How the hours pass

It stormed last night
But the daylight brought a calm.
Birds chirp from drying branches,
The cat naps on the sunny porch
Tail flicking away the flies,
A drunk man sleeps in a stooper
Having barely made it home,
And somewhere a baby cries.
Gently paddled canoes glide across the glass
Stopping to pound the water,
Its echo carrying far across the bay;
Such a lonely sound.
The wind moves ripples,
Orchestrates the palm leaves
And gently whispers secrets, incomprehensible.
A stork is perched atop a distant tree
Its awkward body balanced perfectly
A model of absurdity,
Like the workmen tiring out their Saturday
On the unfinished house below.

The cat stands and stretches
The drunk man snores
And the baby finds its mother's breast.
Sunshine glistens on the water,
The glass having shattered to a million pieces;
Reflecting, refracting, perplexing.
The stork takes flight
Breaking natures laws of fineness;
Its giant wings unfolding
To cast dark shadows on the world.
A rooster crows
In the cavernous, unfinished house;
This is how the hours pass.

To myself ten years ago...

To myself ten years ago,
The years, yes they change, and yes they show
The frailer side of life, the question.
Now daylight lasts longer than ambition
And all your surety isn't sure.
The answers sometimes only blur
What should be right and wrong
And the categories to which we belong.
It is good we don't see past today
Because we would never find a way
To conquer our fear.
Life becomes much more clear
When we take small strides
With the King along our side.

A Sparrow Falls

Tiny hands, tiny fingers too
sister is crying on the floor
brother beside her is scratching
the bites, the sores, festering.

What is their name?

Orphan child,
forgotten,
forget.

The world is a cruel place
the wars, the hunger, lingering.

They are the first we forget

to their plastic cup with a spoon of mush
to the dirt floor, to the damp rain
huddled together, sharing warmth, diseases.

Brother wonders what the boys will say
their collared uniforms, his tattered tee,

Sister is tired
of fetching water,
the crying, the tears, unrelenting.

Mama? Who is mama today?

…or who isn’t?

Tiny fingers keep grasping
but the air is too hard to hold
its emptiness too big, too impossible, exhausting.

She will live without regret
there was nothing to forget

A sparrow falls.

More Real

I want to be more real;
More than bones and flesh,
More than words written on the page
And spoken without meaning,
More than actions taken
Out of fear, compulsion and common practice.
I want to be seized
By the power of The Great Affection*,
Seized by words Immortal,
Birthed by death-defying Grace.
I do not want religion,
Do not want my works remembered
By what these hands have done,
But by weakness
Filled for the glory of One;
Made something in Faith,
Compelled by Love transforming
Into what is more real.


*"Great Affection" taken from Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Surety

She says she's not so sure,
And I think I relate.
With Memphis gathering below,
In lane after lane
Embracing that chocolate streem,
The words that come to mind
Are far away, lost
On some forest path
Behind a four foot guide.

My conscience died with cheap grace,
My love with religion.
What's left is sold on loneliness
With all its amenities;
Quiet nights, anxious waiting and poetry.
It could be quite romantic
Except for the nice guy syndrome
Which really just means its in my eyes;
That path keeps winding,
The elephant grass too tall to see
If anyone is watching
Like I am watching
The dust, the sweat, the lack of tears,
And the blood red sun, setting
With a surety I wish I understood
Like my fear of the coming night.

The Hours Pass

The hours pass through the day
Sweep through the night and rest;
Like two plastic slippers side by side,
Equipped with bedside manners.
On some breath the words come free
In the trappings they’ve been laid
For self-preservation. From uneasy tumbling
All is spent on tomorrow
With all of its unanswerable memories;
I got lost in African’s eyes,
Lost in all that laughter and those tears
The forgotten ones cry.
How many fingers can hold a hand?
The children never mind. Music rattles the tin,
Incomprehensible in the absurdity of question.
Life is that way,
But will we dare come back.
Past midnight the slippers still sit there,
They still fit the dusty stains,
They are still in the hours of night.
Africa is outside but even more inside
Where there aren’t any hands to hold
Or envelop in snotty, sticky, smelly love;
Just the realities of giving.
And so the hours pass.

