Poetry
Of Dissolution and Reassembly
Of Falling Apart and Coming Together
Of Death and Resurrection
FEELINGS
Alone
In my room
Playing in the fields
Of my own imagination
This is where I passed
Much of my time
Growing up
I did not know why
I preferred it
The question of why
Never seemed to arise
Looking back
I can see that it was
The place where I felt
Safe
Entering that room
Closing the door
Was sweet relief
Perhaps it was there
That I began
To lose myself
To box up the feelings
That seemed too much
Inexpressible
Unacceptable
Above all else
Whatever might be happening
In the depths
The surface had always to
Remain calm
A storm could bring
Annihilation
When your own emotions
Feel unsafe
You learn to detach yourself
From them
And at the same time
The feelings of others
Also seem unsafe
And so
You try to navigate the world
By anticipating how your actions
Your words
Will make others feel
You take ownership of other
People’s emotions
In order to keep
Yourself
Safe
It is a losing strategy
You just end up
Living in fear
And unable to know
How you feel
There is just fear
And anxiety
Unlearning all of this
After perhaps
Two thirds of a lifetime
Is
So
Hard
HELPLESS
You tried for so long
To hold it all
Together
The harder you tried
The more the pressure
Of what you were holding
Increased
It began to cause
Your whole being
To vibrate
With ever greater
Intensity
In the end
It all flew apart
And you watched
All the pieces of your life
Scattered to the winds
Each piece
A witness
To your failure
As a person
Each piece
Like shrapnel
Tearing your own soul
And
Tragically
The souls of those
Whom you loved
And as the
Earth beneath you
Began to swallow you
You stood
Frozen
as the
Great undoing began
Helpless
To stop it
OUTSIDER
The New Testament
Is filled with outcasts
People exiled
From family
From community
From friends
Because their sin
Was too much
For others
To bear
The holy writ shows
The divine impulse
To forgive
To restore
To reunite
To mend what was broken
But it also shows us
That the human impulse
To reject
To turn away
To forget
To make invisible
Is more powerful
I never imagined it
(But then none of this
Could ever have been
Imagined )
The remembrance of my birth
Unacknowledged
By those I have never
Not known
But it is a mere signpost
That the outward journey
is complete
My existence
Has become too painful
For some to bear
My arrival in the world
All those years ago
Now regretted
A regret unspoken
But laid bare
In the silence
After all
if I had never been
All of this
Would have been
Avoided
But I have been
I am
I shall be
For some undetermined
Count of years
And I shall go on
Seeking the grace
Of that divine impulse
In the few in whom
It is found
Like an oasis
In the desert
UNCONDITIONAL
Unconditional love
Is not really a thing.
It stands at the heart
Of our religions, our stories,
our fairytales.
Not because we experience it.
But because we long for it.
The reality of love
Is far messier.
We are, in reality, always
Learning how to love
Trying to love
Without conditions
Yet never really able
It is a strange thing
To awaken and find
That so many people no longer
Know
How to love you
Beyond saying the words
And sometimes not
Perhaps having given up trying
To realize that you have
become
Other.
Unrecognized.
Unwelcome.
And then you wonder
If you yourself have ever known
How to love anyone else
Or has it all just been
Fumbling in the dark?
Maybe we are all
Just fumbling in the dark
Grateful when it leads to
Accidental joy
And enduring
The unintended consequences
Of not really knowing how
To love
Without conditions
INTENTION
She wanted me to fight for her
And for us
She never said so
“Women never do,” someone said
But it is what she hoped for
Perhaps it is what she needed
And yet her words had revealed
A mountain
Between where we were
And where we possibly could be
One day
Or maybe not
And I was exhausted already
From so much climbing
Over fearsome obstacles
It was a steep mountain
The one she described
Made of
A gnawing emptiness
The shame I bore
Long lists of all the losses
For which she held me responsible
A move I was unwilling to make
Because it would take me away
From the grace
That was saving
My life
“You’re doing the best you can”
She said. “I know that.”
Yet, the best I could do
Was not enough
Where was I to go from here?
