
Oh, who cares. Today I have a right to cry.
I have cried a lot in the past week. I think usually I'd be ashamed of this. But I've known what the others haven't, that this Passover is his death wish. I don't know what in me knew, but I've been mourning his death for days. Only now, when he is actually - probably, I say, not actually but probably - dead I can't accept it.
Maybe this is why I anointed him for burial on Sunday. I couldn't have done it today.
There's a nail on the tree trunk sticking out and my hand catches on it and bleeds.
I'm all alone now. I smell sulfur once again and I start to shake. I was alone before. I can do it again.
No. I really can't.
Anyone else, I'd say I'd fallen in love. But I know that's not what it is.
Is it fear that he's gone?
I watch the blood pool in my hand.
I don't know what love is.
I've had so many men in my life. It would be easy to write this one off as a particularly bad choice. Sorry, everyone, I picked a crazy blasphemer. Oops.
But lies taste like sulfur and I can't abide sulfur.
I gag.
I don't know how to love him.
Blood and dirt and vomit.
That's just it, isn't it? I do know what love is. It's him. But it is new. Newer than the blood sun rising up.
God! Give me back the demons and let him go!
I don't know
how
help
me
I've fallen
and
I
can't
find
my
way
back
he's a man, right?
There's more to him.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve || Peter
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
Peter
Never have I hated roosters more than right now.
I know it's not right for me to blame it. But I choose to blame everything. Everything and everyone. And very much myself.
I think, Simon. Really. You couldn't get your act together by the third time?
I reply, No, I'm an idiot. What do you expect?
As I stare at the nails hammered into the gate, the gate to a garden which I would like to forget about, I gloomily recall other idiotic moments. There are too many of them. More since I met the Teacher.
The time I got all excited about walking on water and nearly drowned because I was faithless. Not my best moment. Me, faithless in front of the whole group. No, not my proudest moment in the least.
So many times I shouted out some stupid answer because it was just burning at my throat to be said and then I'd get this look from him or from them that was clearly saying, Simon. Stick to fishing. You don't know anything.
Bitterly, with darkness laughing against my cheeks, I realize it's true.
Three times!
There is a stony darkness in me that that is burning my belly. I think of the Teacher, who is really the only person who ever believed I could do something right. The darkness is clawing its way up my jaw. I feel my face tighten and burn. I refuse to let myself believe that he is dead.
But I know he is.
I have a nail in my hands and I'm running it against the ground, absently writing. I think it's my name.
I brush my hand over it. I am Simon now, because Peter would have held fast.
I am not a rock. I'm as changeable as the wind and no amount of excitement can change that.
Lying is so easy. You just let a little half-truth slip out, grin in bitter memory, and carry on.
His name, paired with lies bitter as soap, is burned on my tongue. I'll never be able to look him in the face again.
And I might not be able to, I realize and then my heart seizes up again.
I don't love him, I tell myself. It's not like if Andrew had been carted off or something. Then I wouldn't deny it - he's my brother, of course not - but I would know what this tightness in my throat was called.
I'm too ashamed to look into the sky and pray, God forgive me, I am an idiot.
So I bow my chin against my chest and weep. The nails falls from my fingers and I am overcome by what I've done.
Why do you believe in me, Lord?
Because you believe in me.
My hands are dirty.
I want to make it up to him somehow.
And then I realize it. He is new. He is doing a new thing.
Oh take me back to the start
I could not hear
My ears have forgotten
I miss
I miss
The dawn comes softly and I put the nail in the garden gate, which I remember well. He is greater than me I fail not, and all is well.
It's worth it.
To be continued
Sunday, March 24, 2013
I wear a torn place on my sleeve || John
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
John
I weep a lot these days. They'd laugh if they could hear me say that, the men who travelled with me in the desert. "Really now, John?" They'd say, pounding nails for the tents into ground. "You, a weeping man? Where's the repent and fire business?"
Or maybe not. They had been there too, the first time I really wept before men.
My mother, when she was alive, would look at me with those sad brown eyes, turned golden by sun and by age and say, "John what is wrong?" I can't even count how many times she'd said that while I was growing up, because I did not weep. My mother was special that way. She always knew things. She saw things that others shut their eyes to, like how I never wept.
I miss mother, I think, with tears in my eyes. My father too. I think of them often these days, now that I see.
I remember being a much younger man and my father telling me about the child I was born to herald. He said love a lot, with his cloudy voice. "Father, I'm a man." I'd say. "Not some simpering magician, a prophet, Father. A prophet's passion must leave no room for silly love."