The water's calm (2007)

Lord you take the water's calm,
Hold it in your wounded palm,
Rough the waves and make me see
The greatness of your majesty.

And then you take the storms in me,
The churning of my inner sea,
Walk upon my pain and fear
Showing me that you are near.

And Lord you bid me come and die
So to your side I will fly
Feel the wounds and know the pain
Crying worthy, worthy is your name.

Running

Word's have reached us, deaf as we are;
The wounds caught our attention
Or maybe it was the dieing, with its awful stench.
The dogs are running wild in the village
Weaving past the empty chairs left outside
For the chickens to sit on and shit,
Covering the red stains with white ones.
What we thought we could not comprehend
We find out in the child's last cries of hunger;
In the father's weeping over stolen loves.
Standing still is not an option.
We will run, like they have run,
Fleeing in fear the terrors of night and day.
We will run because the strength is in us
To carry some of the pain;
Standing still is not an option.
When the gunshots draw near, shattering the calm
Only the dead stand still.


note: I am aware of the somewhat depressing nature of many of these "poems". I would attribute this mostly to my need, at times, to vent my frustrations and fears on paper. Additionally, while I have an eternal hope, I am still very much aware of the broken world in which I live and work.

The Champion

The rain is slowing
Beneath the golden rim of clouds
The "great Champion's" victory
For another day run.
And far out beneath the feelings
Of the different sorts
That laugh, while others cry,
The day continues untouched
By the great importance of living;
Continues and still continues
Through all the dieing we try
Even more successfully than ever.

Babies cry at living
Covered briefly with the life offered
Before memories of it are washed away
And a day is marked for birth.
The Champion runs on untouched.

Hurt

Words may cheapen the feeling,
Frightening as it is.
Thoughts that leave me reeling
From their weight
Are all but set in silent prayers
For patience, for peace,
For all the broken years
I may face if it is my turn to hurt;
My turn to know
Plans greater than the burnt
Wreckage of my wisdom.

It is hard not to drown in expectation,
Hoping dreams come true;
That the answers to life's question
Are simple and narrow
Like the words of sorrow.
Sorrow and unending laughter.

Courage

The water is calm, almost too calm
Echoes of laughter from dripping oars
Wander out across the dawn
Painted here by the heavens
In that endless wonder of the ages
That leaves me feeling so small.
And still I try to fill the pages
Of my life, or better yet my day
With some sort of grandeur
Rising up from depths that are not mine
Until there is nothing quite so pure
As the silence it leaves me with.
What courage will it take to love?
I have learned from the silences
And am left with a wanting of words
Or simple actions that don’t betray my fear
That love scars long and deep and wide.
In the end it is me fishing the sky
With oars dripping laughter.

That Boy Standing There

Standing there he gets covered in dust.
Snotty nosed and skeletal, he doesn’t care,
His little arms wear themselves out with joy;
It is just a car.

The sun sets blood-red through the dust
Silhouetting talonned thorn trees;
He walks barefoot but doesn’t notice
I am falling in love with Africa again.
He smiles.

A bowl of rice and prayer for beans,
The pathetic dogs linger just out of reach
Hoping some child is sloppy, unfortunate
But here, they never are, never have been,
The bowl is empty.

His mat is made of grass, the floor mud;
Somehow he sleeps, soundly, soundlessly
Through the memories and chaos of dieing.
Somehow the dead don’t speak from this ground
It just swallows everything and anything forever.
I can’t sleep.

Matthew Five

You have heard it said
Men will walk about blind,
Hating brother and blood
Trumpeting righteousness to the skies,
Sure of their religion.

You have heard it said,
And seen it too,
Clothed in Sunday’s best sermon
Echoing through the golden pews
And into the chambers of power.

