The Hitchhiker's Love Song

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.

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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

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.)

Pinkie Promise

The Boy's eyes are grey. Did they used to be grey? Suddenly it's all-important to the Girl - were his eyes grey or is that something that changed in the ages apart?

He blinks with that steadily unfocused rhythm and rubs his eyes. The Girl watches him, with her hands caught up in the softness of her skirt. They weren't grey before. She remembers now. They were green.

"I missed you." She says to the now grey-eyed Boy who is still glaring off into the middle distance, not seeing her, not seeing their house or the little garden she made while he was away or the small dancing hills out past. His eyes are a hundred thousand miles away in a dug trench.

See, everything's changed and everything's died. The Boy's died. Why she bothers to come and talk to him every day, why she says those silly stupid sweet things like I-missed-you and I'm-happy-to-see-you and I'm-here-for-you escapes her. Her Boy is gone. Maybe his Girl is gone too. One never can tell.

He isn't listening even now. There's anger in his jaw. Her Boy is never angry, he wasn't before, before the trenches and the helmets and the rickety cots.

"If you'll be the Fairy Queen, I'll be the Fairy King." He said. They're children, winged by their imaginations and dressed in pearls and mermaid laughter. His little round face pokes out from under the bedsheet tent they've made. "Here. I'll make you a daisy crown." His little thick fingers twist a rope out of the air and add daisies made from his mind and places it on the Girl's head. His green eyes widen. "You look beautiful, Queen Fairy. There is magic in us tonight" 

She's overcome with a sudden wave of missing. Loss and grief, not because he's dead, but because he's gone. Her Boy is gone. Her Boy, with his laughter and his kindness and his long fingers clasping her around her back when they hug hello - that Boy is gone and the big bad wolf has stolen his body to be given to hold a cruel man.

She doesn't want to believe her Boy isn't in there somewhere. She takes his hands.

"Must you go, Boy?" She said. They're in a tent again, but this time it's a white gazebo tent, with warm summer air all in her hair and his green eyes. The grass beneath them as they sit smells of apples and earth. They're leaning against each other in that way that couples do, and her veil gets tangled up in his bow tie. "I know what happens to people who go away to war."
"All is war, Girl." he says gravely. "We are always at war. I just have to leave home to fight my monsters."
"They'll steal your soul, and then I'll never see you again." She confesses her fear.
"I will never leave you alone. You won't let me. And I won't let you. Pinkie promise, right?" They hook pinkies and sit in the grass with their pinkies hooked. "We belong together, you and me, Girl. We're the Fairy King and Queen. That's the magic. And nothing can change that."

Boy! Why did we grow up? Why did we leave behind the green earth to fight?

He did come home to her, too many moments later. She greeted him at the door, her green eyes all full of magic and delight. Her white veil catches on his medal of honor but not on his eyes. That's when she first sees his grey eyes and the pinched up way his lips are brought together. He doesn't see her. He's seeing the fighting. The death. The pain. There's no more mermaid laughter in him. 
He is not her Fairy King any longer. He is a soldier, and he has forgotten the magic. 

Boy, can you hear me?

It's been something like a hundred years of this, Girl saying stupid lovey things to Boy, wishing and waiting, while his mind does marching drills in his nightmares. It's hopeless, but I think the moment she acknowledges that, all the magic will fall apart and, like the Boy had said, all will be war.

The Girl's eyes are dark with tears. This is why she feared growing up, why she feared letting the Boy go away. She closes her eyes and wishes she was a little girl again playing fairies in the sheet tent. But of course she's not. She's all grown up and she's almost out of magic too.

Her face is soft when she looks at the Boy. For the first time, she realizes how young he looks when he is afraid. Poor little thing. Trapped in a grown up nightmare all alone. Her breath hitches and she stretches out her fingers, all worn and thin now.

"I never break a pinkie promise." She says softly, and her voice catches. She hooks her pinkie into his and shuts her eyes.

Maybe there is magic in them yet.

Maybe magic is just another word for love.

Maybe the big bad wolf can't devour someone who gives everything in a pinkie promise.

Bad dreams are no match for magic fairy kings and queens.

The Boy's and Girl's eyes meet, and it is green.

