Lines from January, Part 2

18.
Today was one of those days in which I almost made a list of complaints. Mostly petty. But whatever it was, the single-digit weather or my disappointed womb or the emotional hangover from yesterday, I felt all wrong. Morbid and unlovely, like some Raskolnikov. Didn't he take a perverse pleasure in repulsion of the simple & good? Mother-love, affection, friendship, lunch -- pet names and childish habits (in oneself and in others) become odious in these moods.
Ha. Haha.
The day was successful anyway. Chores, shopping, cookies mostly unburnt,
a sketch, C mailing my packages. Gracious. Holy Jesus. Fly in the face of my moping and pomposity. Kiss me black & blue.


23.
Father, thank You. HJ & A are ENGAGED. And I'm hope. ha. home with stomach flu. And it's OK.
I love You.

I will say yes to You
I know You'll see me through whatever landscape lies ahead.


25.
Today feels like two days, and words are limp.
A was just singing lullabies to C, who went home a little while ago, still very sick but at least with some Gatorade and chicken broth in him. Making chicken soup & Mom's whole wheat bread was a highlight of the day. The many stages, colors, smells, sounds. And it was good.

A & I finished "The Magician's Nephew", aloud to C.
The shopping trip was difficult. I felt on edge and fumbly the whole time I was driving. And those emotional undercurrents got so strong by Aldi, I almost snapped. It wasn't good.
God, help me not bottle emotions or entertain bitter thoughts. Sometimes it's hard to know when concern becomes pride. I mean, whether trying to please is people-pleasing, fear of man.

Nevertheless, I have had such sightings of You today as still make me quiver.
Bother. Words.
Your wind. You want me. You must not stop, because I am so foolish. I will forget. Love me like You did with the wind today, and the leaning sun, and the oak leaves roaring like the ocean.
I still hear it.
I can't - shouldn't - come out, but my spirit wants to jump out of my skin.
Why aren't we one yet?
Did I eat too much honey?
Even Your armadillo blessing I received clumsily. And nothing good is enough. I'm all pieces and hopes, texts and letters, hugs and sentence prayers (or run-on sentence prayers) and a string of verses in John 1.
And what about the lady in the parking lot? Should I have driven her home?
Your kids must all be birds, because Your words are rocks. I want to eat them, so please grow me a crop.
Please anchor me and pin me up, low and lofty. Help me care only about Your opinion. NO human approval supersedes Yours. Doesn't matter.
I want the real stuff. Don't let me get cloudy and acceptable. Don't leave me to eat my regurgitated words. Pour Yourself into me, like some holy colon cleanse.
Show me all the open space in You. Open up everything in me (and I'm too self-protective -- still!).
Only Jesus.


26.
I feel like this is an, "I have the write (right, ha!) to remain silent..." moment. I don't trust myself.
And I'm still weak and trembly.
But, I don't want to miss this, either. This chance to say, thank You for answering prayer. You know what we need when we need it. You know how to make us ready. Help me not be overcome by anything but You. Sift our words with me - J's and mine - such a torrent of them over the last 3 hours, and now silence, and thought, foolishness and giddiness and peace. Where am I? What happened? Was that me, is this real?
I don't know what to feel, but I'm...thankful.
And calling Mom and Dad now.


27.
Lord, the Psalter readings today are so fitting. Thanks. Unless You build the house... and You grant sleep. Please grant me the kind I need tonight.
And steady, and ready me. I got ~3 hours last night. But thanks for that ~35 minute moss rest, out in the woods by C's other cabin.
The sun. The gentle wind. The susurration of leaves. And I was warm, and molded to the ground in tiredness. Sweet blue sky, and bare branches, with something like buds. This is a time to live in, and trust.

Rilke's "Exposed on the cliffs of the heart" became especially fitting. So many things did. Berry quotes I copied, things A said, my own songs... "Grow within this womb of clarity, God does no thing in halves."
I have what I need to live and go on. Even though I dread and anticipate a reply. Even though I feel like I've been split open and the insides are all hanging out of me, and I must seem very simple and hypocritical. As much as I want to think I'm special and will get special consideration/treatment, I have no guarantee. I think my trust will be tested. I think it ought to be -
but help me, Jesus, to put my trust in You.

D once told me You would never let me down. Prove Your power, the reputation You have for resurrection. Wash us with Your love.
This is a good place to be, small and vulnerable, but receptive, waiting. Nestled against You. Don't let me waste this. This time when everything is open and somehow possible, when I can be remade.
Guts. And glory.


28.
Mi Querido.
Thank You for Genny's message, and Your deep love.
For sunlight so bright my face is crinkly and pink in places. For that hour in the sun with A. And our prayers. And crafting for the banquet. And yoga. And favor, somehow; a Facebook 15 minutes. Eh, that's not the point. I mean, that You moved people through the song You gave me. Thank You.
And You even saw my petty half-wish for a new profile pic, and provided one today. Such a one, I don't think I know myself. Am I really that free and joyful? I want to be. To claim You.
Keep healing.
C and A wanted to be astronauts. They took a trip to outer space tonight.

