Nonlinear dreams

Draw a line.

Imagine it is time.

Plot out the births and deaths that define you.

Pencil a dot for droughts and famines.

Shade in years of peace.

Mark the points of decision and regret.

Now add God.

And the line is swallowed into space.

Imagine again:

A desert. Forty days.

Utter dryness. Sand in cracked skin, teeth gritty from swallowed wind.

Parched plans and empty water beds.

Beyond this vastness-

the finiteness of living-

God rests outside all this.

An oasis perhaps we see,but mostly don't.

What if

we need not plod straight through the desert,

but could be plucked

in a nonlinear way

from this gritty beach

and placed gently

so toes touch a shore?

And the wind might start smelling salty

And the air might begin to moisten 

With bursts of Breath

As moments drop from space

Like a single taste of sweetness 

Pulled from honeysuckle -

And we find our way again.

Numbers and lettre

It amazes me

In a way both

Happily, confusedly, and fearfully

That there are enough letters in the English alphabet 

That languages can gonfler sans arrêter ou mélanger.

Frotter

Frauder et

Frapper

Words tumble upon words

Yet worlds somehow don't converge.

still there is room for

Forget

Forgive 

And follow.

With 26-

And a limitless amount of combinations-

Still not enough to express our hopes and fears

Because we have pictures and hieroglyphs, too.

I am but a letter-

Or a punctuation-

Wanting to write a book.

A garden gives you perfectly good reason not to be anywhere else.

I asked for good things

I asked for good things.

Not selfishly

Or out of reach.

Just normal.

American things.

Middle class caucasian things

Upwardly mobile of course.

They aren't bad things.

But my home went into foreclosure

While I had a good paying job.

My ovaries made eggs

But the lining wouldn't hold

And children got crossed off.

I paid enough

And was given two.

But I wanted a house full

And to stay home to teach them

But my womb closed up

And rotted

While I went stressed out to care for others' blessings

And they quietly and quickly grew

Outside of the size of my lap.

I prayed humbly for another

Or another two.

But no amount could allow my wishful control

No more courting life

No more joy of brightness

Infertile. Empty bed. Unproductive life.

So I asked for Africa...

And I asked for a child not my own

I asked for France

I asked for Haiti, asked for kingdoms and countries and 

To these,

You firmly touted:

No.

And I can wonder why and detest the strife

 For it is hard work to long so much

And I can eye the jones's happy life

Whose inside walls may be furniture and pictureless

But the outside is perfection

And fescued dreams

And I, like David,

Have glimpsed into their gardens.

It makes my coffee bitter

And then I growl at the kids.

And when I growl at the kids

The dog barks and I forget to water the lawn

And my house begins to crumble

Just a long the edges...

So I choose to offer up my questions

And let them hang like the caterpillars' who are yous...

Just floating and drifting into the air

Accepting soft rebukes:

Beware the sin of comparison.

As if I didn't know.

Simple, subtle.

Full of hesitance - 

I turn to the dead lot behind my house

And bury dreams in the dirt.

Knowing one day

Rains will come.

Cleared out

While the mornings are still cool

With promise

And shadows cast a long still presence

Summer flirts with me

the temptress whispers

Saturday markets,

Garden vegetables and berries

She says

Sleep in

Drink two cups

And write all day.

She beckons,

No work

Your holiday

We can play all day 

But, by mid June

I detest her.

her prostituted hours are stolen

With every day chores

And the catch up ones

Paint, trim, kids to practice,

Pushes so strongly

That a morning cup is even missed.

While the fire pit sits empty ashed,

Heat index too high for mellows, 

s'mores of gooey fun arent even discussed

A charred puff

Could only be a metaphor 

Of the afternoons

And garden witherings that droop

And drop off the vines sans fruit.

Summer sun

You temptress, you are lies.

You are all things hoped for and then

A falling too hard.

You clean me out,

Expose my beauty and then walk away while I'm still naked

And waiting 

You squelch my tender flowers

And  leave me 

praying for September.

Specks

When I was eight, the sky was big and stars winked at me.
My hands still caught and held fireflies-
A lightning bug harvest In a mason jar
And In my palms, the divine cosmos.

By ten, the white lights had lost their wonder-
I played in the stars' bucket spills, splashing light,
But I did not ponder.

