Europe

Europe why do you eat sandwiches for breakfast?
I thought the man at my compartment door wanted my ticket.
To validate my existence. That's what I'm doing here right?
He just wanted to sell me a sandwich.

Now I'm watching the sunrise over the Italian countryside
On the 6:12 train to Naples.
The passing crop rows let me see between their lines,

And as we pass they slip me the secret joy of knowing just where you're going
But not what's waiting there.

Praise God I'm alone because I could fall in love in this place.
But I'll take the slow train anytime.

Now morning sun on red clay.
This is where I'll live someday,
Where the morning sun finds red clay under a wider branched tree.

I know what they say,
But when you get down to it
We're all standing up on the same dirt anyway.

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Europe why do you smoke like a chimney?
And why do you make me want to do the same?
We may know something about health, alright.
But do we know war?
We don't know what you're still smoking for.

Europe I saw you turn a strong man giddy.
Deep romanced breaths, left behind by the living
Grow golden in your hills.

One sweet lung-full and his step turned tumble
He bumped and rolled down waving meadow
'Til he caught his breath on reverent knees,
Dandelion smears on his white shirt sleeves.
His sunshine spots inspired me.

So I smuggled back a cuban in a tangle of clothes.
I'm coming home pink-cheeked and freckle-nosed.

Everything is Illuminated

Sometimes I,
I think I've grown up, I,
I think know more, I,
I think it's all true.

Sometimes I,
I don't care.

Sometimes I, I consider
the passing of time.
How the sunflowers don't shine
after five in the winter

And I wonder, I, I wonder
where I might find
myself at five in the summer.

I'll be there afore I know it,
I know I will be.

I think, gee.
I think me oh my oh me me me.

I think, I,
I think what should I do?
How do I save these passing seconds
flying by me without recollection
they'll all slip past and I'll lose them all I,
I will, I know it.

Stop.

The sunflowers won't shine past five.
They've burned hard and they've burned warm.
They wither as they weather the storm.
Their clay pots shatter dust to dust
and drift away on sweet warm winds,
and never know they've been alive.
They can't hold all that color in.

Me in my steel pot, let it rust.
Oh color mine, don't hold me in.
I'll never drink all of a sky so blue.
Live life or life will live you.

11/15

and, i think, this is how i know

so i'm leaving on a jetplane,


don't know when i'll be back again.



and they will see us waving from such great heights,


"come down now," they'll say . . .




but we'll stay.

8/31

i was a
prophet, now i

i make roadsigns
for a living.

"watch out world,
here you come"

no turning back,
no turning back.

he saw shapes
in the clouds.

if only to
know there, here.

my bones itch
to go broke.

Bonita

I've been home from Mexico for two days.

I don't know what it is about a week in a foreign country that has so inspired me anew to consider all the possibilities standing before me . . .
waiting . . .

A career, a family, a home

What do I want? When do I want it? Where do I want it?

It's finally okay for me to ask those things. I've finally let go of needing them . . . demanding them. I finally embraced a career, a family, a home, and a million other things the American dream takes for granted as only blessings . . . and now am finally embracing them as blessings that might have been intended for me afterall.

So what is right for me?

6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!

7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,

8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

In Proverbs 6, the ant simply is. It doesn't dwell day after day on the positives and negatives, the what-ifs and should-haves. It does what it knows how. It brings glory to is Maker by fulfilling its purpose: to do what makes sense. To live as it knows life.

With each day, I feel more certain about what makes sense.
I think that might mean that it's all getting a little closer.

And still yes, in a sense, I'm more scared than ever . . . and I think that's because I know myself more. And am realizing how little I know.

It's a beautiful thing . . . for every new thing I learn to learn of another thing I don't know. Maybe will never know.


Life is far from simple. Our faith is far from simple.
But, still, it isn't.


And in a sense, I'm more sure than ever . . . and I think that's only by faith.




Oh for grace to trust Him more.

Substitute Teaching

Eighth grade classroom drama.
This was me once.

Arkansas juvenile poverty
in their over-sized hand-me-downs and their
high-waters with torn knees and their
greased hair and dirty mouths.

I've never known need.

My burning throat from
raised voice over their
eighth grade classroom drama
rasps that they'll never listen to me.

Comparing stories of their
pre-bell fistfights and their
jr. prom late nights and they're
all caught in themselves.

We all know need.

So I go on substitute teaching.