So the Boy was right after all. All is war, because we all want to stay children forever, but the world demands we all grow up. All is war, because the world wants to suck the  magic out of our eyes and make us as grey as sand. All is war, because love is always worth fighting for, living for, dying for, saying silly things for, and promising far too much for. All is war, but we will win it. Green will always  eat away the grey.

Pinkie promise.

Crying for Grey Hamelin

Follow me, little children, and I will show you how to be free. Do you hear the sound of my wooden flute? It sings for you the song of love. It is a love song, darling. So follow me and I will teach you.

My eyes shall guide you and my song shall lead you. You must not see the cave walls around us, hush-a-bye, little children. My flute enchants you, does it not, my children? Your hearts will be made free.

That voice which cries in the mountains and among the desert streams, is not mine, my children (for mine you are now). Ignore that not-my-song, my loves, my ltitle ones. Your fathers can not hear you among the snow-filled caverns. You are mine now, and this is the song of freedom.

The children awaken among the dragon's lair and cry for grey Hamelin. What have we done, they cry. What did we do to get here?

The piper smiles and lifts the flute to his lips once more. The children open their mouths to cry and cover their eyes, but the sweet sound of chains does bind them. Their eyes turn to the heavens and all of us join hands and fall into the paradise that we call Hell. See, it's dark and it's quiet here, without the scary snow and the dragon with the flute.

One little child stands up and opens his eyes. His ears are bleeding and he turns from the piper and the open sky without the cave and he shakes his head. Slowly, slowly, then faster and faster and he sings.

The song is not new, but it's his father's song, and the wind's song, and the laughter's song, and the song the piper was trying to remember. It is the child's song.

It is the song of freedom. 

And the snow crumbles down.

like a girl in a red cloak

you have turned my mourning into dancing

and i left my sackcloth in the river

because i would rather wear a ballet slipper than 

have ash on my forehead

and (ladies and gentlemen, step right up!)

i will not soil my hope with mourning

i see light

and my head is killing me

because the light will burn away

all the darkness in my eyes and wash the gas mask

from my mouth

i will dress myself in ballet slippers

and my heart will be more filled with joy

(the funny thing is, i am not really happy

sort of happy

but i am, like a girl in a red cloak, not afraid of the darkness

for i will hug the wolves and throw down my heart to 

die to live)

because that is joy

i will not fear

i would rather dance

than twirl away my responsibilities

and forget the wolves in sadness

and draw wet sackcloth in my mind

Nobody's Eye

I was born like a Cyclops
My eye, overlarge and weepy,
focuses and rolls
and if I can't remember where
to look too like a snake
I when I forget change from
Polyphemus to Medusa
and my one eye will burn to stone
And my hair will poison
you with its fragrance
Because I'm Nobody and Nobody
remembers where the siren's song leads
Maybe the man who built the dove's boat
He was so full of faith and salt
So by faith and salt and rainbows and a broken mirror
My one eye opens
And the serpents vomit up their applesauce
And I see a great laughing
Skyful star
And all of a sudden
I'm very meek weak hopeful
That my eye will never open again
And my heart will be all more like a
Nobody

To Remember How to See

In such a place, where the ghost queen kisses the ghost king as they dance in harmony, I suppose it's not so unusual, the love story that unfolded in harmful song. For this is a love story, and it is not mine, and yet, it is all mine.

Once there was a small green dragon with golden eyes. He loved a princess, long-haired, pointed-chin. She was not a ghost like her parents, but I suppose being raised by ghosts takes a toll on you. She was as young as the dragon boy, but she didn't seem it. Forgetting and remembering, over and over, had aged her. She smiled at him, and to her, that meant love.

She had a secret, and the secret was as large and terrible as the forbidden wood where he lived. She had read the stories handed down by faerie godmothers of centuries before, and knew that a dragon's heart is enough to stop age, to promote immortality, to restore to a prematurely old princess the youth she ought to have. And I think that was the reason she loved the dragon most - he could heal her, if she ate his heart.

He was silly over her. He loved her more than anything and he wanted nothing but her love. That's why he was sad, that day. It was foggy and grey and the hunting hounds were out.

