Woven together/we need each other/created to be together/we flee into our own trajectory/dwell apart/there is room in my heart to meet/and mingle my branches with your branches/even though we pretend not to grow from the same old tree.

The upward gaze is essential/ the world looks different from below/the strain of yearning/desire that burns/rising on the sultry scene/we float on verdant air

Sometimes/you just need a thing/an ordinary thing/like a summer purse/you need it to feel the smooth metal handle/to think of the long clever fingers that held just there/you hold and imagine how the hand warm held yours/and the clasp that kept you safe/and the tight weave that is still weaving a container of love/smiling you lay it out like on the final journey of life’s cooling board/and walk away/ shut the door/ knowing that love abides

I take love/to mean work/and prayer/and forgiving over and over and over again/you and me and our/ over and over again/before God and the witness of star and wind/roiling ocean and subway car/in disappearing and reappearing/in I got this and I got nothing/in giggle and snot faced sobbing/in cold stainless steel wheeled beds and the newest adventure tripping/ world without end/ to this love there shall be/no end even if we end. Amen.

Jesus I am sitting/ on the side of the life I should have lived/ blind/crying out Son of David have mercy/ on a daughter of David/ voices tell me to be quiet/ I ask too much/ I have been blessed/ and squandered my blessings/ shut up/ I will make people uncomfortable/ living my truths/ I ask/Louder/ to be generative/ for the creative story to flow through the divine to and in me. /To be loosed./ In relationship/to your power alone. / To not be bound /by fear.

Women: Room at the Cross
There was room at the cross/
For everyone/
But death permeated the air/
And the police state/
Watched/
Took note/
And it was the women defied fear/
Love made brave/
Or beyond brave/
In the land that is liminal/
Some say thin/
The place where God is as close/
As the next breath/
The vein in the dear neck/
The searing agony of grinding bone/
The flow of tears/
Soon women will give birth and/
Stride to face the lions/
in another arena of state execution/
Lay heads on blocks/
Be burned alive/
For this/
Soon women will deliver and expound/ apostles letters to congregations in Rome/
soon women will lead their households/
to be baptized/
Soon women will plant churches/
Soon women will empty convents/
create safe havens for reformed and/ reforming lives/
Soon women will open more and more/ room at the cross/
But never be honored/
In precious memory/
Except as nameless/
erased from memory/
Labeled harlots/
And yet they stood/
Witness/
And so/
Today/
Do we/

Sudden darkness/rumbling crackles/birds still singing/as does the slippery/the whispers of a wet and sullen morning/and the great unmentionable boom shakes the house in which I reside/so I defiantly flick on all the light in the world