Veils

You tore the thick and ancient veil
Even as the last pneuma
Was torn from your lungs.
You tore it top to bottom,
Reached what I couldn’t,
Rent the barrier first hung
By my damned rebellion.

You were not veiled
To the pagan executioner
When he heard you shout
At the finish,
And he confessed
The undeniable truth.

I will journey through your meat-veil,
Torn and bloody, 
To reach the holiest of holies –
Attain the unattainable –
Entering by a way unimaginably expensive,
Unimaginably ingenious.

So nail me up beside you,
Drag me deep into icy death,
That I may awaken with you
To new-returned pneuma,
Unveiled and unwrapped,
Exploding from the tomb into life.

To Vincent

I’m so sorry.
We shared much:
Love of God and man,
Wheat fields,
Crows,
Sunflowers,
Self-taught dissatisfaction.
I hope I meet you one day.
(p.s. the tree roots are beautiful
and so alive)

Springbud

Let me bud
Then burst forth
Like a pink treeblossom
In just-spring
When the sky is warming
And the days are lengthening
And the ground is thawed
And the birds eager and amorous
When the old story replays
And all creation gasps
Because it’s shocking
To see death
Spring forth
Into life

Winter

Winter was a surprise,
Arriving suddenly
In the coldest week I can remember,
So cold our basement toilet froze
And the water treatment plant broke
And Andy Reed’s mustache at Arrowhead
Looked like a cluster of bite-sized snotsicles
As Taylor Swift watched from a fogged-up box.

But inside with Winter,
We had abundant snuggles,

Cozy blankets,

Warm baths in the kitchen sink
And clean-boiled water for tea and bottles.

It did not matter that the roads were slick

Or that the courthouse was closed all week;

Winter warmed us all. 

Adventus

You came, not for those full of good cheer,
Or those endowed with generosity and human kindness,
Or those who have learned the True Meaning of Christmas,

But for us who weep under the world's weight,
Who scrape and slave to keep the lights on,
Or have fat retirement accounts and empty hearts,

For the lonesome mother at the kitchen sink
Scrubbing a shitstained onesie and wondering
How everything ended up like this,

For the lovetorn poet
Who has tried for years to see the point of it all --
Any point at all -- and keeps coming up short,

For all who wander in darkness,
Overwhelmed and overwrought,
Outdone by chaos that seems inescapable.

You are the point of this pointless world,
The still center of this swirling mess,
The true promise in a sea of disappointment,
The deliverance of a travailing world,
The only answer that makes any sense,
The way out,
The way up,
The fullness that will cure
Our hollow hearts.