"Whoever catches the small green dragon, the one with love in his eyes, will be rewarded." The princess proclaimed to the hunting party. "I will give them all that they ever desire. I will acknowledge them as the  mighty hunter, the dragon-slayer, that they most want to be. But the dragon must not know what you are doing, or it will consume you in its fiery wrath."

The hunters set out, and one, a sharp-faced skinny thing with overlarge eyes, drew her bow against herself.She was small, and a little scared, because she didn't have any concept of killing. She was a healer. She liked to make things feel better, by her hands, and she was good at it. Cuts and bruises, broken hearts and sadness, all fell to the forest floor with her, the huntress and healer. I don't know why she wanted to find the dragon. Maybe she could feel his sadness.

She shut her eyes and let the forest spin around her like the world in orbit. She knew she could find the dragon, because the huntress was named Pity, and Pity always finds those who are in love.

She felt hot breath against her and opened her eyes, and there he stood, the weepy-eyed green dragon. Somehow, she was not surprised. "Good evening."

"They're looking for me, aren't they?" said the small dragon. "The hunters?"

The thin huntress nodded.

"If they knew what it was to love, they'd know where to find me." he said mournfully. He turned his great sad eyes from the mountains to the girl. "I never wanted to run from the princess. You must understand love, to find me. What is your name?"

Love is a great thing to understand. She blushed. "I'm called Pity. I'm a huntress and a healer."

"Pity. That is a good name." The dragon says, infinite sadness and infinite wisdom coloring his voice. "Are you going to take me to see her at last? That's what you're here for."

Pity had not realized how hard this would be. He was a fool. The princess would kill him, and he couldn't even see it, because he loved her. One thing she knew - this poor fool was the sweetest of monster, and maybe she did understand love, because I think she loved the poor dragon. "I have to tell you something."

"I will listen."

Of course, she can't just say the princess means to kill him in her selfish want of love. She closed her eyes and listened again, hearing his heartbeat. "Why do you love her?" She puts her healing hands against his chest, feeling sadness seeping into her fingers.

"Can the bee explain why it makes its honey sweet? Does the mountain know why it shadows the towns below? Can a huntress tell away her knowledge of the bow?" He shook his head. "You and I are alike, Pity. You know love too, and you don't understand it, same as me. That's why I trusted you, Pity. That's why I let you see me, why we found each other. Because we're both starving because we don't know what we know. We have both given everything, too, haven't we?"

No one had ever talked to Pity like this before. "Are you saying that my listening is giving?"

A great, steaming dragon tear fell to the ground. "It is also taking. You are pulled, little Pity. And you do not understand the things you know."

"Dragon!" She turns to him with concern in her forehead. "You are bleeding!"

"You have cut me, Pity. Your hands are the hands of a huntress." The dragon says weakly.

"No! No, I never meant to hurt you!" She presses her hands to the hole in his chest. The blood falls through her fingers, and the wound begins to close.

"Take your hand away. Your healing can not truly heal. You only want the pain to stop, I know your kind well, Pity, but it will only hurt it all more." He gasps and pushes her hand away. His heart falls free from his chest.

"No! No, I never meant to hurt you! All I wanted to do was make you feel better!" Tears are pouring from her, and join his blood.

"It's all right, Pity. I wanted this. And better to be killed by a small girl named Pity than a giant called Regret." He turned to her, weakly. "You do not understand the things you know, not at all. You are no healer."

Tears poured from all of her. "I know. I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

He put his talon against her back. "No, don't feel bad, my dear little Pity. That's not why I told you that. Just know this - sometimes what a dragon needs is to be cut, and not to be made whole. You will learn, little one, how to do both, and how to know what you do is right." Tears leak from his eyes. "I trust you, Pity. Do you trust me?"

"Yes." she whispers. "Yes, I do, Dragon."

"My name is not Dragon; it is Love. My kind will teach you well one day. But now, little one, I am trusting you with this, my heart, my most precious gift. Would you give it to the princess for me?"

"Why do you love the Princess? She does not love you. She wanted you to be hunted."

"It doesn't matter. I would that she would have just asked me for my heart, for I would have willingly given it to her. But now, she will be healed." he sighed. "And you will be well-renowned as a dragon-slayer."

