strength in weakness

my hands are giving up,

attached to a body that’s shaking and weak.

an empty feeling weakens my knees and brings me to the ground.

i am hollow.

i am gone…

i would be gone if i had nowhere to fall,

but i’ve fallen on the softest rock my flesh and heart could know.

and it cradles me just tightly enough to stop the shaking,

to strengthen my frail frame

and stand me up again.

my body.

my body is not my own.

my body is built on the rock.

helpful

and with that, they looked him in the eye and said,

“why… aren’t you helpful.”

that’s what they called him.

helpful.

no one but two people had ever asked his real name.

and even those two had forgotten what it was.

water had saturated his hands to the point that his skin

didn’t answer to it anymore.

those hands knew heat and wind,

friction, grit, and sand.

they were calloused and coarse,

lined and abused.

yet he repaired the thin chain of the necklace

that sat discarded on the nightstand.

it was broken by frustration,

rewoven by patience.

he knew they would remember for a long time,

and then they would forget.

and he didn’t mind.

he was just

helpful.

soft dreams

soft dreams settle on me

through the scent of a warm winter flame,

by its glow, a slow turn of dark to light.

can my whisp’ring imagination fight the cold around?

can past and future find a foothold here unbound?

soft chords arouse a sleeping ghost within me

who once refused to be a shadow

but has now rested far too long.

let her be strong amidst the concrete walls and oily water,

drift above like light’s own daughter,

give a gift to self, to sons of man,

one quiet, fierce, and unafraid.

what we are in our letters

"...what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present."

Paul writing to the Corinthians about their opinion that he is different when he writes to them as opposed to when he is actually there speaking with them, that his letters are strong and "weighty" but his presence "unimpressive." He states that he is the same person, living and preaching the same message of Christ. In writing, his words live; in person, his actions speak.

in a much smaller way (i don't consider my writing nearly as monumental as his), this makes me ponder the difference between my writing and speech. i feel like i stumble over my tongue as my throat dries up and my mind searches for words to make the gears of your mind turn. but in writing, seeing my thoughts unfold letter by letter and word by word, where i can rearrange and sculpt, stretch my thoughts out as dough kneaded then risen, i see myself unveiled. and when i am able to shape the words in such a way, i am content.

here's to writing myself to you more often. here's to quelling the unrest that rages at times or igniting the hopeful sparks of inspiration that smolder without the breath of the hand or pen.

sunflower

along away

through yellow petals traced with the scent

of summer grass,

my face in it

and falling through

to roots of trees and other things…

a small cascade, if there’s such a place,

is my escape

and last autumn's leaves

impress the sun around the water’s face.

Song of Isaiah

This melody has been swimming in my head today, applying to everything, as the Word of God is wont to do... I grew up in an LCMS congregation, singing hymns and psalms and liturgy, and many of them have stuck with me. I thank God. I have fallen in love with the melodies that carry Scripture from the pages of the Bible into the air from the pipes of the organ and the lips of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and every so often they play back, sometimes in my own young voice. Today was one of those times.  

This particular refrain comes from an arrangement of Psalm 31 and a song of Isaiah (12:2-9). The melody that has stuck with me is the one printed in the CW, p. 77...

Surely it is God who saves me;

I will trust in him and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense,

and he will be my Savior.

overcast

overcast isn’t over anything.

it’s perfect.

a shade of dark that accentuates the green under my boots.

constant conversation in the air entreats my silence.

but there is music and narration in my mind,

atop my footsteps,

in my place,

because i am invisible here...

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills—

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

looking at things, more things, and pictures of things

has closed my eyes to looking into

for a time,

but the thought, that acknowledgement, has been the transition

back to awareness

of myself, of what is beautiful, of what is valuable,

of what is desirable.

and my memory sings and sings…

“oh be careful little eyes what you see.

be careful little eyes what you see…”

…be careful little heart what you want,

for your desire is your worth,

and your Father has paid so much for you,

so much,

because he loves you.

the lines on his hands must be the most beautiful—

the hands that formed the dry clay;

that hold the weary when they walk, for we must walk;

that wrote upon our hearts his presence and his will.

those lines…

what beauty, what mercy, what love.

at these thoughts, the significance of my physical eyes subsides

and that of my soul’s sight rises to the welcome task of recognizing

the Savior’s face, the Father’s hands, the Spirit’s voice,

and then I see

what I must see.

oh be careful…

oh be full of care…

reflections

is it late enough for you to come climbing in

through cracks and quiet hallways?

dark enough, and late?

***

what is the cloth that covers eyes when mem’ry overtakes?

a film, a picture, clear as sight, and yet unseen,

so that the slightest twitch of your finger

means to your mother that you felt the wind,

when really, you felt two years ago when you worked so hard to do so well,

and he put his arms around you to reassure you that it was not in vain;

you felt his heart,

in his words and in his touch,

not the wind.

the veins that show on leaves against the sun

are invisible though vibrant as a backdrop to a tear against skin

made warm and red with sincerity and love.

the stem between your fingers means to your sister and to your brother

that you are savoring life,

you are cherishing light…

in your mind you are,

but you instead hold his face in your hands

and feel his warmth and sweat,

a testament – no need for proof – to the powerful hand of our God.

that warmth rests around your hopes

and cradles them like babes whose eyes are closed in sleep.

***

you are absent here, replaced by a distant cousin,

one less distinctive and distinguishing than you…

where you lay meaning,

she is the meaning you try to encapsulate.

where you evoke sentiment,

she is the sentiment that quivers on their lips,

and where you meet

is where we learn how to hold on

and what to hold,

for a word without meaning still speaks,

and a meaning without a word still breathes.

with love for those who can't help their red skin

You’re rosy in May—are you mine?

Are you mine? Walk this way.

When we look off the edge of the bridge,

we can tell it’s still raining,

but we know it won’t stay...

Cast from clothing, our legs hanging down from a pier,

quite the pair of true lovers we look from afar.

Can’t stand still or sit still or be still and still,

it’s the motion that turns me to stillness inside…

Wait one afternoon, or two hours, but don’t hold your breath.

A fresh scent lingers on the deck from leaves left…

When the sun dies down, we know it’s time.

Are you mine?

You are mine…

Her tangled mass of long, thin hair

caught the wind and held it and they played,

like red yarn holds kittens

whose whole life in a moment is to stare and paw, fixated.

The concrete of the cracking farm wall beneath her feet

looked like Time giving all his strength to help her stand

as she walked and talked,

and in her smile, the Sun…

Each memory matters as much to me as my lungs

to keep me breathing,

to keep me alive.

She was my poetry child,

her movements words that I have taken down

on the wrinkled lines of my brain.

She gave me pages filled with the trees and sky—

how she captured the sky—

and the grass that once touched her face…

Still so distinct from any other grass in the world.

Taken down from her hill by the grayest cloud,

she sleeps and keeps a constant watch on the stars.

Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand…

never through, her fragile fingers glow against the blue of twilight.

My light…

When I return to the wall on afternoons that keep no name,

I dust the cracks with weeds and wonder

if the wind can recognize what she inherited from me—

soft skin, a focused brow,

a small brown freckle on her left ear…

Sometimes it nods or strokes or speaks of these things,

but most often of her warmth

in words so softly spoken I can’t trace their origin;

of a disposition so mild, in voice and in pen,

yet so powerful that it traveled backwards,

from her into me.

We are free.