Airstream
Lent 2 A
John 3:1–17
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
Be born of wind and water said the Teacher in the night
be new and swim and soar in the mystery of God now
so Nick polished his Airstream, took it out on the road
from Palo Duro Canyon to Big Bend and beyond
he deleted entries in his Google calendar, went offline
checked off incomplete tasks on his lists driving free
stopping where ever it seemed the flow was flowing
encountering strangers with deep pools of eyes
from time to time someone on the roadside
needed a tire change or a gallon of gas so he stopped
occasionally he met someone at a Waffle House
who sat alone, struck up a conversation, paid the tab
once he met a woman with a thin three-year old and
gave her a year’s worth of grocery money just like that
then he stopped and stayed a while in Death Valley heat
drank mango iced tea, absorbed desert wisdom like the sun
when he realized the tires were shot, trip was done,
he gave thanks for that day he trusted the Teacher and took off
gave thanks for letting go, for the restless spirit
moving him fluid through life like wild water streams
Aquavit
Lent 3 A
John 4:5–42
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)
If it’s true as you say, O abstruse teacher
that you are the pale straw aquavit that we pour
at Christmas and Easter and all the great feasts
Then you infuse us like caraway and cardamom
warm us like whiskey in November
tipsy our imaginations to see you even now
Then how crazy was she at the well to dip and draw
when you stood there like a ribbon wrapped bottle
all gift and wonder, no tax or debit required
How crazy are we like grumpy teetotalers
not to pour a glass and sip with you when
we keep dropping our buckets in empty wells
If Jesus Were Blind
Lent 4 A
John 9:1–41
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” (John 9:39)
On his face there were only closed lids and not even
the sun could penetrate his corneas with blood red light
but on his fingers he had eyes one on each tip
he could see and feel the world the wind and you
With ten oculi he could peer into the eleventh dimension
see beyond dodecahedrons and hypercubes and superstrings
look into a world our stereoscopic minds cannot envision
he saw the glory beneath the light and within and beyond it
He only saw ultraviolet and infrared, the hidden beauty of things
what hummingbirds see as they hover and zoom and spy
firebush and honeysuckle, sage and yellow trumpet bush
discovering the nectar guides and their honeyed revelations
beyond faces and minds and egos manifested
when he touched you and grasped you inside and out he saw
the you lit up beneath the shadow you, he saw the gash
in your wounded soul, the sweetness dripping from your floral heart
Sympathy for Lazarus
Lent 5 A
John 11:1–45
Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:35–37)
He didn’t ask to be a magic trick like some dead rabbit
pulled out of a stone hat with a hocus pocus incantation.
He didn’t want to be resuscitated in full decrepit stink
for his mother to see him shambling down the cemetery road.
He was resting in peace after taking the dark plunge once;
no one should stomach it twice, that long black falling.
So Jesus, when I die and I’m put down to earthen solace
or after my ashes are scattered into entropic chaos irreversible,
do not force me to go through it again like brother Lazarus
raised to face more time in suffering and second death.
Let your tears be so you may let me go as we all must do;
grieve your best friend fully and without recourse to power.
Raise me then beyond time to your un-nameable dimension
where decay has died and all fear of losing myself and you
has been buried in that old entombed world where I still walk
like Lazarus already dead yet alive and yet to die and rise.
Kenosis
Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday
Philippians 2:5–11
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8)
My mind so full of debris and hubris from the wasted day,
phone calls unreturned and crumpled scraps of paper,
casual conversations with hidden ego stratifications,
the self I want to project onto a cinema screen large
as a shadow silhouette miming my own celebrated life.
My mind so full like a blue water balloon waiting for
a painful needle prick to burst it open to emptiness
where this small i is no longer my daily migraine throb,
and into my hollow skull a new mind pours like