east texas
east jeezus
there is a fountain filled with blood
drawn from emmanuel's veins
are you washed in the blood?

going to hell was a free ride
going to heaven was through a narrow gate

but the pine trees whispered
and the dogwood stretched out her creamy white limbs
the marshy bracken throbbed with the conversation of frogs
and the high piccolo of the wood thrush
put paid to all the blood songs
with a different salvation

we were children of the words from the forest floor
full of light and feathered of wonder
not fear
and we knew it
so praying to bloody jeezus
didn't make much sense

hell is not knowing who we are
heaven is always there for the asking

Even though love's words
written and sacrificed
become twice dear
and the cost of saying nothing
a bargain that spares the pain
there are yet more words to write
and no silence can swallow them up
for they sing out from a resilient heart

so it is my privilege to die
the ten thousand deaths
of love in surreal solitude

yet the ten thousand angels fly close by
an honor guard for a day that may yet come
and a surfeit of wings to secure this night

a path ahead

we did not come here for more of this passion
merely to reacquaint ourselves
with the wonderful nature of this world
not this time ... but we will need all of it
to sustain us on a new trajectory
to be the love we seek and become whole
to knead out the numbness and fear that seizes your chest
to fill my body with your intimacy
to align us with a sacred way of being

we have soul wounds to heal
with the ten thousand tears
and the softening touch of laughter

it would require all of your courage to make this path
and all of mine to help walk it
even if only for a little while
or for however long is love always

easter sunday 2020

it doesn't matter whether he lived 
or died
or broke out of the cave

miracles abound
in the everyday tomb
of self
where we break out
and begin to live
in the possibility
of the love
we are made of

slow dancing

so i take your hand and you

lead me down the garden path

of yesterday's moonlight.

in the gossamer night, our shadow selves moving

together, slowly, sinuously,

we are parentheses around a phrase

of Shos, a phrase of clever text,

a phrase of whispered things on the cel

but we move with a purpose

we didn't know until now

in a slow urgency to make it last

until time is no longer an issue

until three-quarter measures dissolve into

one long beautiful night of sighing