You have heard it said
And the faithful prove it true;
Naked and weary,
Cheeks purple and bruised,
Sowing justice and mercy
With bleary eyes.

Autumn Rain (2005)

The beaded silver lights
The dreary, weary world
And in my heart alights
With splashing dashing furl.

Outside the window, pain
The emphatic ripple moves;
Life in pouring rain
And love from self behooves.

Awash in hallow creed,
A reeking sufficiency
To strip away my need
By grace’s great efficiency.

Broken Morning (2008)

Out in the broken morning
My past lies scattered,
Ruptured by the light,
Unreflected like the moon.
There is too much to find
Sifting through the morning
Picking up its majesty,
Stuffing my pockets full of the day;
Weighed down by too much of the fresh daybreak
To try and run away.
Everything is clear at once
And everything is gone
Like the darkened night
That held me down
And together with chains
Linked from one moment to the next
Until all my yesterdays
Wrapped me up
In who I was meant to be.
I was caught there
I was bound
And then the broken morning,
And then the broken me.

Remembering (2008)

I remember
Or at least I can't forget
The cool evening breeze
Dampened by sputtering sprinklers
Left to water the grass
And the empty walkway too.
The leaves in the trees fluttered
Trying out the wind for the first time,
Catching the melodic currents
To play springtime secrets into the air;
Air fresh with lilac and rose,
And the damp sweet smell of the grass.

Our steps, both soft and slow
Remembered the ground for all its memories
And the memories it held still
Waiting for us to find
In the silence of our footfalls.

I could have stood there for hours
In the emptiness that grew
Like a darkening night around us
Leaving little chance of escape
From the tide that swept in
And found us alone, together
In the air thick with quiet
Answered by your embrace and soft lips.

Learning to Love (2008)

I watched the people dancing tonight;
Bodies moving this way and that,
Rhythmically to unseen melodies
Floating through the dense air
Full of sweat and cigarette smoke.

The scene was electric
Where one body brushed another
And all around the closeness of flesh
Felt like every longing filled;
Like the world burning and being reborn.

And through the night, touch adds to touch
Until the music slows
And two people, alone, dance
The slow dance of learning to love
While the others pause to watch
Wondering what they missed
In the movements of the night.

Dirty Feet

These lonely days have dirtied my plain feet
So much, the ashen toes forfeit their name
And rest beside my sandals on the street
Until my weary body does the same;
Unkept and wild in the light of day,
Committed to the trials and the pain
Made pure by all the memories that pay
For love and for this life in pouring rain.
And still the questions linger though the night
With that unremembered kiss upon the lips
Uttering nonsense to the wind, and quite
Unsure where to begin before she slips
Completely through the echoes of the past
To haunt the empty longings that still last.

Ssese (2007)

If we wake and the water is calm,
We’ll travel without a care
Past the equator’s outstretched arm

Where the kingfishers hover in the air
Like brightly-colored angels intent
On guarding Eden’s dying flare.

We’ll walk where time has spent
An eternity crushing unchanging rocks
With angry waves hell-bent

On washing over this tranquil spot.
Then the forest, a million voices strong,
Will call us to walk where God walks,

In cool shade; where the cookal’s song
From the depths of the giant mahogany
Makes us believe we belong,

Here, where we have an uncanny
Feeling that we have seen creation born
And filled with endless harmony.

Baobab Ballad (2007)

He was born beneath the Baobab tree
Where time begins and runs
The dusty streets of Africa
Searching for lost sons.

While others left to fight and die
For gems beneath the ground,
He wandered with his father’s cows
Far from the battle sound.

In scorching heat he traveled far,
Following the rain
From Congo’s mighty cataracts
To Serengeti’s plain.

He seemed to live a sacred life
At peace with everything
Until his cows were massacred
In battle’s mighty sting.

With all his fortune ripped apart
Rotting in the sun,
His hunger could no longer wait
For peaceful times to come.