He wept at that.
For a long time, while I fought Herod among the lions in the desert, I told myself the same thing. I'd pound in the nails for my tent and say, "God is just."
I met the child, you know. The one my father used to tell me about, the Christ. He came to me as I shouted and my heart grew full of fire as I stood in the river, wet with the Jordan and with teh sweat of righteous anger.
Oh no, Lord. I am unworthy to even untie your sandals.
I all of a sudden understood my parents in that moment. All of a sudden, my eyes were full of tears and I knew what was wrong with me when my mother asked. It was the same thing that my father had tried to ask me.
What is love?
Look how far I've come. I'm not sure if it is blood or tears running down my face. Far cry from the voice crying in the wilderness, I'm reduced to counting nails in the prison door, counting time by the shadows of the sun and times my enemy has asked me who I am now. What I am now.
My insides are being eaten away and my enemy exults and what do I do? I weep.
I weep for Herod and for the hungry fire of my enemy eating with pain at his soul.
I weep for the girl who dances while she asks for my death as a game and the way that she will one day weep in bitterness because her childhood has been stolen in fear.
I weep for my disciples, who laugh and preach and sing the psalms, but who will fall to pieces like a jar when I am gone. They just don't know. Please God, they don't know what they're doing.
Mostly, I weep for the child. My father was right. Love isn't what I thought it was. What love is this? He is my friend.
And I tremble as I think this.
I know him.
I weep.
I am just a voice, Child. I am yours, save me.
Somewhere, I think he weeps too, and there is glory in his tears.
My enemy is trembling now. I can see the devouring fire in his belly and I choose to stand and laugh amidst my tears.
This is called love, my enemy.
A dove alights.
I hear my Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.
My head, my head
Tears fail not.
A nail falls like a pin dropping
And
i
with
it
Love is a new thing.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...
I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.
John
I weep a lot these days. They'd laugh if they could hear me say that, the men who travelled with me in the desert. "Really now, John?" They'd say, pounding nails for the tents into ground. "You, a weeping man? Where's the repent and fire business?"
Or maybe not. They had been there too, the first time I really wept before men.
My mother, when she was alive, would look at me with those sad brown eyes, turned golden by sun and by age and say, "John what is wrong?" I can't even count how many times she'd said that while I was growing up, because I did not weep. My mother was special that way. She always knew things. She saw things that others shut their eyes to, like how I never wept.
I miss mother, I think, with tears in my eyes. My father too. I think of them often these days, now that I see.
I remember being a much younger man and my father telling me about the child I was born to herald. He said love a lot, with his cloudy voice. "Father, I'm a man." I'd say. "Not some simpering magician, a prophet, Father. A prophet's passion must leave no room for silly love."
He wept at that.
For a long time, while I fought Herod among the lions in the desert, I told myself the same thing. I'd pound in the nails for my tent and say, "God is just."
I met the child, you know. The one my father used to tell me about, the Christ. He came to me as I shouted and my heart grew full of fire as I stood in the river, wet with the Jordan and with teh sweat of righteous anger.
Oh no, Lord. I am unworthy to even untie your sandals.
I all of a sudden understood my parents in that moment. All of a sudden, my eyes were full of tears and I knew what was wrong with me when my mother asked. It was the same thing that my father had tried to ask me.
What is love?
Look how far I've come. I'm not sure if it is blood or tears running down my face. Far cry from the voice crying in the wilderness, I'm reduced to counting nails in the prison door, counting time by the shadows of the sun and times my enemy has asked me who I am now. What I am now.
My insides are being eaten away and my enemy exults and what do I do? I weep.
I weep for Herod and for the hungry fire of my enemy eating with pain at his soul.
I weep for the girl who dances while she asks for my death as a game and the way that she will one day weep in bitterness because her childhood has been stolen in fear.
I weep for my disciples, who laugh and preach and sing the psalms, but who will fall to pieces like a jar when I am gone. They just don't know. Please God, they don't know what they're doing.
Mostly, I weep for the child. My father was right. Love isn't what I thought it was. What love is this? He is my friend.
And I tremble as I think this.
I know him.
I weep.
I am just a voice, Child. I am yours, save me.
Somewhere, I think he weeps too, and there is glory in his tears.
My enemy is trembling now. I can see the devouring fire in his belly and I choose to stand and laugh amidst my tears.
This is called love, my enemy.
A dove alights.
I hear my Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.
My head, my head
Tears fail not.
A nail falls like a pin dropping
And
i
with
it
Love is a new thing.
(to be continued)
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
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