Road to Jericho

I think

the Samaritan

on the road to Jericho

was someone

who once lay dying in the desert

and needed somebody

to save them.

I think

that’s how they learned

to save the next someone.

***

God fits as light as a feather

in the palm of my hand.

His spirit graces my fingers,

showing me words my mouth never knew could run.

***

God sobs bigger than the wilderness,

he cries storms that end droughts,

I scream to the sage brush ruts

and his rainclouds wash me clean,

I sway barefoot on the rocks

and his red robes dribble over the moon,

“by this scarlet sunrise know,

I have swelled the sea for you.”

***

God closes his eyes in the dark,

because he doesn’t need to see

under my covers

to hug me.

***

Burn, some day, some night, by some fire,

through olive oil smoke

God watches

the mirages

of my anger

obliterate nothing.

Under the beating heat I drift and I wander

but he holds me, a dot in the vast lifeline of his palm,

whispers in the sandstorm roars, “I have a plan.”

***

These grooves in my hands

are more immortal than your scars

this wound in my side

leaked more blood than your feet

I know how you’ve wandered

I know you’ll drift more

but I’ve known you forever,

tomorrow

and last night

do you believe

you could break me

do you believe

I am listening

or that I know

what I’m doing?

Do you believe

I’m the one

who no one could help

do you believe

I was the first soul

dying on the dry road to Jericho–

do you believe

in what that means?

***

What that means?

Lord, sometimes I pray at night into tomorrow

asking what I’m doing here

Lord I don’t have the words to package up the vast ache swallowing me whole as a whale,

and even though I know it won’t leave

I do a dance with my tears and shaking wrists

to try giving it to you,

Lord sometimes I swear at the ceiling

or maybe heaven

and it feels sacred somehow

Lord I scream at you in abject terror,

but silently and in my head cuz it’s so late

Lord you were there all the times I wanted to die,

Lord so often I wish I could fly away forever

and carry only everything with me that matters,

you were there for all that,

I believe that;

I know what that means

(you are here, deeper than skin with me),

and I don’t remember the robbers’ faces

or which hands stripped my clothes

but I like to believe

I remember you

in your glory, yet ordinary:

Omnipotent–and injured

Vast–and infinitesimal

All-seeing–and impaired

like me

but also more

powerful

than the roads that desolate me.