up

we travel the path pulling
an open-backed cart behind
laden--piled high--with
worries, fears, and everything else we've gathered along the way
and if we choose to go uphill
as we focus solely on placing one foot ahead
the burdens begin tumbling out one-by-one
back down the hill unnoticed
so that when we finally reach the top
we are free

what if

what if we decorated sidewalks and parks
with snap-peas and apple trees
instead of invasive species?

what would happen if the city
employed the homeless to care for them
instead of well-to-do landscapers?

what if the hungry no longer went hungry
and the homeless found homes
and beauty merged with functionality--what then?

what would happen if dreamers became doers
would they change this world we live in?

to be great

You never asked us to be great
never called us to secure a place
in children's textbooks
to become the next Mother Teresa
or MLK, no--
You only wanted us to
believe in Your great love and
in turn show kindness to others
for that is what You have tried
to tell us in so many hundreds of pages
for so many thousands of years
not to be great but to
humbly serve

untitled

perhaps You are not silent, perhaps

we are deaf

and we have the words to read

because we cannot hear them

even as we accuse You of abandonment

You have equipped us with all we need

angel beside us

God kneels beside us--as we
lay face-down upon the floor pleading
for Him to make Himself known to us--
waiting with holy all-creating all-encompassing
arm hovered just inches above trembling shoulder blades
the arm of YHWH upon our backs if only
we would let go of fear

that chest-tightening instinctual emotion set off
by the very idea of another being materializing
at our side, placing an arm around our shoulders,
so much so that we would jerk upright and
flash open eyes in that breath of a moment before
an angel alights