California

Those that call California young

have not met California.

Those that scoff at the plastic faces

plastered on all of our advertisements

have not met a farmer, seen the lines on his face,

nor shaken his hand missing fingers.

Those that call California young

have not met California.

She wears her age in her dirt.

Old vine Zinfandel growing for 100 years,

evergreen oak tree's roots reaching deep

into the soil and the brick.

Even her roots look like bark.

California wears her age in her dust

circling us and settling on antique hearts.

And I sit and pause on her piers,

looking out onto the rocks the take the

beating of the ocean.

And I wonder if when the Spirit, resting on the

earth without form and void,

if he rested longer on this place.

So carefully, oak trees look like fathers

poised on the rolling hills -

our protectors.

So gently, hills look like mothers

guiding us home -

our comforters.

Those that call California young

have not met California.

The earth is so old here it makes me

wonder if we even belong-

intruding on sacred spacial history.

everyday i think about leaving with greater reluctance. who knew all this could be so amazing. who know it was just what i needed.

roots growing.

gentle man.

with all of the kisses i

regret not giving to your

perfect pink lips hidden

underneath the layers of your

gentle beard comes this:

one thousand i love yous with every breath.

one thousand i love yous i longed to pour over you

with one thousand i love yous.

and i was always holding them back and holding my breath.

and this i learned:

a true gentle man is known by his beard.

pins and needles climbing through my spine.

i cry out.

healing. please bring your healing.

"Madame, I answered, even in this world, the slightest thing, a mere stroke, can make us cease to know the people whom we've loved best of all."

- the diary of a country priest.

let me love you, that's all i'm asking you.

let me love you.

and how you didn't know i leaped

and agreed yes

and how you didn't know all my protests

were paper walls for you to knock down.

challenges.

how we failed.

how i could have submitted to you in all the vastness

of that word that i do not understand.

and how you could have loved me in all the ways

that took too much out of you.

love, in such ways, exhausts.

and now, the grand disconnect.

submitting to the iron rules that i have submitted upon myself.

and how unknowing leaves every uncomfortable movement

left to know alone.

and how many thoughts drift towards your knowing,

and remember,

they cannot be acknowledged without a fight.

and what a miserable scene,

when such an experiment of loving

turns so bitter.

(and i make no apologies for being so vocal and wearing so many hearts on my sleeve. i make no apologies for hearts spilling over into open-air life. this is life. we live it. these things are so mixed-up-hard in my head.)

only truth, it is that saddest thing to unknow you. i sat today, aware of the saddness.

unknowing may just be the opposite of loving.

james is coming.

a single man.

an arm around me.

a single woman.

friends to see.

so much life is always happening.

we fight.

we would love if we didn't fight.

we would love if we didn't fight.

we fight, still.

we fright from lack of love.

i am going.

a single man.

i want all of my words to come true in my heart.

Comfort

This is one of the nights that I slide into music

like I am sliding into beer.

And I sit atop of my bed, perched,

waiting for the words to come

as I am sliding into feeling.

And this is one of the nights that I imagine laying next to you.

My neck always fit so perfectly in your arm.

And your warmth made January easier.

This is one of the nights when I am cold.

This is all for comfort's sake.

This is all because I want some comfort from so much sleeping alone.

this much i am beginning to learn:

i have perhaps never loved a day in my life.

or, maybe slightly more accurate,

and perhaps a bit generous as well,

there probably haven't been more than ten people

i have loved in a fashion worthy of is name.

and, from this realization comes another,

i have no idea who he really his,

or what love looks like at all.

you. you. you. you. you.

more. more. more. more.

YHWH.

less. less. less. less.

me. me. me. me. me.

pure heart. clean hands.

pure heart. clean hands.

Joshua.

simple heart prayers.

grace.

I've got six minutes to write.

and then i must get up and keep going.

going, going.

i wonder, this morning,

how peter, james, and john

felt sitting at the bottom of the mountain,

bewildered,

as their beloved wept on top of the mountain,

in agony.

i wonder if they were ashamed of their ignorance.

i wonder other things too:

how long did it take for the woman behind the line

to break her promise,

"go and sin no more?"

how many minutes from his kind eyes

to her next relapse into the

life she taught herself

by routine and such steady practice:

five husbands and a couple of lovers.

i wonder these things as my eyes

well up with tears thinking that

his mercies are new every morning,

that his kindness leads me to repentance,

that I have taught myself rebellion for twenty-two long years,

and now I am tired.

and now I see grace in submission,

so much so that I would wear a scarf on my head

if it would beckon you to come faster.

if it would woo you into my heart

to replace my cavities with gold.

so lovesick, am i, that I might just do anything you asked me to.

though your simple request to

go and sin no more

seems more impossible than all the rest.

and for this, i pray grace.

"Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long"

at the end you run towards me.

i remember the first time your foot touched my foot.

you place yours upon mine so gently,

as though you didn't mean to,

though you tapped to a rhythm so very gently.

as if to remind me that you were there and i was near you.

the reminder served me well.

it was, perhaps, the first time

that i thought you could be a man

and i could be a woman.

by the end i knew what kind of a man you were

and what kind of woman i had become.

and now there are times

when i wake up with anxious fretful breaths.

i was running towards you and away from you.

passing, as quick as i could in front of you,

yet, afraid.

you pay no mind.

she put it into simple words,

i was as if i was leaving and wanted you to notice,

to be upset,

even to say goodbye.

and today i was in california ontop of a mountain

and he whispered,

at the end you run towards me.

i am waiting.

you keep telling me this is good.

it is good for me to wait.

as long as you wait with me,

i will wait.

even for you, my Lord,

even for you I will wait.

(but, if heaven tastes anything like your presence, take me there now.)

jesus loves paris and paris will love jesus again!

jesus is a faithful lover and paris is another israel who will return to her groom!

jesus is a faithful lover who has not abandoned his bride! he has not abandoned his city!

jesus is the light and he belongs in the city of lights!

this is what i spend my time believing for.

his love is not so weak, he is not too weak for paris.