DO YOU LOVE ME?

Lord Jesus, meet me here. On my bed.
Feeling sort of embarrassed, unhinged. Straw-stuffed.
Quicken me. Float me in Your river.
Be the gentlest mist to soften my skin and help me feel again.
Be the storm whipping me ragged.

What I really need is not sex, but it is love.
I need to trust Your love more. I am terrified to trust You.
Do You see how ridiculous I'm being? How contradictory
and mean? Pound this meat with a mallet! Drill all through me,
saturate and dissolve me. Cleanse me with hyssop.

Open, open, open all the dusty shutters. Sweep this place out,
air my thoughts and feelings and tired bones. Hang sweet-
smelling herbs inside. Show me I'm alive.
Make me alive, sharp as cider vinegar.
I love this life. I love the bigness and variety of it.

And the closeness and specificity. I love color
and touch and smell and taste - Jack's sauce
on a wooden spoon. The soft shadows cast
in my room. The bagpipe-drone of distant
lawnmowers. The pleasure of scratching an itch.

And I wish, I wish, I wish, to be wet all through with rain.
To be rocked in tree boughs again. To hold hands
and not care that I'm sweaty.
Knit me, Lovely, deep into Your vine.
I want to feel Your sap mingling with mine.


---

FHB

Life is too short to cross-stitch.
But long enough for silence in the car (so long
I forgot you were there
and dreams crept up on me,
wrapped warm and purred
around my legs).
Green hills, hills,
the window down, my right arm
sunburned. Blanched windbreak of a face.

Life is too long to plant nothing -
to think fruit trees won't
bear fruit (or the flowers that flower next year)
aren't worth planting.
Stars have been singing all this blooming time. (You don't
require my oblation. Why should I
save stamps?) Fold up one white dress,
eat backyard weeds in order
to give liberally (FHB),
when the bread is broken,
soggy,
gone,
seed planted.

---

*FHB: "Family Hold Back"

Sundust

Certain slants of light remind me of epiphany
my Mother with a crumpled Kleenex in the passenger's seat,
lifting and shaking it out in a puff of golden,
sun-caught dust. I sat in strapped
compliance behind, transported
by the glinting fairy cloud, each fleck
an airy and impossible thing,
floating down,
slowly descending.
I had seen this before,
the flaming dust,
magic. 

Letter to God, February 12 2014

Dear Lord Jesus,
It has been a long time since I've written You this way. Did You miss me?
How is our love supposed to be like a relationship? I'm still unsure,
sometimes, how to please You.
My flesh is a tyrant. (Bother all these words and phrases). Bless me, Lord.
Make my heart right, more right than it's ever been. Show me the sneaking
grasping sins, lies, unworthy desires. Use me as an instrument
of good. Make music on me. I'm dried up and stale as an old acorn.
I want to write, sing, paint, live. Clean and plant and nuzzle up close.
There is always a part of me sleeping, and a part leaping out like a jack-in-the-
box, like an overstuffed pie.
Tuck me in, steep me in Your juices.
Help me love MORE, not less. Desire MORE, not less.
Trust MORE, not less, pray MORE, not less.
There are so many letters, so many people to write, to pray for, to be here for.
The wedding approaches. And yet what I need most of all is You. Is to lean
onto Your bosom.
What small outward acts contribute to inner peace, nearness?
Help me see the fruit growing. Not fear the storm, or the autumn,
or another long, long winter. Things grow, I grow, in winter.
Even in silence and angst.
But only by You. Glorious righteous generous You.
KJ