If All the Broken Glass in Bogotá
If all the broken glass in Bogotá
came to a point
and held itself together
with fine lead at every joint,
and the glow that tints the clouds
in the dark of night
came in close and shone straight through that glass
in one tremendous light,
and if every siren, engine, horn
all were rearranged
in just one joyful symphony,
now that would be a change.
Random
Thank God the state of my house doesn’t determine the state of my soul,
because no matter how hard I try, they both are beyond my control.
Interior design wouldn’t make me more alive, righteous or wise.
I think I’ll label this shelf “random” just so I feel organized.
The Highest Shelf
We put the Bibles on the highest shelf,
a place of honor we can hardly reach.
But when God gave His Word and gave Himself,
he stooped down low to heal and save and teach.
Relatively Easy
Would it be easier for you to build bookshelves
or to get rid of books?
Getting rid of books is harder than it looks.
But keeping them means shelving them
and dusting them
and moving them
and sometimes even using them
as decor upon the mantel
when you have more books than you can handle.
Reading them?
Well, that can wait
until we move to a place
more than half a city block from the library.
Get rid of them?
We already have.
What we have is already half
of what we had had. Yes. Scary.
We only kept our favorite books–
books about God, theology, linguistics, Middle Earth,
cooking, metallurgy, Mt. Rainier, Spanish…
and we kept a few good books on woodworking,
but we didn’t consult them before building the bookshelves
because building bookshelves is relatively easy.
Bright-Eyed Chickens
We made the chickens’ ladder steep–
the length too short, the drop too deep.
But in the morning, it is fun
to see the chickens jump and run.
And the clouds are pink and gray
as bright-eyed chickens greet the day.
Benefit of the Doubt
I know I’m s’posed to love my neighbor,
but how’m I s’posed to love these strangers?
I see their cars; they come and go,
but the people I don’t know.
So while I figure this one out,
I’ll give the benefit of the doubt
to these neighbors I can’t name
and hope that they’ll give back the same.
Flow Meter
I think I need one of those
flow meters for my nose
so I can measure all this snot
’cause all I know is there’s a lot.
Feeling Young
Oh yes, there are days
Lost Poems
There’s lots of poems lost in the dark
because they failed to make a mark.
Flung from the bow inside my mind,
they wander, but they’ll never find
a place to land in outer space
before they break, disintegrate
or burn up in the atmosphere
and fall to earth, far far from here
outside a ghostly desert town
because they were not written down.
Because I Love You
I’m giving you a kiss because I love you,
but I could also give a word,
or I could hold you,
or give a gift,
or walk with you to someplace new,
all because I love you.
But I’m giving you a kiss
because I have no words to say.
I’m giving you a kiss
because my back is weak today.
I’m giving you a kiss
because a gift would cost money.
I’m giving you a kiss
because the weather’s far from sunny.
No, wait, let’s get this straight.
I’m giving you a kiss because I love you.