"No, I will not." Pity said resolutely. "I will be renowned as the small girl who found a dead dragon and cried at his body, and whose tears made the flowers grow."

The dragon regarded her and his talon fell away from her back. "Then you are wise, and you are learning already." He shut his eyes. "One favor, if I may, Pity?"

She leaned forward. "Anything."

"Heal my eyes. I have been blind a long time."

She pressed her hands to his eyes and her tears made him see. He sighed, and the flowers began to bloom. "So, that is what your eyes look like." And he breathed his last.

And little Pity, leaving her bow in the forest, took his heart to the princess and she was healed. I don't think she ever knew how Pity had slain a dragon called Love by accident to heal her, and I don't think she was ever thought of by that selfish princess again, but Pity knew. She never forgot him, the dragon Love,  and I think that she did learn how to heal and how to kill by her hands. But she mostly went every spring to the place where they had made the flowers grow, to remember how to see.

Dear Bathsheba [[remorse and resurrection]]

...Oh, beloved Bathsheba. Do not leave me here, alone with the moon. I love you, my dear, oh, I love you...

God, how I miss you. 

I'm very alone here, Abba. When I saw her bathing on the roof, I loved her. She loved me, too, God, I know she did. We were beautiful together, admit it. She was sad and she was lonely, and I was scared and I was misunderstood. I was so afraid to lose her.  You've taken me away so many times from the ones I love. I was afraid you would do it again, God, that once again, you'd cast me away from the ones I love. I loved them, God. I promise I did. 

I think that was why I snatched her up the way I did, I just didn't want to lose her, the way I lost all the others I loved most. I know, I know, it was wrong of me to be so afraid.

I wasn't trying to hurt her, the pretty, weeping girl that night. I wasn't trying to hurt you either, I swear it. Oh, how I didn't want to give her up. I miss her, my beloved Bathsheba. It wasn't her fault, of course, the dark way I loved her, the way my love turned to murder.

Oh, God, I can't even think about that. My heart will break all over again and I think I had just salvaged enough of it to say I'm sorry. I am. I'm so so sorry.

How you must despise me. My family does. My whole kingdom does. I despise myself, most of all my bitter-stained heart. 

I'm alone with the moon again. I'm a mass of contradictions, you know - the king after God's heart and the one who killed for a bitter love.

Give me my harp, my dear, I need to sing a short song. Or maybe it will be a long one.

You're my beloved now, the real one, you who never left me alone with the outside darkness (saying I'm sorry and then trying to forget over and over). You've kept my hands gathered, and for the last time, taken hyssop and ground it into my heart, into my eyes, into my hands.

I'm aflame now, and I'm weeping and there is resurrection. My heart died when we parted, you and I, and I buried it when I said goodbye to her, but now, create in me a clean heart, a new one, O God, and resurrect - renew - a right spirit within me. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.

Because, I'm sorry isn't going to work when you're alone with the moon. Because, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Summer and Blue

“Hello.” said the boy with the blue eyes. It was raining and his brown hair ran down his face with the rainwater.

“Hi.” said the girl with the summer smile. Her hair was not running anywhere. She held a polka dot umbrella over her head and stood in its spotlight.

The boy with the blue eyes smiled, but it was a sad, February smile. “We don’t know each other, do we?” The smile turned to frost, and the summer girl watched, perplexed and teary-eyed as he turned into an ice ghost before her.

The summer girl had seen a ghost before. That’s how she knew the boy with the blue eyes was one.

She lived in an industrial-strength box in the middle of a petulant city. The sky was a perplexing shade of brown and the people there were all little silent-movie black-and-white executives. They wore combed hair, conservative ties and carried briefcases with locks on them. The reason they had locks on the their briefcases was that they carried weeks of July and August, packaged in dandelion fluff and wishes, in them.

Summer is very heavy.

Every evening at the very same time, in the very same way, the executives would sit down at their mouldering kitchen tables with a glass of strong autumn in one hand and their briefcase in the other and they would open them and smell their summer weeks and look at the yellow sun in a briefcase where it doesn’t need to shine except to keep awake.

