Fatherhood

 I am carrying the torch you
Handed me
Not handed.
Placed

Carefully
This is sacred space.

Was the carrying so heavy for you as well?
Were you held as a child?
Did you feel knowing arms like walls
Shelter your inner storms
As the rain battered ugly
And loudly
Against your open windows?

Did you know your own arms
As they held me
Or didn't... I don't remember

I do remember you were

Careful.
It was sacred space.

You placed yourself like walls
To shelter against the storms outside
When the rains battered ugly 
And loudly

But I felt alone inside
There was no one huddling small
With me
No one sharing breath 
And touch
And fear
And tears
No one holding the torch
Warming this 

Sacred space.
I didn't need careful 
I needed care

I looked
But you were outside again
There are so many jobs to do
Repairs to be made
Things to be tidied.
A storm's coming

This is the torch you passed me
So heavy
I hold it close and wonder:

How were you held
That you forgot to hold me?

Counselling is a Lie

 Counselling is a lie
You cannot hold space.

Space is breathed
Moved in
Inhabited
Moved within

Space is sized
Larger, smaller
Sometimes too much
Sometimes too little
Depending on who is measuring

Space is encountered
Breathed
Touched
Bumped against painfully
Rested upon gently

Space was there
Before you noticed
And will wait around 
After for your return

Space holds your absence 
Patiently
Comfortably
Did space even notice you leave?

Space is

And space holds you
When you lie
And pretend to be holding space
For someone
For yourself
For whatever reason
The lie incepts

We hold space 
Like a newborn
Holds the strong finger
Of the arms that carry them
Into this angled world.

How do I lose myself?

I am not easily misplaced
Or forgotten,

Arriving as I do
Before even the curtains draw
And that first morning jug boils,
Bleary, yes
Grudging, at times
But always

I cannot leave me 
In my other pockets
Discovered by sharp inhale
As the ticket conductor arrives
Or the door holds me out.

Yet a casual tragedy plays out
All-to-often
The irretrievable slide
I am Goody Gumdrops 
Freed from coned confines
Straining to the floor.
I am the first whispered realization
As chair upends the strict hierarchy of repose
And painful equalization beckons.

I am my own nostalgic present
Unwrap this moment
And perhaps
I'll find me
Arrived already. 

Or just
My own muffled music playing
On the far side of my own wall.

Longing

Stretching out
This line reaches the end of itself
Holding hands
And so I return
Where I began.

There are immeasurable sunrises
Yet
Uncounted accidental moments:

The warmth of a book shared 
For quiet seconds
On a chair just the right kind of too small.

Catching my reflection
In a fresh mug of tea
I
Didn't have to find my way here
Yet
Here I am.

Stretching out
Growing away and yet towards
Holding hands
I return
Where I begin again.

Ascension

You took your leave
From the dust by the lake
A cloud came and carried you away
We were kinda hoping you would stay

This time

That this tree, maybe,
We weren't dying just to eat
We were kinda hoping for a feast

You took your leave 
From the dust by the lake
You said you'd come back and carry us away
We were kinda hoping its today

Next time
Was all the angel came to say

You took your leave
From the Garden and the Snake
A tree came to carry you away
We were kinda hoping you would stay

This time

This tree, maybe,
Has roots enough, reaches deep
Washes all our dusty feet.

Pinned

 And then she broke

Or so she said

Seamlessly whole, as always.

Pinned between the Milky Way and the grave.

Fragile new moon

But not the Hole story. 

She turned away

Or at least she tried

There is little awaying from your self

Pinned between the future and the past

Fragile present,

Wrapping herself in a hug. 

She sat beside me on the train

Or at least I thought of her.

I cannot take her with me.

Pinned between healing and hurt,

Fragile therapist.

She will path her own between 

After a busy day when confronting admin

 We must all come 
Find ourselves

And we will all be found
Regardless 

As the sun finds the morning
As breath finds the lungs

As I am found
In this muddy now
Beyond my knowing of self
Beneath this waterfall of thoughts

These words held
Hopelessly
Hopefully

Up 

That they may somehow
Someway 
Find 

You.

Marmite and Peanut Butter

 The spreads came home today
not the ones I first brought in

These are generations removed
from their founding slathers...

Yet somehow the same
filling in differently
When condiment gaps appeared

So different
        and yet

Somehow the same.
I'm thankful for each one.

The spreads came home today
and perhaps so did I

Spread thin across the too-dense grain
of baked in responsibility.

Did I really allow myself 
across so much...

Even when my own jar ran low?

The spreads came home today
buried beneath
a permafrost
of half-discarded papers:

resources that will quickly thaw
     if just given sunlight...

Or perhaps not

I keep choosing life so close to the poles.

The spreads came home today.

My drawer destined to another.
Will she squirrel within her own lunchtime company?
Or perhaps fill the space differently altogether?
I should pop by....