Help me be patient. Missouri weather's changeable, and so are my emotions. I don't really regret anything, not that...but I'm sorry all the same. Felt pretty heavy and sad today, still hearing nothing, feeling like an amateur, an idealist.
Not suited to real living.
Whatever that means.
Feeling conventional and shallow, let's say. Very white and safe and pitiable. Very female.
I'd better stop, this isn't edifying.
Please give me some useful things to do and some more beauty tomorrow. More of You.
Give me eyes to eternity and the spiritual battles raging, and not a magnifying glass to my own navel.
Betelgeuse. My brothers. The postal service. Life is full of glories.
I love You, Holy One. I bloody love You.


29.
Help me to remember Psalm 139 all day today.
Use me for Your pleasure.


30.
Oh, I needed that four-wheeler ride. Fear and faith, wild beauty. Wind and laughter. That rush of air, and tears streaming along our faces, and hair stiff with dust by the time we got home.

Console me, center me. The first flush is fading, and I'm tired and uninspired.
Craft us some great ship for sailing in. Thank You for the love of my friends. Help me pray. And carve out rest for me tomorrow.


31.
The walls are bare now. "Nor can foot feel, being shod."
No, I'm actually barefoot. On my bed, feeling too awake and calm to be leaving tomorrow. I don't know when the tears will come.
Thank You for the strength You gave me today, that was no less a miracle than anything.
And sweet goodbyes.

Ekphrasis on an Old Cucumber

9.7.15

Kissing cucumber.
(Perhaps the most unattractive kiss I've seen in a while).
Yellow like mango flesh.
Spotted with green, nobs of white and brown.
Muscular
fishlike
blind and hungry
firm and rubbery
soft at the end, brown as caramel.
Pouting. Duckface. Jowls.
Dirigible
submarine
saffron pufferfish
deflating balloon egg yolk
shriveled head.







9.8.15

Bulbous
Warty (acne?)
faint scrapes & scars.

Flower-end. There I dropped my flower.
Little scabby hole. Belly button.
Lateral veins.

Black spots forming.
Withering a bit. Wrinkles appearing.
Sad and deflated, aware that "no one wants me"?

Or secretive and hissing out gassy, quiet
laughter? "I have seeds; nobody knows."

Such an agreeable size and shape. Like something
you'd give a child to hold.
Or grasp in the palm just to feel it.








9.9.15

This cucumber is monstrous and yellow.
That is, in part, because I picked it too late,
and then allowed it to begin decomposition
on a chair in the kitchen
for about 3 weeks.

Unfortunately, most of my cucumbers met this fate.
Invisible or puny green things
that progressed immediately, it seemed,
to a kind of golden yellow horror,
bitter and tough-skinned and seedy.

I've been imagining it pouting and grimacing at me.
I'm trying to see things another way.

Mom says,
"It's too bad they gave up so soon."

9.10.15

It's like the great, damp, steamy nose
of some animal.

Looking at it makes me want to sniff sharply.

White mold is growing in some of the crevices.
In some of the pores as well.

Everything seems to be centering into that
brown rotting end/nose/mouth/nipple.
Curling in on itself.

That festering end is soft as raw chicken,
but the rest of the cuke is firm still.
Tensed up and holding it in, even though constellations
of gray mold are showing,
translucent, through the skin.








9.11.15

Snowy, milky, foaming in the folds

                      is mold.


It is a cascade now, this rotting,
     gaining momentum
        gathering an avalanche.

Tending to disorder -
what happens to a rotten
                                        cucumber?

Do the black spots, like flattened
fruit flies, cluster and darken
all the flesh, until it moulders
into earth?

         Will it reek?

Will this color, approaching "pumpkin",
ever succumb
                       to brown?








9.12.15

Hello, baby. Hello, warthog,
skunk cabbage, kangaroo. Yo,
potpourri lychee.
Witch of the Waste's nose.
Underside of a tongue,
a humpback whale.
Hail, King Midas.
Everywhere gold.








9.13.15

There is a mouth. It has withered
smoker's lips, cracked from
puckering. Sagging from slow
disillusionment.

Even the cheeks are sallow, age-spotted.
These freckles use to be cute,
and now look cancerous.

Does death make us rabid,
foaming at the mouth?

Because here it is a settled
dissent, a disapproving scowl, a last
attempt at showing mortality
disgust and then
indifference.

Lines from January, Part 1

4.
There's been too much to write about.
The wedding (contra was miraculous), driving to MO yesterday, and even today with its myriad small adjustments, joys. I love being here. This is right.
A and I had tea, fruit, eggs, and popcorn for breakfast. Popcorn left for us by the neighbors, along with other treats, a sweet note, and a booby trap of balloons and confetti.
A said, "This is the kind of thing that makes me think I can do this."

We shopped today. I almost got us in an accident. But we were fine (thanks). We locked ourselves out the first time we left the house; C came to rescue us, i.e. finagle the deadbolt (we had the key, it was just tricky).
Today a man in Walmart on a motorized wheelchair warned us, "Better watch out! Quarter-mile-an-hour!"

