We are always looking for arrival.
God seems less interested
In this
than we are.

How many times have I thought "but...
They just got here.... just were called for this....just seemed to be getting somewhere.... "

Just got home from their honeymoon
Just got the savings
Just found their way back to family
Just got the ministry job
Just bought the lake house
Just figured it all out

I was trained by movies
They have trained us wrong

There are no arrivals
here
Without exits
There are no homes we won't leave
No people who never change
No bodies remain unscathed


And it's the growing
That is our arrival
We are being formed
We are (please, God) learning

Our solid places are in seeking,
In awaiting,
In living,
in becoming

Our plans, our homes, our beloved ones,
These are the river
Not the shore

And someday,

Someday
Someday
We shall be with God-
Arrived

What do I do with Brooklyn, which happened?
What do I do with brick buildings, shoulders close, and hundreds of storefront nations?
What do I do with the walk to the subway, heading home past doorway roses and children running and climbing in schoolyards. People sharing space, closet apartments for thousands of dollars, Muslim clerics and Jamaican pastries and women's stomachs and Jewish men's curly sideburns together on the same hot sidewalk.
What do I do with the memories of Brooklyn, coming out of dormancy
 and waving,
sitting on my front stoop and
Shaking down their hair
They have come to talk,
To reminisce
"Don't forget" they say, or perhaps
"It's safe
To remember."
outside, a Richmond City Schools bus is stopping at the corner,
It's hot and the trees are moving in the breeze. I am remembering Brooklyn
Because it has come to visit and
I'm not afraid. 

circles

I think
I've wondered
On some level
If I was still capable
Of attaching
To a place
Of feeling
Home
Somewhere again

Columbus. Elon. Middletown. Hamilton. Ames. Oxford. Brooklyn. Queens.
Richmond.

This morning
Tree branches
Through the coffee shop
window
my heart feels
That familiar catch

Hallelujah

(Standing on this ledge:
The present only
is where
we are.
We trust and lean.)

And I feel like crying
The kinds of tears
Someone cries
Perhaps when their
Child comes home
After a long trip away:
         
       My heart works.

When the dust settles
Apparently,
maybe,
We (still) keep finding we are who
We were
And who we
Are becoming.

repentance and rest and quietness and trust

So many cities
So many families
So many tables
So many streets
So many prayers
In so many houses
So many friends
Who won't meet
This side
Of heaven
But who knows ?
Feeling threadbare
Tonight
In this city
Resting in your hands
 Resting in your hands
With our names
Carved
In them.

In NYC, moving felt

like open parks and night streets.
 It felt like 

learning angles of new buildings. 

Finding a seat at the counter

eating lemon pancakes 

with new faces

Sunny brownstone mornings, 

and waking up, more and more, 

to being home.

Tonight in Richmond
Moving feels like weary
salutation .
Wanting
to gather back

the familiar far-off
and hold it close

until it resurrects

My same roots. This new soil.
deeper and wider.

I want to drive on
these tree-lined highways, 

feeling the security

of turning the corner onto 45th st
laughter across the wood table

in all seasons, cornfields,

the train outside my window
bold stars above Michigan pines, 

And the way she hugged me

when I was afraid.  Of

14 sixth grade girls arguing
and loving
together. I want to hold

The sound of banjo, and soft voices
while Hilly finished the mural

Still brick streets evenings

The crowded 7 train platform 

with a hundred cultures, headed home

mine among them.

I want to wrap my arms 

around a horse's neck
I want to walk together
through snowy Central Park

I want to remember being found,
and be found anew
here

The new highways,
lead to the old ones,
then back again. 

I'm all kinds of ways 

heading home.

Cooking with my 7th grade students on a Friday night

Use the whole bag of chocolate chips,

Yes, we can listen to your music, just as long as....

"What does degrading mean?"

Have you ever
cut an onion before? 

There is a difference between 5 and a 1/2 and 5 half cups..
(this shows up outside math class... sorry, kiddo. ) 

"Will you help me open the oven?"

Can you help me feel competent?

"You're house is so clean. "

"We got this. You go relax ... or something"

"You mean we are gonna eat together? That's cool."


****

After I dropped you off,
I sat in the dark
trying to understand why
it feels like
the walls are expanding.

I remembered Brooklyn,
a sun-filled Starbucks window
a foreign street, my journal:

"If I love them,
It means saying goodbye
to Ohio. If I let myself,
It means, I won't return
the same. Or at all."

It seems, the lesson repeats.

goodbye Brooklyn,
I never wanted to leave you.
hello Richmond,
I'm not just trying you out. 

this means opening
the doors to love's accompaniments:
peeling onions,
middle school girl shrieking
in this family room,
cookies in hand, watching 
as they walk
through the projects,
to their front doors.

transition poem

We cannot have it both ways.

the truth is
that life is not about anything
save
the bare burning of knowing
Him.

when I
embrace this
my risks become
joy


"To whom else should we go? You alone,
Oh Lord, have the words of Eternal Life."