In my adult life, everything whimsical
Gets explained away.
Bioluminescence becomes a process
Of chemical reactions-
Instead of bursts of God's breath.

My next starlight awakening comes as a surprise, then
When flipping through a doctor's office magazine,
I spy satellite photos from NASA's great adventures.
Bright burning gases
a negative print, more light than dark,
The cosmos redefined so specks of sky
Dotted the expanse of light.

And upon seeing it,
I could not ponder stars and their beauty-
only Him,
who formed them such.
A resuscitation of wonder.

When He said "Let there be,"
Out of the mouth of God,
came dippers and Orion's belt, the Pleiades-
A galaxy of Shapes and myths.

An exhale
And a way of milk spooled around a perfect marble blue-

I stole the magazine and taped the galaxy to my refrigerator,
So I remember, even on Tuesday,
we are not that consequential.
With a thumbnail, we could be blotted out.
And yet, I am named and numbered.
A firefly caught and held by holy hands.
----------

Sea shell hunts

Katie:  are pink dolphins true?

She said while gazing into a morning beach.

Lexie's gaze just as dreamy,

Replies :  I know they are.

And I can only smile and hear god breathing in the tide.

When lexie found a sea shell

She holds it up high for a treasure

And I see a small broken shell hardly worth keeping

With fields of others strewn out before our toes

I would rather keep walking and spot from up high

Searching for special stand outs at a glance

But katie picks up scraps of shells and inspects.

They will be kept for hardly any reason

Their worth is in their existence

And they find excuses for significance:

A hole, a speckle, a bumpy ridge that would make a neat imprint

A pretty pink, a smooth side, a perfect swirl

When these attributes get used up they grow more creative

-a little seat for a ladybug to sit on,

-a river stone that skipped all the way to the shore

It isn't hard for them

It isn't hard at all

To find a reason to cherish every beach shell.

At the sea, wonder is common

And I remember grandma

That at her passing

She began to ask  questions about the shore

-and she the Nebraskan native, lived her entire life landlocked-

Claimed to hear water pouring onto a beach

- where was she? Had she been here before?

And then a calm, final comment:

I hear the ocean.

Like one of the shells,

It washed over her and silence covered with depths of peace.

And the memory washes me now

softening the Calloused pain

That once ached eternally

I find so many things connected-

The sea, the shells, my grandmother and my daughters

And quiet loves I never let my heart live through

They float before me with a oneness,

Merging pain and joys together into spiritual swells.

The skyline before me is vast and plain with holy simplicity.

The story of the tide and the comfort of the shore

- I am swept into humanity.

Voices awaken, people emerge,

And I am no longer alone.

they walk with heads down,

looking for sea shells.

Morning prayer

It's just now 6 am and the birds have been chatting a while

Other than that though and the neighbor returning from his midnight shift

And the homes here are quiet.

My coffee cup is to the dregs already 

So my mind is slowly easing into the day. 

And I am realizing that this is the first job I have ever lost.

And I know what it feels like to flop and somehow still believe in myself. 

Everyone around me tells me I should bail-  find something new. 

But I have been saying all along that I like when things happen TO me

Instead of BY me - so that it feel like God is in control. 

But instead, it just feels like I am spinning.

I am sure God has a plan and will work this for the good. 

But, should I be maneuvering over here?  

I will start with prayer.

Hallowed be thy name.  May I not soil you, Lord, and drag you through the mud today. My my words be life and may my song be true.  Not just when I speak to strangers, but when I speak to my family And give orders and ask for help, those times, may the be pleasing in His sight.

Thy kingdom come.  Hasten the day of the Lord's return. May I long for life with Christ and know that this home is temporary.  This home is fleeting.  May I be content and focused in my living so that it may be purposeful for his kingdom. 

Thy will be done.  Not my will.  This is the hardest prayer right now, in this season. I have my weeds and desires, my fears and my goals.  I don't want to chase them, though. Instead, let me run towards God and seek his face. With SAVE and IC and Key Club, may I work for Him.  But in my classroom too. Assuming I will be in that room yet, I pray for each desk as it fills each hour.  If that season has ended, help me to keep a head high with hopes and bowed with humility.  May the Lord alone decide upon my steps.  

Amen.

And then you answered with

Cease striving.

A rebuke that is hard to follow.  But with your help I will try.