At once he joined the desperate fight
With all the boys his age;
Too small to even grip the gun
Or even earn a wage.

I saw him there beneath the tree
Lying like at birth;
His body torn by greedy men,
His blood upon the earth.

He was born beneath the Baobab tree
Where time began to run
The dusty streets of Africa
Searching for her son.

Amarula Morning (2007)

I begin each day with Amarula in my coffee;
Mostly I want the aroma to fill the morning
And my room with the scent of the savanna at sunrise;
That moment when the hyena has ceased to laugh at the moon
And the hippos slink off to hide their pink bellies in the mud.

At times this seems too sacred for the cold days of January
When the naked trees and frozen sun lie dead
And cannot understand how pure an African morning looks
Before the wildebeests have kicked dust into the air
In their endless journey to return where they never stay.

The Amarula reminds me that I never stay,
And that I don’t belong – except maybe in Heathrow Airport;
Where nobody stays and everyone belongs.
It is the only place with enough departure gates
To handle my nomadic indirection in life.

My morning coffee reminds me of where I grew up
And the reddish stains that never seem to wash off.
The African soil claimed me when I learned to crawl
And began to clothe myself in a rich garment of mud
To hide the fact that I didn’t quite belong in Africa.

And so, on cold January days, I also need my coffee to wake up
To the fact that I am here - here, where it looks like I belong
Only because I leave the savanna’s scent in my room
Where my stained shoes lie safely hidden in the dark corner of my closet
Along with all the questions they raise about my wandering.

Here, where it looks like I belong, it is the muddy stains I hide
Because they do not match the red brick and white columns
Common to this world of bowties and sundresses;
Africa is too real for this world to handle
So I try not to cause a stir in my t-shirt and blue jeans.

My Pen

I lost my pen.
It was crammed
beneath Dostoevsky, Twain,
the Bible,
and all those notes I kept on Plato.
I don’t know
how it got there.
I try to keep a free hand
when reading -
Maybe I got caught up
turning pages
and lost my train of thought

That would explain the strange dreams
And random quotations
I hardly understand
That keep filling my mind
At inopportune times
Like when I’m eating dinner
With the girl I love

I’m not sure how
The books didn’t topple over
At the imbalance of my pen
Or how all those ages
Of wisdom and folly
Didn’t squeeze the ink out
Onto my table
With the crumbs of cake,
I am that clumsy.

My thought has kind of come back
But I’m not sure
Where it left me,
On the verge
Of throwing the world on end,
Or reaching for my pen.
It still writes
Though I wonder
If it isn’t a lighter shade of black

When We Stop

The chapel bells ring
And the red bricks echo
The time of day,
The hour of night,
When the leaves fall
And pile up.

You have coffee;
You always do
When you walk through those leaves,
Yellow and golden,
Crunching under foot,
Rustling away
As you hurry along.

But if you stop,
They just fall,
Swirling in patterns
Chosen by the wind,
Whispering sweet songs
In the branches
That unveil their true colors.

If you stop
The leaves rot
And smell alive,
Like the roses of Reynolda;
They lose their pedals too,
In even more brilliant colors
Beneath the maple trees.

And we lose our colors,
The world we painted
Attempting to make sense of it all;
The bells ring
And change comes ringing too,
The falling colors
Beautiful, when we stop.

Toward Morning

Perhaps it is has been this way;
I am the one darting off
Headlights riveted on my frightened frame
Skin and bones trapped in the dust.

The moon does little to solve the dark
Meek imitation that it is
Secrets don’t even hide
In shadows cast by the moon.

The world is eerie and pale
Glowing yellow and blandish gray,
Dry grasses and thorn trees
Blown by desert winds.

Heaven shifts in the hazy sky
Hours pass by in miles,
A path that never ends
Sweeping the night away.

Answers never do come;
Daylight’s purple tinge spreads
Careening toward morning
With eyes less filled with fear.

Wandering the miles
Between now and the sun
In the cool aqua light
I might just make it home.