Or perhaps not

I am now that generation removed
from a lunchroom

Somehow the same
and yet

So different.

 I'm bad at vulnerability   

I like to tie off places 
Where mess might hide
Might wander in to introduce themself
Until I'm all knots

I'm not

Comfortable
Unravelling. Just travelling
On this tight ship
Sails straining 
Ropes singing
In a steady breeze

I don't want a harbour's hand
Heavy holding me
To bury my head in a storm
Like pirate's treasure.

Counselling

 I do not show up
For no one needs to be embarrassed
For bringing their best at self 

I do not turn up
Life is too loud already
And this room isn't fully sound proofed

I do not arrive
Because we never stop moving
And I don't want to be left behind

I am not present
Lest we miss your past
And never welcome your future through the doorway

I am not professional
For I am an amateur in your jungles
And distance may let the path close 
Before my feet can reach it

I am not listening
For there are too many to-dos and tick boxes
Pouring down your pages

I am not sure
When you bring your waves and currents
I allow myself to be swept into deeper waters 
Than I can stand alone

I am not wrapping up 
This time is not my gift to give
When you've given it already

I am not 

But perhaps we are
Something
In the sharing breath
And space
Of this weary rental office
We are
A kind of us
A meeting and parting
A walking and running
A pausing, releasing, receiving
And that is enough.

 Innerspring
But not safe to drink
Pocketspring
But nowhere to put my weary hands
Memory foam
But all I want is to forget
How to worry
Just a little
Just a lot
Just until
I can tick my clock

Did I buy the wrong matress?

I lie awake in my body
Asleep on my bed

Unpainted
By my shadow
I am swallowed up
In it all

What is so big
That I am small
Oh so small

I think I remember what it was like
To sit by the roadside
Wait in the unknowing
Time ever slowing
Hurrying past as I died

But I didn't
I just find my arms to heavy
My soul to weary
My doubts are clearing
My discomfort
So I can lie down again

Lists

Lists
Get me leaning sideways

How can I 
Hope
When there are boxes to fill
Perhaps this is where emptiness
Is borne

Show Up

 I wish God would 

Show up, 
sometimes. 
Or show me up at least

Because I find the

gap

between incarnations
Just a little
too big

It isn't the tedium 
of ordinary time (Anglican joke)
of the work year (adult joke)
of the unsteady grind of marriage (adult joke)

I like making light of heavy things
How else to save the bruised reed from crushing

And I am bruised
so bruised
and longing
and wondering

how long
before quitting

I wish God would

A little number from 2022

 Everyone fractures
along the lines 
of least existence

Perfect flood casts out fear

We fear grief as a wave that sweeps
Everything
And lays bare the bones of ourselves
Aching and open
Unclothed of the busyness we've stitched to cover up
Our nakedness

And it comes with a depth and weight
A flood that surpasses
Overwhelms
Submerges our most valiant efforts
Our grimmest clingings
And with them
The fragile fake skyscrapers
That excused our unused wings
And let us reach heaven
With unhallowed feet. 

On Waiting for a House

 How I wish that that parched sands of waiting
Were elsewhere than the path pulling at my feet
If it could only rain, that I could slog through the mud of blessings
Or be swept away in landslides
A chance to rest my feet
To catch my breathe
And remain uncaught by step
After heart-heavy step
Into the unknown

They say faith is a leap
Then what is gravity
But crushing inevitability
That once you leave earth
The only way back is down

If I had four walls I'd wrap me in them like a cloak
And huddle
Anything but this endless middle
This endless muddle
In between myself
And the story my heart longs to say

And yet
Sometimes wilderness calls us
Because only in the gentle crunch
Endlessly eating at the future
Can fill your belly with need
With expectation

They say faith is a leap
But faith is really a pregnant belly
That you carry through heavy months
And when you put it down
You find in your arms 
More than you'd ever have words to hold anyway.

Same thing.

I would reinvent
My

Self

A thousand thousand times
In as many moments
As I can't

Stand

I would shake
My

Self

Biting with the teeth
Of my dilemma
And just shake this rat

Understanding

Violence yielding
Soft redemption
Tearing out new wholeness

Or
I would just reinvent
The

Wheel

God.

God is not a solution to your problems
He does not dissolve
He clings to the sides of each cup that he fills
And overflows onto your clean hands


God is not a gas
To fill every last space
God will contain himself
And won't push your walls without permission

God is not a liquid
He takes his own shape
Inside of every vessel
And invites you to join him
In the pool

God is not a solid
But his sharpness is unchanging
And his corners slice deeply
When you hold him with a violent heart

God does not fold you
Cleanly, crisply
Like an origami swan
Or crumple you for the wastebin
He turns you against yourself
Along unexpected lines
Without pinching the creases
He contains your uncontainedness
Your filled-but-empty space
Your drowning overflow
Your hardened resistance
And gives them grace to grow.

Take your breath
But do not keep it
Give it back
To Beyond
Where home
Belongs