The mountain was impossibly high
And it seemed that there was
Little hope
That we would not run out of
Oxygen
Before the journey was even
Half completed
In my exhaustion
In my numbness
In the contemplation of yet
Another failure
I uttered the words of ending
I named the undoing
It startled her
I tried to set them aside
And asked what she wanted
But it was too late
The end
The undoing
Had been spoken to the Universe
And it could not be
Unsaid
She had been the only one
To offer that word “forgiveness”
But while it was without question
The desire of her heart
It was not in her to
Truly offer it
“Intend to love”, the preacher had said
On the day we wed
I always intended to
But in the end
Intention was not enough
And yet
It was the best I could do
B/R/A/D
There are some things
That we cannot do
Alone
Finding life
After death
Is one
Of those things
For when the
Engineered self
That no longer serves you
Finally collapses
And dies
You need someone
To reach out
And raise you
From the grave
And begin to give you back
To yourself
To say with fullest conviction
“That was not who you are,
That is not who I know.”
And allows you to
Begin
Again
That one
Becomes to you
One of the most
Beautiful souls
You have ever known
Becomes the voice
Of reassurance
In the chaos
The lifeline
That keeps you
From drowning
Whose humanity
Becomes the inspiration
For your own
The Universe
Brought such a soul
Into my life
And I am grateful
Beyond measure
For unexpectedly
When all was lost
Under the regard of that
Beautiful soul
I found myself
Being Raised After Death
REMAINS
One would think
That after
Three and a half decades
The ending
Would have been
Somewhat dramatic
But as it turns out
It was almost soundless
A document
Delivered in the mail
Declaring finality
The world did not notice
It simply kept moving
Through the remains
Of an ordinary day
That was anything but
It happens all the time
Of course
People’s personal worlds
Turn upside down
And inside out
Crumble and
Are rebuilt
And the world does not notice
It just keeps moving
Through what remains
But of course
The sentences of ending
Had already been said
Months ago
This mailed letter
Was simply the period
The ending punctuation
I don’t know why
I might have thought
It would be
An exclamation point
We had been so
Careful to avoid those
And in so doing
Created a deafening
Silence
Into which
The shadow of death
Was creeping
And we did not notice
We simply kept moving
Through the remains
SEEDS
Each generation
Passes on seeds
To the next
Some of them will
Sprout
Take root
And yield what lies
Within
Others will
Be saved
Whether by intention
Or
By chance
Or
By mystery
To be
Passed on
To the next generation
And on and on
The cycle goes
Some seeds may
Be passed down
Once
Twice
Even three times
Before they
Yield
The mystery
Hidden
Within
The seeds
Of trauma
Often make
This journey
Holding the pain
The lived struggle
Of a grandparent
Or great grandparent
Or even further on
Then unexpectedly
One lands in strangely
Fertile soil
And sprouts
Takes root
And offers up
That which has been
Hidden
Unspoken
For generations
The vine of
Distant
Or not so distant
Trauma
Intertwines itself around
An unsuspecting life
That has no idea
Of the distant forces
That have become a part
Of his spiritual
Psychic
Physical
DNA
Intertwines until
It begins to
Strangle
Suffocate
And just when
The oxygen
Seems almost gone
Becomes recognized
For what it is
Then the moment
Has arrived:
To allow the vine
The trauma
To define you
Or to begin
The long work
Of cutting that
Vine
Loose
Until
You
Are
Free
STORY-TELLER
What makes us human?
Some say it is love
Yet we see what looks like love
In other creatures
Some say it is awareness
But can we be so sure
That we alone are aware?
Some say it is the image of God
Yet the holy is everywhere
The universe inhabits the divine
And the divine inhabits the universe
Perhaps what makes us human
Is our storytelling
“We are the animals who tell stories”,
James Alison says
We are the animals who tell stories
We are born into a world of stories
Woven by those who came before us
They inhabit us
And form us
Before we even realize
They create our world
They create us
So many of these stories
Limit our becoming
Hand us pain
Pass on trauma
Other stories
Set us free
Create possibility
Invite our flourishing
Beneath them all
Is the Original Story
“You are beloved”, it says
And the belovedness in us
Seeks to set us free
To become the author
Of our own story
It is not that we leave
Behind
The stories that were given us
It is that we
Transcend
Those stories
As we write
The mystery
And the glory
Of our own
Belovedness
That is
Perfect freedom
The perfect freedom
Of the story-teller
EXIST
“Does he let you know
That you exist?”