The girl with the summer smile had always been told she was born at that time of day and when she had made her first sound – a self-conscious hiccup – she had accidentally swallowed a sunbeam and that it was always trying to run away when she smiled.

In reality, the reason she smiled like summer is that when she had first got her briefcase full of July and August, she had looked at the sun so often she had begun to turn into summer itself. When the others found out, they put her in a very industrial little box house and told her about the ritual of seeing summer only once a night.

So she listened and met the ghost boy in the wallpaper.

He was translucent with tiny teeth and a mass of hair. “Hello.” he said as he rose from the oily industrial wallpaper.

She was still too young to run away from either ghosts or strange boys.

She was not afraid of him.

So they became friends until he left her to go to the capacious attic where he turned into a pile of bones with a heartbeat.

She cried.

When she could come to her senses and abandon the drudgery of walking under a brown sky with a briefcase, she climbed the cobwebs to the attic, and, stifling the Niagara Falls inside her lungs, she found the bones and embraced them for she embraced the ghost boy’s memory. She tripped on a wooden puppet on the way down.

She grew to despise both attics and puppets.

Standing here in the rain looking at the blue-eyed boy made of ice, she was reminded unpleasantly of the ghost boy’s heap of bones in the attic.

She lowered her eyebrows. “I defy you, Death.” she said to the February clouds. “I know you mean harm only and I see where caring got me last time.”

She turned from the boy with blue eyes and the sound of her shoes was like rain. And rain was raining. And the boy was making noises silently, and his eyes were blue, and his cheeks were running blue and his chin was raining blue and he was crying and there was rain. He was unmoved still – she knew because she heard no footsteps behind her – but he was blue with ice and blue with rain and blue with crying.

She looked down at the crackling sidewalk and observed her feet, made of smoke and coffee stains. She observed her transparent hands and her tears fell through her – his tears too. All of a sudden, things were plain and sunflowers grew – she was a ghost. Even less than a mouldering heap of bones piled up without a soul in an attic, she was a ghost.

Both. No wonder she had not run from the wallpaper boy. Ghosts. How could she remember the wallpaper boy, if she and the blue-eyed boy are so of smoke and ice. There is no marriage of fire and water. There is no love in ghosts.

And the blue-eyed boy’s tears met hers and they turned to blood and the blood ran off them. She turned around as he turns toward her and their blood vapor hands meet.

Blood turns to water and they fall into stars. They are alive and summer meets blue and we call it Love.

Walk My Love

Siuil, siuil, siuil a run

Siuil go sochair agus siuil go ciuin

Siuil go doras agus ealaigh lion

Is go dte tu mo mhuirnin slan

Walk, my love

Run, my love

I have found your heart, my love

Hold now -

Among the reeds the tusks of pigs

I'm picking up pearls thrown

[At me I'm the dirty girl

Cleaning laundry hang me up to dry]

Selling my bejeweld soul

Selling my windswept mind

Selling myself to dirty tricks

dirty work dirty men and egrets

Walk, my love

Run, my love

I have found your heart, my love

Hold now -

In the muck where algae

Is crawling up my arms

My skirt eaten by frogs swallowed

I Am Bare

My skin crawls and would you stop looking at me

[They're all dirty boys and girls

That's why they laugh at my nakedness

I'm burning put out the fire boys]

They cry laugh turn their backs

My hands grasp a sword of bronze

Walk, my love

Run, my love

I have found your heart, my love

Hold now -

Cutting away my skin

I bleed

My skin falls off

I cut further

My muscle falls away

I cut further

My bones clatter down

I cut further

Just my heart now, my love

It still beats. I am still alive.

The battle is against me

And against the frogs

[I'm a dirty heart

But I am a little fighter

I promised my children I'd never]

Walk, my love

Run, my love

I have found your heart, my love

Hold now -

Can't you see I've done this killing

For love?

Dead frogs and boneless hearts

For love

Oh failure

Sweet transparency

What was I supposed to do?

Love all over our bodies

I think I've always loved you.

Wherever I'm with you.

Walk, my love

Run, my love

I have found your heart, my love

Hold now.

