Thursday, February 20, 2014

Transient Eternal

You are a phantom, who haunts my
heart—reminding me of the existence of you
and your kind. I used to think you were a curse—
keeping me alone. But now I see you are a
wisp—keeping me in hope.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Fruitful Truth or Truthful Fruit

Interactions with the text of Galatians 5:13-26

Self-sacrifice leads to death;
death by choice,
as opposed to death by another.
One offers life on the other
side.

Even when I try,
I still find myself alive.
“Was I really seeking good
or just seeking attention?”

What is the line
between righteousness
and mercy?
Between idolatry
and love?
Between faithfulness
and dissensions?
Joy
and sensuality?
Patience
and impurity?
Division
and self-control?

It’s simple, you say.
God is the same, you say.
Grey is dangerous, you say.
Be careful of heresy, you say.

Is your God living?
Or is he dead?
Is your faith a mysterious wisp?
Or is it a block of gold to be guarded?

“If we live by the Spirit,
let us also walk by the Spirit.”

Does the Spirit have lines?
Tell me, can you point out his shape?

You can tell by the fruit, you say.
Look at love, you say.
Yes, but love of whom?
Have you loved to the point of death?
Is that even possible?
I still see you moving and breathing.

Maybe I should just let you devour me;
place me on the stake,
and allow the flames to consume
the heretic.

“For our God is a consuming fire.”
and yet, “When you walk through fire
you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.”
“For I the Lord do not change;
therefore you are not consumed.”

Grace.
God still loves the faithful
heretic.
Live free to love;
love of me,
and love of you.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

All I Need

My heart is a bag of whimsy;
bric-a-brac strewn across the table,
displayed for you to see.

I watch as your eyes glide
from trinket to trinket;
your hands hovering
closer and closer.

Touch it! My scream leaves
silence undisturbed.
Yet desire becomes interstitial fluid,
flowing between each trifle;
trying to leap;
trying to presume (and consume)
your tantalizing reach.

Don’t you realize, I whisper,
I’m only waiting for you to ask me to stay?

My heart is a bag of whimsy,
and all you do is hover.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Pawpaw

I press my nose and hands against the chilly glass. With each breath, the steam-amoeba undulates upon the window. My eyes are trained upon the tree in the yard. It is a small shrub-of-a-tree, and it bears similarly-small fruit upon its branches. I’ve told Mother that this is a pawpaw tree, but she tells me this is impossible: we have no such tree in the yard. And yet my eyes are the zebra swallowtail, feasting upon its leaves from the other side of the glass.

“Mother, Father, look!” I yell, tearing my nose and hands away to glance into the empty space behind me. I turn back to the window. I allow my nose and hands to be drawn again to the cool surface. But a black haze begins to darken my view. I wrench myself away in shock. The pawpaw is disappearing behind black crystals; black black crystals spreading across the window. I stand on my tip-toes, trying to see the tree above the blackness, but the crystals beat me. I run across the room to the next window, but the crystals race alongside of me and the pawpaw is enveloped again. “My tree,” I whisper.

In desperation I try to scrub the crystals with my hand. They are cold; colder than the smooth surface of the glass. The coldness begins to burn, and I withdraw my hand. The black crystals are spreading across my skin. I try to wipe them off with my other hand, but the blackness only furthers its conquest. I turn away from the window and slump down to the floor. The crystals are now colonizing my knees and my feet. In confused despair, I allow my head to slump into my hands and my tears to brink their ridges. The black crystals begin to disintegrate me. I am slowly dissolving amid my own tears. My fingers, my knees, my toes begin to crumble into dust before my lowered eyes. And yet I feel no pain; only the burning cold of numbness. I close my eyes.

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” At the sound of the whispered words, I open my eyes. The salted dust is no longer before me; instead I see one pale, green pawpaw lying on the floor, faintly glowing. I reach down my disintegrated hands and pick up the fruit. I feel its warmth seep into my skin and spread throughout my body. Then the pawpaw itself seeps into me. Where black crystals once reigned, warm and glowing restoration begins to conquer. With my integrated hands I push myself up to my integrated knees and then to my integrated feet. I turn toward the once crystalized blackness and see clearly. I see the tree covered in pale, green pawpaws in the center of the yard, illuminated in light. I am once again a zebra swallowtail, my flight nourished by its leaves.