The question flew
Like an arrow
Across the therapist’s office
But it found its target
Not in the brain
Or the mind
To be considered
And answered
In words
It landed
In the heart
And there
It resounded
With such unexpected
Force
And the dam
Burst open
And the office
Was momentarily
Flooded
As we sat
In the aftermath
Of an unexpectedly
Profound truth
Many times before
Had we sat and pondered
This particular
Relationship
That has contained
Much of the
Mystery of my
Salvation
Which has
No category
No precedent
No understood geography
For so long
I have tried
To put words
Around it
And failed
“Does he let you know
That you exist?”
The mind can’t answer
It doesn’t even understand
The question
But the heart
Understood
And answered its mysterious
“Yes”
Without hesitation
In the light
Of that epiphany
The therapist found the
Only words there were
To find
“For some things
We have
No words”
FORTY-FIVE
45 days
Seems not that long
But when spread
Over six months
The journey is
Extended
The ritual of the day
Always began
The same way
Standing first in the
Heat of mid-August
Then at the end
In the damp and cold
Of winter
A rag-tag group
From many walks
Of life
Brought together
In circumstance
Lives and worlds
Intersecting
That normally
Do not
Chosen for a day’s work
Here or there
Witnessing in that span
Refuse tossed aside
By careless people
And people tossed aside
By a careless society
Gathered in squalid camps
And then moved on
To begin again
In some other spot
45 days
Where illusions fail
And the
Common denominator
Of our humanity
Is unmistakably
Laid bare
It is finished now
But the 45 days
Has left their mark
There is no room now
For the former illusions
​
For humanity once
Laid bare
Will not again
Easily suffer
Disguise
FLAME
As I raised
My eyes
And finally
Looked
I saw clearly
For the first time
That within the circle
Of my life
Everything was in disarray
And at the center
Were some
Glowing embers
The embers of
Authentic selfhood
Where there should have been
A flame
Was there ever a flame?
Had that fire ever danced
Brightly against the sky
Of nearly 20,000 nights?
I could not tell
I could not remember
I only knew
The embers now
Hardly enough
To keep the soul
Warm
Safe
Alive
As I set about
Returning some order
To that circle
At the center
The embers remained
It occurred to me
That I had
Forgotten
How to build
A fire
How to coax the
Embers
Back into
Flame
The ancient voice
Whispered
Beckoning me
Beyond my circle
And stepping out
I saw many circles
Some glowed faintly
With feeble flames
Others enclosed
Only embers
Much like mine
Looking a little further
I perceived a circle
That was alive with
Light
A flame burning strong
And bright
And true
At its center
Never before had I
Known
Or seen
Such flame
I approached
Drawn by the light
And the warmth
And as I drew close
And was invited in
The winter in my soul
Began to thaw
That flame
Of authentic selfhood
Of self-actualized humanity
Transfixed my gaze
And illuminated my life
Returning to my
Own circle
The embers that
Before seemed
Hopeless
Now contained
Possibility
Could they burst into flame?
Once again?
Or for the first time?
For now
I study the
Fire-keeper in that
Other circle
Carefully
Visiting warms my soul
And keeps possibility
Alive
One day
I hope
I will not need
To visit
So frequently
For I will have made
The art
My own
And the flame
In my circle
Will be
Enough
And more
RECONCILIATION
Reconciliation is
A practice
But we have
Turned it into
A preaching
We speak with
Grandeur
Gravitas
Profundity
About its importance
We write about it
In Prayer Books
In Canons
In Books
But seldom
Do we actually
Practice it
Because the
Practice
Is costly
For everyone
It requires us
To confront
Pain
Anger
Failure
And so much more
It requires us
To slog through the mud
Of our own
Humanity
And the humanity
Of others
It requires us
To face people
We are not sure
We can bear to face
Again
Reconciliation is
Perhaps
The most costly grace
Of all
And we can’t bear
The cost
And so we
Allow the
Yawning silence
The unhealed wounds
The unresolved feelings
The broken relationships
To be forever
Unreconciled
And we tell ourselves
That somehow
This is okay
As we return
To Preaching a
Truth
That we will never
Actually know