I take a sip and I’m there with you in the tiny living room, in a quiet morning while the babies sleep. Before espresso and milk frothers came into my life, it was drip and some chemicals we called creamer. And it was you. Us. With stronger coffee than anyone else in our family enjoys and tired smiles. You didn’t get to see this house. The one we bought on the exact two year mark of your death—signing and dating a thousand times like taking paper cuts to my right hand. You didn’t get to see the daisies that grew wild in the front yard (or did you and Jesus…
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Love Notes
“Maybe Jesus knew you’d read the word ‘beagle’ today!” I say to her after sounding it out and our remembering that those two matching beagles just walked by the house this morning so she got to hear this strange word. “Or maybe the owner just wanted to walk his dogs…” she says, empirically, with all the rational exposition 300 years of Enlightenment Thinking can produce in its youngest prodigies. I laugh and nod, “Both things can be true, you know.” Because the question I am convinced is built into the factory settings, is Are you there and do you care? That is, is there a “you” to care at all…
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Beam Hallelujah
The beams reach high—to you As if you are not here, in the pew But you don’t mind it You come how we’re able Hallelujah The cross up there reminds me of the ones you put all over Torture as a decoration, hallelujah Like the one you pained for me at that pottery shop When I got myself baptized And Grandma Betty thought it was a waste You were my sanctuary—are? Do I still get to say that? While I learn to stand on the legs you knit for me in your womb? Which sort of makes them yours, I guess And I like that thought, hallelujah And I hope…
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An Attempt
It will not stop a war now, but I’m gonna love my kid I’ll tell her every day that she’s got the things we need So she’ll believe the truest thing I know If I have any say (That power flexes big and tall, but hope and beauty strike it) It will not jam the guns up, but I’m gonna kiss my man Let our limbs wrap all around for to do what arms are made Worship the Imago Dei, not burst it into shrapnel If I have any sway We’ll hold each other when we’re scared and make ourselves more whole It will not soothe a leader’s greed, but…