White Bird

White Bird

Once upon a time, there was a little bird. All of white, she dressed herself in the morning and the songs of half-forgotten cemeteries, all crying out. She was a very young little bird, her downy feathers not quite finding flight. That didn’t stop her from believing that the sky could not contain her joy.

“I only know that when you play with Thelma, you always get the worst of it. That is why I say, be careful.” said Mother.

The little white bird flew along the lines of the trees. She crossed them like barbed wire and landed among the wild yellow lilies. Each one grasped at her with their feline paws and, among them, she knew she had a home. But the joy of the sky was still uncontainable, and something inside of her cried out that there had to be more than this. The lilies wiped their mouths with their sleeves and turned to devour another bite of her tail.

And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
And from all across the world, Max smelled good things to eat, and so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up! We love you so!”
But Max said, “No.” And he climbed aboard his private boat…

White birds
are
harder to
chew
than
wolves are

You are not a hen. You are not a kitten. You are not a cow. You are not a car, or a plane, or a Snort. You are a bird, and you are my mother.

The white bird couldn’t escape the gnawing grip of the tiger lilies. Her wings, now clipped by their maws, were tainted red by their bloodstained teeth. Her tail was caught among the green leaves. No one could see her any longer. But reality set in and the traps were broken. The sunrise gobbled up the night and she didn’t want to leave the warm embrace of the bloodied flowers…

Once upon a time, there was a princess –
“Was the princess you?
- and she fell in love –
“Was it hard to do?”
- it was very easy!
“Was he strong and handsome?
“Was he big and tall?”
There’s no one like him, anywhere at all…

iloveyou
crytheweeds
iloveyou
crythebluebonnets
iloveyou
criesthesun
iloveyou
crythetigerlilies

“I know who you are,” the man said, “for I made you. I built the tower and set it in motion. I planted the meadow, put fish in the ocean. I’ve seen you fall down in the mud and the goo. I’ve seen all you’ve done and all you will do. Here’s what you look like. Here’s how I see you. Put this in your pack and you’ll find it will free you from all of the pictures and all of the lies that others make up just to cut down your size.”

Suffocated by the words of the flowers and the desire of the skies, the white bird died…

And Max sailed back through a day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year to his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him

And it was still hot.

Wings fly on.
Beating in her chest.
Maybe it’s her muscles straining to fly.
Maybe her heartbeat.
Only wild things love me,
She sings.
Until the sun
Eats her up
In his enthusiasm to see her
And the joy of the sky
Embraces a
White hand.

{Featuring selections from
A Bargain for Frances, by Russel Hoban
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman
The Disney classic, Snow White
A Snoodle’s Tale, by Phil Vischer
Original piece, “White Bird” by Catey Yuen}

Rainbow Hair

I have pink hair

I have laughed and laughed

Life is so full of rain

My yellowed eyes are all full of

Rain and there is nothing

But rain and go away

Because no one wants you

Or your beesting whistle pipe smiling

If you touch the balloons you will

My hands are crackled and we see

Rainbows [in my hair]

Just some thoughts from stormy, hurricane-swept Pennsylvania as we had our devotional this morning. I don't think I've ever written a poem that combines concepts from My Little Pony and The Prodigal God. (Whoa! I actually gave some of the inspiration for my poem for you to know! So weird! I guess this makes it less ambiguous. -C.)

Paradox: on Maundy Thursday

Then came the Day of the Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed...

Afraid, I walked
In gloomy streets
God, O God, pass over me...So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it."

We walk together
He and I, we saw
On every corner, a face
Ah, how we should have known it
For it was the face of him

They said to him, "Where will you have us prepare it?"

Sadness
Glory
On his brow
Where is a place for this man?
I can not find him

He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters,"

Water, I thirst
Why can not this void within be quenched?
I will follow you
Where are you?
Where are you taking me?"And tell the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?'

In the corner of the room,
There is a vase
-We are all fearful -
In it, still, still his face
Why do I not recognize it?

And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

Everywhere, I see guilt
And faces
Faces, I see them, I am
Afraid, I do not know who this is
I earnestly desire to be in your kingdom, Teacher
I would not be afraid there

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying,^"> "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

Broken, like my heart
I do not see anything but this unknown face
Who are you?
I remember, Lord, but
Why, why indeed, would I need to?

