Outside JFK

sitting in the airport shuttle
after dropping off my sister
to fly home.
through the window,
pale sky edged with pink
clear air and cold
and the openness in
the trees

Somehow,
I find myself
alive
and well

here

the buildings slipping by outside
feel the way the ones in
Columbus used to
in all the years that raised me
before this one.

(that's the best way I know
to explain it. this recognizing
of things I've never met)

Desire-suddenly
more like
blossoming
and less like
itchy
hunger-
rests here
inside
my ribs

(I couldn't picture it
before.
true fulfillment is
a different road
entirely.)

It whispers, someday
someday
someday.
This too, could feel like
home.

I keep running into You
lately
the light has been shortening
things have been
running out
and things
have been
filling

Who am I
in all the world
if not
Your beloved?

Where else
in all the earth
does this story go
except glory
and joy made home?

I was worried
the city with its aching
treadmill of dreams
would yell
so loud
that I wouldn't be able
to make out Your voice

And surely it has
and would have
if You weren't such
a great interrupter
If you weren't such
a great friend.

Today I thought
maybe I will create a tee shirt
with the message
"I didn't have what it takes"
and wear it around Manhattan
to remind myself

the brilliant and trembling story

all my life
You keep rescuing me

Sukkot

The Orthodox
in their dark hats and
long beards
are walking the sidewalks
this week.
"Excuse me," they ask, gently
"but ...are you Jewish?"

They want to bless, on
this holiday- the one for firstfruits

It was on Friday, after the accident.
after the little boy's body
thumped- loud- and slid. Steel and concrete
and crowd that formed while
they Velcro-ed his small legs
to the board. Wide-eyed,
blood in his hair.

I walked with
a trembling 5th grade witness
to the subway. The
Rain-heavy air
quaked
with sorrow.
with seeds of relief .

"Are you Jewish?" a man asked,
a bearded 20 year old.
smiling beneath the brow of his hat.
"No," I said "but you can bless us anyway
if you want to", (the adrenaline talking)

And so he did
Hand raised to the God of Heaven,
Right there in the middle
of the sadness
and the joy
of the
whole world.

Belonging

its letting yourself be
woven in
surrounded, held tight
by hands not your own
but that you've grown
to recognize. to trust
the way you already
did the fields beside the old house,
the sound of gravel, the declaring stars

it's walking now
through the new city hearing
familiar voices
on the phone- smiling at

the realization that
this weaving stretches
that you didn't leave it behind
with your address

that the healing's been real
and true things
follow us
because of who their
Author is
and- Behold!
this map that He is
so carefully
so wonderfully
writing

its waking up
changed,
and then
the life after that

Summer in Oxford

windows open
to night's breathing
warmed air waltzes these
unfolded fields of
corn and soybean carpets
offering themselves
free
beneath the world's
open ceiling

I watch the
quiet
constellations
of
lightning bugs

rise

the difference we make in this life

has everything to do
with Him loving us

it's the river
we never thought
we'd see, washing
tonight
around our ankles
our thighs
calling us
Beloved
Beloved in the Earth

now
escorting each one-
the weak- the broken- the strong-
into the same
jeans stuck to our legs
waving and splashing
eyes filling
with Light

We are found. this is our glory.

Malaria

I love the way
the pond looks now
that spring has come
the dogs used race and wrestle
on its surface
now reflections of
tree branches
ripple and move

the grass is green as the
the hilltop we hiked in India
when the monsoon wind
swept white mist around us
moss exploding from every stone wall

***

these weeks
Your hands held tight
locked in, around
while the trance passed over
(Love- You say- is strong as death, and jealousy unyielding)

until I awoke
here with arms heavy
and tired
from fighting You
while You carried me

learning to be loved

it starts with giving up
on being able to
buy it

then comes the realization
that people, after all
can't really
ever be invisible

And, if you're like me,
You learn about this
God
Whose love can hit
like a wave and
knock all your snot out

and maybe- like me,
you think that is more than enough love
to live on for awhile, thank you.

but you'd be wrong

Because love
has this way of crowding us
wrapping around
our feet
growing
roots into
cracks in these
ancient walls
until
one day
finally
we start
to really
hear

the people
telling us stories
of things they
didn't forget or
showing us where we are
on their maps
and
somehow
we believe them

learning to love

love is like a
bird, sitting soft inside
these hands
from time to time
the Voice tells you
lift your
arms,
hurl love
into the air
watch it fly
above the skyline
away from you and
the safety of
your control

declare
over and over
that you would rather
risk it's loss
than refuse

holding them both.

The other day
I was reading some writer's
words about beauty
being everywhere. She said
life is hard, but life also
is good. We should rejoice.
My lips stiffened into a line
as I read.
(Which is- I'm aware- a problem)

The other day, I saw
a 4th grader
labor through her math
while fondling herself
beneath the table. (When an 8 year old
knows they have a vagina- I've been taught
it's a red flag of abuse)
We talked about
whether the answer to number 5 was A or D,
knowing, I wasn't there long enough
to ask other questions.
to listen
for something concrete. And also
that the world is full of such
normal horror.
That I teach math
almost everyday to children
whose souls are
curtained
in dark water.

I know, Oh God, that
You are beautiful, and that You alone
have never turned
from pain. You who also
resolutely yell
the joyful story
in the darkest holes.
That You cry and sing
and somehow You
do them both perfectly
and at once.

I think I would like to
do this with You.
As usual,
I have no idea
how.

February

It is Spring
but you can't know it yet
by looking

tonight Shannon told me
how her joy came back
how she laughed- out of the blue
for eleven minutes,
cried and rolled and rocked

A month ago my sister's
high school friend(now a priest) called
to wish her a happy winter solstice.
He said don't worry-
Jesus is about to come busting into the dark.

the high-water mark
has past. Light is slow creeping
back into the days.

I take my heart out more lately
and let it feel
the wind