Thank You Jesus. Reading Narnia, Psalm 19, my old entries, and listening to "Seated With Christ" were glimmerings of You today. As were sunlight and a tiny grasshopper picking his way across the living room carpet. And J's song. And E's good news. And F's text. Ah, Christo.

I miss my brothers. Thank You for J's softness Saturday night. For C's message tonight. Make him into a very good cheese.


8.
Dear Jesus, please give me wisdom. Amen.


10.
Dearest to me,
Remind me (how) to talk with You. Remind me (how) to listen. Help me be like Abel, giving You my best, all of me, not the scraps. Remind me what Your love is really like. Show me fire & water & mountain air. Gather me, scatter me, pierce my ears. As with slaves of old, I want Your awl. But marry me. Help me call You Husband, not Master. Help me bring You good, and delight in You, all my days.


11.
He bought her a piano.


12.
Everything is going to whiz by. Everything IS whizzing by.
But thanks, Lord, that You're in it. Thanks for what You are teaching me. Wean me from worthless things. Give me invincible joy in You and in all things from You, toward You.
Thanks for A & A and their family. Thanks for a great night with them, soup, bread, lemonade, blueberry pie and ice cream, shooting handguns, playing Wii, fooling around with smartphones, LOTS of storytelling and laughter and cuddly kids.

Thanks for moodiness and quietness today, some progress, but also some be-ing. Emotions are coming back to me quietly.
I didn't realize how suppressed I was.
Keep teaching me, my Soulmaker.

Thanks for a barefoot ramble and prayer for Tripoli today.


13.
Thank You that A prayed and read and decided "Yes" today,
and that I could affirm it.

Thank You for miraculously making the shortbread cookies stick together.
And for giddy wine and laughter, and safety.
3rd day of yoga, and some lame hip-hop.
Singing "Worthwhile Snack" in the shower.

Thanks that A is going to get her finger sized, and that C had a zip tie, ribbon, and string in his back pocket, and that I still don't know how to spell exercise and I'm embarrassed about my poor math skillz. Corrected an addition fail on my old grocery list. Pride is a bigger problem than faulty addition.
Thanks for all the letters lined up on the counter, and my first (from Mama!) today, and for a lovely Skype with C.
Thanks for helping me pray for J while doing kitchen laps, ~20 mins.
Help me sift through the Buddha's words, keep only what will serve.

Jesus, I don't know You as You should be known. Don't give up on me.
Make what You desire - truth - in my inmost.


17.
Good afternoon of prayer, fasting & rest. Good is perhaps the wrong word...important? Needed. Helpful. Prayer with A & C, too.
Dancing to Innocence Mission with almost all the lights out. "Shadow of the Almighty", and more of John 1.
I should mention yesterday though. SUCH A SUCCESS of a day for You! Breakfast, reconciliation, visiting...and off to St. Lou! I had a lovely visit with O, and a really sweet time getting to know R before everyone else arrived. They're an awesome family. Metal detectors, corn snake, horses, Manga, books.
T told me some of their story. They were 17 and 23 when they married. Thank You for keeping them together. Thank You for holding all things together by Your powerful Word.
Use every stubborn hapless part of me.
Give me more. Make the dry bones come alive. Would I trust You for salvation, and not for that?

Prayer, May 11

My eyes are shrinking and my face is sagging. It is time for bed. But not before these fierce and stubborn blessings.

Sinned have I. Father me bless. You are the original Father, and the exceptional One: You understand Your children, always. And I need that. I don't understand myself. My room might be the top of a pyramid, sliding down from any direction. Only You know if this season is succulent or full of mold, but whatever it is, it's Yours. It's Your problem now.

As am I. Help me stop trying so hard.

Please, please comb through this head of tangles. Even if it takes all night. Even if my scalp gets raw, and bleeds, and I scare myself with my own neuroses. I feel You. You give me things I don't know how to name. You make the wisest psychology laughable. There is no other, there is nothing else.

Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

April Fools

March was mine like a suckling child;
we were quiet together, sharing eyes.

April stands on two feet
and runs away from me. 

Washington Heights

(Ekphrastic song based on J. T. Kady's "Untitled")

You make the best cup of coffee in the city

because it is made by your hands

we talk ourselves to exhaustion in the evenings

but haven’t run out of things to say

In the late afternoon we walk to Tryon Park

the daffodils are bursting like suns

the star magnolia blossoms wrap the tree in a gown

anemones and heather, and everybody spring-shy and kind

The Hudson is wide, the George is getting brighter in the dusk

I hold a hand in mine, we walk home by the Cloisters

here is a garden at the top of the apartment

here is a nest in a concrete maze

and a love not second-guessing; I am safe

and we still haven’t run out of things to say

Levertov Typos

A hunger of the hands

to be doing something

rhythmic and worthwhile

in sifted flower, over the writs

things dying to give, 

smelling like soil

if five's pleasure

six is labor

and seven's rest.