Baby Jesus

On Christmas

Hauntings come in whispers
glow
My home, my holy sacred recognition that
Being born to a world that is this sick must hurt-- I know and I am sorry and grateful
And though I can no longer claim to be apologetic for being born how I was made, yeah, flawed or broken from the beginning I cannot
say I am Sorry for Being Who I Was Made
but

I am haunted by the remnants of your Holiness, you are always just around the corner leaving the air warmer
every day I stop after
examining mirrors of people, the stumbling kindnesses, her lips- and thank you dear God thank you for what you have made.

Maybe I do not kneel, but my arms are on the ground and my face is in the dust and I have not forgotten the promises I made You in a marketplace

I wonder, oh, Love;

If it slipped through the heavens somehow, the joy and electricity and ache I have for reflections of your Gentleness given out like change and crumbs to a world gasping thirsting starving for Holiness

I make my heart slow down to notice, but the Noticing is paralyzing and I am overwhelmed by
the Ghost of your Holiness
I am haunted by your Sacredness

I cannot breathe and I am parched and I am hungry.

I cannot tell if my mind is broken I just wonder, sometimes, if everyone has the same gnawing and waking; the same recognition of the thin silver threads that hold our bodies here, on the ground where they should be. Mine sometimes does not pay attention, floating away on me, rising up over cities and countries and away from the places and times that it has been told to stay.
"Come back body. You are not quite done yet."
I pull the thin silver thread back to the ground, and try and focus on
the rising and falling of our chests, the glimmers and way we walk and the beauty of not having to think.
"Ground yourself here," they say. "Feel your feet now, taste something now, sit with the aching in your neck, the taste of coffee on your lips, try and be aware that it is now and not just a piece of all the time."
I agree, nodding. My neck.
but I still think, it is unrealistic to expect us to stay anchored.
How we can move forward when our imagery of time snaps back to the beginning and
we realize that this cannot be linear because there cannot be a reality where you
are not there, smiling, holding, living and so
how can there be possibly a "before" and an "after" when all I know is you must be
now
you cannot have already been
I have never known something so thoroughly as that, most simply
You. Are.

I have always, after all, had a tendency to wander.

I kept thinking, I have all these reasons to feel the way I do
so many things that wrench my insides, tossing and turning me
people are evil
people are bad to each other
people are broken
people are lost
people hurt each other
but
there are so many heart-achingly lovely things,
I know that really,
it is because there is not enough time

Chalk dust coats dark skin and

I find it more stable than most things when

You are standing on the back of a cow in a river 

Trying to reach the piece of fruit that has floated just out of reach downstream.

I know we both see mountains peripherally but

How is it that while wars and design I cannot explain take over your tissues and my mind there

Is this most elegant thing behind and in front of and around us but all we are noticing is the boat sloshing us back towards the shore.

Bells ring and I think of Pavlov while you think of your Grandma Lee and how she turned 94 and then 95, but after that they stopped calling you telling you to write her on her birthday anymore.

I am left focused and wondering what reward there will be once I get that bit of mango out of the river. You see now and have moved on, wanting to shake down new fruits but I am still reaching into the water trying to salvage what is left after some creature already took half, leaving me the sweet ant covered portions.

It must be nice to not know, sometimes, exactly why the bells are ringing.

You gauge what you unleash on the world. It is a kindness, but it must be lonely at times.

Hey there queen of the world--

How long did it take you to know this
is temporary?

I fear that I cannot feel all that I'm required to without my bones singing so loud they can't support my body any longer.

"How can we support a body when you're asking us to hold up so much more?"

Singing bones--don't sing so loudly. Could you hum maybe? whisper perhaps? damn your haunting and
Why am I always crying alone on planes?

Take me to a music table and let me
Choose which instrument I'll pick up today because I'm again flying away from the songs stirring and exploding, and fire sizzles in my blood.

I have a fever most days from the songs in my stomach. I never know which I should play.

Some deep and gorging plans you write with a chewed up pencil on a post-it note and crumple it in your pocket.

We are young still but we are bound to the songs in our bones.

I always thought that there was one path to love.

An obvious one, one smooth concrete, and blossoming flowers, and

hand-rails to keep me very, very safe.

But,

Love is wading through rivers in jungles

Love is saying yes once again when the hollows in our heart beg us to say no.

It is the thin rubber separating the bottoms of our feet from volcanoes,

It is the decision that this is worth it because she is worth it, or we are worth it, even when

Today, 

She or I or us may not know.

I always thought my love would be a simple and beautiful thing,

That all who loved me would celebrate too,

Not the quiet sobs of choice,

Not the fluttery excitement of maybes,

Not the searing realization of loyalties and that my Love would become a filter for who would really remain.

I imagined being held, but not holding.

I imagined being comforted, but not comforting.

I imagined being loved, but here I am---

"Do you know I write?" I thought like a secret.

Like a confused heritage and a history that is the vital piece of me and you might not wonder but I must tell you. 

You must know this thing, about, me.

My name yes and oh this is how I make money and this is how I love and I have a brother and a sister and yes I believe in forever and yes I believe your God is the same as mine

But:

Do you know that in my head all I see when I see you is poetry?

Sip because if you don't now the 

Exposed red of your lips and 

Simple half life you've made

Will dry up and only the floods of dark wine will

Ever make sense

Oh come to the party

Please

And listen

If you don't play the guitar now and let your fingers tremble over black and white piano keys in the homes of this or that loved one

Then you will never be satisfied with anything less than symphonies and the gut wrenching sobs of instruments pummeling one another to just be heard

If you don't taste this now, if you don't bend with the whims of the way you want to move 

You will ache with hunger and your stomach will wrench with need and writhe for the places you said no to.

And if you don't kiss me with the lightness in your lips

Then I will infiltrate your bones and devastate your sense of self with the lingering of my skin on your skin and my laugh will escalate in your ears and we will never stop aching.

Watching you realize the very best of you might be misfirings, disease, something that needs to be fixed and the longing clenching like grasping the ears of corn and twisting once, twice, until the silly thread breaks off between your fingers the raw pieces crumbling, tempt you with the sweet grain

And I look forward to what has already happened.