The bright numbers
Are two and three
Or four if there is food enough for all
But one has no brightness
For someone to see
Cause no one
Is alone

You had the grace to carve me from your side
A rib astray in a place where the bones are not the same
All silver-aged, rough, and cold with moss.
For a tick of time I felt I could catch the beat of your life
 Like it was before, rich and warm with you.
But I finally know what I'd give up to gain what you've lost.

I'll hold you warm and dry Just us against the night Till dawn accidentally arrives

I'll find you in my hope Every time Somebody messed the water up I'm fine

Dying Days

It gets easier to

                         jump

When your fingers aren't married

to             the                     rails

It gets easier to fall

When gravity doesn't

Fail

It gets easier to take 

          The next step

When you've already given it up

Impaled

And left on some shabby sticks

Who took the sting

                               from it's tail....

Waking up
Is the act of making
Dreams real

It is only on our knees
That we truly stand before
A Creator

My Compass

Your love
North's me to your heart
When every direction is pain
That's why it's called
Compassion

Prodigal Father

He stands at the rejected doorway
Heavy shoulders waiting
Loss crinkling in his corners


He stands at a remote crossroads
With the world at his side
And a smile bright as a coin


He cries deep like a well
Like a tree whose sap is blood
With the slow grief of a cosmos

I saw him there
Because I was searching his face
As I hurt him


He hunches over the barely-food
That will never be his, recalling
When nothing was needed, not had.

He was cut by the foreign stones of home
But they could not reach
His blow carved deeper than his bone

This man whose name is mine

I saw him stumble
Because I saw my blunt face ripple
In the murky puddle.


He leaps from the doorway
A bird set free from time's cold cage
Tears paint laughter in every line
A man ditching dignity
To reclaim a son.

Change
Isn't going to a different place
It is
Doing different things at the same places

Trust isn't stillness,
Standing on your own shadow
Trust is swinging
Your legs out over the abyss of light
Holding faith between your toes
That when foot and shadow finally meet
On unknown ground
It can still carry you.

Trust

Wake no more
Rapid heart
Set your nerves
Down where we can see them

Summer

Summer's wasting, but not for me
The rivers here run cold and clean
I could find the time to throw a thought your way
And I do
But my arm's not strong enough
To reach to you

Summer's wasting, so I hear
But all that wasting passed you by
This year
Things don't know how to be different
But you have changed

Summer's waiting
All for you
Just cling to His hand
He'll bring you though.

Musings on the Albatross, Whose Wings Bring us Home for the Summer

Near the cross I keep me
Always to hold in mind
The brittle sticks that held a Saviour
Dangling in the great divide
Near the cross I wait in silence
On blood anointed feet
Knowing that his condemnation
Fell for me

Near the cross a throne lies empty
A king disowned himself
Today, I find in me redemption
A vein of gold in miry clay.

Repentance
Isn't feeling bad about who you are
It's changing the bad about who you are

Will you listen to the blood in this water?

Deep and wet and thick with all the pain

That you HAD to carry to the shore

Will you hear the subtle calling?

Rippling out like a splash of the invisible

Asking you to find your knees

And lose your mortal arms

Will you follow where the water flows

In droplets heavier than your empty shoulders

To a river of  footsteps up the shore

Of final, desperate, change.

Ain't gonna drop the ball
Ain't gonna miss the call
Ain't gonna take the fall
And refuse to get on my knees

If you want your chains broken
You need to lift your manacles high
If you hold them tight to heart
You'll never stretch your wings
And fly.

Breaking an addiction
Is breaking a bone all over again
So it sets straight this time.

When I awoke
And the dream was still real
The shadows around me
Had hearts that could feel
And I could not