And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.

I see more clearly here in the dark
Here you are!
I see the face and I know you.
And here you come to leave us all
Paradox
I don't understand, but tomorrow
Tomorrow, I will see
Tomorrow I will understand
Now I know in part
Perhaps I will understand as I am understood
What a sad, sad story
To see your face in prayer
Here among the Olive Trees
You are, I recognize, your face
In paradox

In Haiti

Dust
It stung my eyes cough cough
The sky is opened above me
Where is the house
I'm confused
Gasping clutching Mother- mother -
Scream
The pigs move past the women scream
We cry out
There is blood on my dress
There is bile on the stones

Fear
How could this be?
Where are you, God?
So far away, what can I do
What can I do
What can I do?
Hundred miles pass in blue
Between you and I
My arms are aching
Aching to hold you.

Cursing the sun cursing
The light handling what I can
No more house no more sky
No sky just dust
I can't breathe can't cry can't speak
I hate you where are you when I need you
Why aren't you here for me why didn't you stop this
Why weren't your hands there to cradle me
God o God o God I can't feel you
Then where are you

Praising the Son praising
The Light and truth
The Shepherd was there, he cradled the lambs
I can't feel him, and his staff pains me
I just want to cry, I have no praise in my heart
But in my soul, maybe, in my spirit
I can find a wailing voice
Even if I have no words, I praise you
You were there, when I couldn't be
Hold her
Rock her to sleep
Tousle her hair
Sing over her:
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.
I will sing, I will shout

Burning sun blistering water
Tears in my eyes
Blood in my hair
Over me
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.
Your name is a strong and might tower
It did not collapse when the earth shook
I run to the tower I ascend
The stairs cavernously
Nothing can shake you nothing
I am safe here
I feel your arms around me
I know your name
You are here
Blessed be your name.

Please be in prayer for the victims of the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti. Already the poorest country in the western hemisphere, they've consistently had natural, social and political adoptions. More people in Haiti are chronically malnourished than anywhere else in this half of the world, and with the earthquake, less food and water is available. The streets are littered with dead, and many are still trapped under rubble. Haitian adoptions are slow, unsteady and strewn with deceit and corruption. This earthquake could make things more difficult. Dozens of countries have rushed to Haiti's aid, but their support will not be enough. We need to be in prayer that the spiritual elements of the Haiti disaster will be covered, not just the physical. The country is dedicated to Voodoo, and God feels far off to these precious children of his today. When we are inadequate, Christ shows strongest. Please lift these little ones up in prayer in the coming days, weeks and months.

With Jesus in Their Eyes

(I am braindead with a million bazillion assignments and guests, but I figured I was long overdue on a blog update. Here's a poem I recently wrote. It's kind of narrative, but it was a break from my relentless usual style).

With Jesus in Their Eyes

I'm the girl
With eyes so deep and hollow
You could drown in them.
My dark floss cloud a
Remembering ember
Of another life, another
Love.

I'm the boy
With sunshine hidden behind
Pale, gold-tipped glass
My brow like a ship's
Course across storm-laden
Green, furrowed
Like waves. Behind it
The longing, starving words
Who do not know
'Enough'.

I'm the girl
In the forbidding
Denim jumper
With hair like yellow tears
Or pretty leaves on crying willow
With innocent questions
And laughing ferocity.

I'm the boy
Everyone loves with
My teasing grin and two-faced
Eyes that love to
Make them dance
But hold some void
Some abyss and darkness
Of an unusual kind.

I'm the girl
Whose arms cradle
Such sweet cries
That earn me the shunning
The hiss, hush
That mars my existence

I'm the boy
So young, so true
And dead
My hands bleeding
My feet full of darkness
My head shining forth light
Crushed like a
Wilted brown leaf
Before the deepness of the
Night
Criminal
Sinister

You are the one
I died for
The one I bled for
The one I swallowed Darkness
forevermore for
I was crushed for you.

He is the one
With the immense brilliance
He's the one
Who shines through their
Eyes.

I'm the girl
I'm the boy
Who needs your
Love, with
Jesus in my eyes.