You are my bright side
the one who turns the tide
hope has taken shape
words now carry weight
these walls are sure and safe
You are my bright side
contentment’s peerless guide
forgiving all my lack
picking up the slack
your palm upon my back
You are my bright side
a horizon open wide
I love the precious shorthand
that we both understand
a softer place to land
You are my bright side.
An exegete called Him the God of the long term.
Is it a name that conjures all the temporal spirits,
aloft in Dickensian foreboding?
Dare we approach, seeking a crown
from One simply enduring?
Or is He a state
impervious to Fate
and all its stars,
where our plan-making may cease
and our ceasing will ease?
While we look for a refuge
from these recursive days,
the questions grow,
and the longing stays.
If you’re a pessimist,
you want to be right
if you’re also a martyr
or a masochist.
An attention-hungry jeremiad
who relishes the negative.
A frill of sunlight through the drear
stings brightly;
a trill of gospel through the fear
rings off-key.
Now in an echo chamber
of grievance and dread:
How will you know
if it’s all in your head?
Between you and me
Between the truth and set free
Between what this was supposed to be
and what I now foresee.
The pesky incongruity,
maddening humanity.
And it only now occurs to me:
Between born of the Virgin
and suffered under Pilate,
before the reckoning–
wasn’t that almost everything?
Turns out it’s an adjective that means
we had no idea,
and we have no idea.
It’s everybody’s best guess
when best is frighteningly relative.
What was shiny now has a sinister slant,
an apology that doesn’t land.
Copping to innocence, a sneaky excuse,
today it feels like a tightening noose.
When I learned that trees communicate
wordlessly joining roots
to share food and water
whispering down the lane
so every one can bloom in unison,
I wondered about the numbness
of my feet on this ground,
and the silence to my right
and to my left,
and I recognized my inferiority.
The efficacy of resurrection
is that it’s not
a corpse reanimation
but a brand new incarnation.
Not just borrowed breath
but newly fashioned flesh
and bones that hold the knowledge of death.
Sinewy power and fearless grit
A mind reset, perfectly fit
to remember before, and still overcome it.
I recently read that
shame is useless.
Funny–
not in a ha-ha way–
’cause I’ve somehow made it work as
a weapon I can’t lay down
a cloak I don’t shrug off
a tool that never dulls
a boulder that won’t budge.
And I also read that
regret profits no one.
But that doesn’t mean
there are none.
‘No regrets’ rings hollow
rather delusional, in fact.
How do you learn from mistakes
if there’s nothing at your back?
Belief becomes words become practice–
if I ever can make sense of this.
I’ve gotta stanch the bleeding
of minutes from the clock.
We need to make the most of this.
At each turn, I whisper a prompt:
What’s next, and then after that?
Something’s gotta take shape.
Today is a series of doing,
and so will tomorrow be.
We used to move through the hours;
our comings and goings stacked up nicely
and put the shine on a life.
It’s frightening to watch the pot never boil.
Will the calendar begin again today?
These seams may burst, the fabric fray
I can only hold so much at bay.
An assortment of four corners
to pinball on and off
to frame moods
and the actions they birth
the words they pen
and the thoughts they unleash.
There’s yet a destination
though you don’t feel motion now,
and the scenery standing still
is a different kind of vertigo.
