I Had A Lover, It's So Hard To Risk Another

i don't drive to work until 230. i would like these morning hours to be sweet and quiet. to go walking water my plants watch the sun, rise, outside, not on my stomach with sleep in my eyes. much of the time i am uninspired by philadelphia and fruitless green leafs overhead, oversleep, and the hours before 9 when the world still has some of its magic are replaced with the drop of the 10 o'clock mail and the pane of light full across my room now against the plants that still need watering. roommates tires spin out, remind me the house is only mine for the morning. when noone's looking, so i hear, you're supposed to be most yourself, make your best secrets and this morning and most mornings, noone's looking. but i've overslept and the refrigerator magnet quote is all the poetry i have (live like theres no tomorrow, love like youve never been hurt, dance like noone's watching). darn.

but, in case you were wondering, when noone's, in fact, looking...i rearrange my books. sweep the kitchen floor. expect god, especially when noone's else does. think about sermons and count my ribs. count my change. check my stomach. suck in. miss you. reread letters, breath harder, we didn't know what was coming did we. pray but my lower back hurts so i stop.make coffee. address letters with middle names included (contrary to parental, you're-in-trouble-mister full name usage, i do this as a way to say i like who you are and the way your name sounds, every bit of it) water the plants. wait for the mail. watch bad tv shows. wish i could sing like john legend. still think about that letter and how its addressed to ash. my parents never call me ash. people only call me ash if they're being lazy, making a joke, or are a dear, comfortable friend who has settled into the idea that i might just be every bit as different silly serious ordinary as all those things i do when noone's looking.

heaven's just a thin blue line

"but it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colors; they were fresh, hot, and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the singer himself and then you forgot everything else." the magician's nephew, cs lewis

you did it once before, in the beginning. i know you did. the genesis. oh god, darwin. reading glasses. monkey trials. seven days. laugh at it or shake your head. the beginning that everyone has something to say about. stupidity for the academic. magnifigence for the preacher. more work for the ecologist. bewilderment for the i-always-grew-up christian. but what for those dear desert people, corners of mouths still cracked from sandstorms or from telling too many secrets under tables about earth rich countries. maybe they heard words about a land they knew well after working it through their dirty fingers, black fingernails.back bent. maybe they heard the thick hebrew of a land that was uninhabitable, uninhabited (because this is more close to the true translation) and sighed, ah yes, one man might nod, theres a desert like that just past my fields, that heat sin struck sand ocean never returned my son last spring. maybe they heard out of the oh so monotheisticly odd sentences, god. out of his charred, slated, stub of a world. over his now broken damaged delight of a people, deciding of all things, to do good. there in the beginning. or there in the middle, desert fire ash to his right, tree roots and rubber tires towards his left. to something good, because, god knows, desert people know, its about time. and reading the scratched out story, maybe they thought to themselves, or whispered under tables, but it makes sense to us.

*photograph by carlos mesquita

why i love christmas, christmas cookies, and the awesome talent that enables me to make such impeccable portraits of my dad.

somewhere north of here

i live in germantown but drive north to do my errands. sigh of relief, the convience of suburbia life comforts me. in germantown people still sit on their porches next to rusted chairs or shopping carts. sitting to defy the socialites who exchanged rubbing tired fingers and post-work, stoop conversations for catching buses to walmart. running my errands in germantown means a comment from the poorly intentioned man outside the convienent store, potholes, lottery ticket stands, hot dog stands, mothers clutching babies, old men dragging their feet at traffic light crossings and making me wait. i live in germantown, but drive north, mostly, to do my errands, sigh. uneasiness on my way to green lawns and customer friendly stores. this isn't living like they are beautiful or important at all. the people eating hog dogs, clutching their babies, dragging their feet. not integration or redemption or anything good at all. i drive north anyway. lock my doors. avoid people's eyes. behind head coverings and hats. get embarassed i can't be braver. in the north, there are babies in strollers. two story houses. two parent families, white families. mothers wearing big sunglasses, high schoolers at the local starbucks. sip my mocha, $3.75. sigh. relief. disgust. this city is broken, im not helping things. and its going to take more than just doing my errands on the street with the poorly intentioned man and disorganized convienient store. i might have to, god, ask him for the time, his name. if he has time to tell a story, grab a coffee. i should stop driving north, even if rumor has it among the church folk, it gets you closer to god, they couldn't be more wrong.

you're going to be a really good doctor

photo from karatography.com

looking around, sometimes, i could tell you what my friends would be. of course, i wouldn't tell my little predestination plans for them, only phrases like, "you'll be a really good doctor someday" or "you'll be able to do whatever you what to do, im sure" no, you, dear friends, give away the most when you are in a crowd, pressed against a wall or a hand, on sundays, on holidays, when you think noone's looking.
"you're going to live in the city," i told him, "and be proud that youre wearing suits with pens in the pockets and be embarassed when you forget to wear black socks with your dress up shoes."

"you're going to build your own house, i told him. and be proud that your hands have callouses on them, just along the tips there and be embarassed when it rains and you weren't expecting it, because you were always good at predicting."

"youre going to tell people what to do. i told her. and be proud that you use words like subsidized and essential and be embarassed that haverford sold that land to the state to raise their average household income"

"youre going back to the mountains. i told her. and be proud that those flaming curls of yours understand just what kind of girl you are. and be embarassed you had left your home for so long that the trees almost forgot your name."

looking around, i could tell these things, sometimes, about my friends and that was my favorite part of being around them. i can remember the grieving and the shiver that they would be these things without me someday...be these things with your wives who would find that curve in your lower back really wonderful. be these things with your congregations or collegues and make secrets of your own, stealing communion bread or someone's pen, make stories just for yourself, arriving before anyone else to sign the papers, ask for forgiveness, take the sprinkled donut...

in crowds, noone supposes you are looking at them, thats why people enjoy them so much. im not sure if any of my predictions panned out, but it gave me something to do. i didn't like crowds much.

eyes.shift.wood.

what is truth? pontius pilate asks, staring back into ordinary brown eyes. i think hes terrified. because his lower left eyelid twitches at the thought of all that blood. (fingers picking at nails. being soggy. or something unpleasant like that.) terrified because he had baldhead, stone, law power and a breakfast only half-eaten and now cold on the table behind him. because those eyes were, so, ordinary. terrified or just tired of it all. all the haunting. all the times he had almost believed, cried himself to sleep, tried not waking his wife over it. all the (god, maybe true) prophecies. the never really hungry feeling. maybeyesno. screw it. tired or maybe he hits the mark with his question and knows it. jesus, with all toes moving along the grained and polished corridor floor. funny feeling. sinking feeling. between the wood slats there. in his stomach too.

pilate stopped asking questions after that. he could have said nevermind, hurry up, stop mumbling, look me in the face( i want to see those eyes again so very badly). but didn't. i want to know what happened after that. alone in the corridor with the smooth floorboards and half-eaten breakfast. good question pilate. breatholding, heart in your fingers, kind of good question. what's in all that weighted silence between the corridor and the moment pilate turns away, speaks to the foot-tapping rabbis and townspeople, hanging around for a good show and primetime begging. maybe jesus makes the silence his answer. maybe he just decides its best to keep quiet and enjoy the wood grain against his toes...long story.

*photograph by daniela stumpfl, Bubbles, more at http://www.lomography.com

I'd Rather Have Sticks and Stones

one day a few years ago in September i found an old man sitting with his crooked back against a the thin fidget back of a little girl. shhh. there wasn't a word between them and they were so comfortable. thighs against some sort of stone wall. his legs tapping the ground, hers dangling over because they couldn't reach just yet.

i like watching old people. i think they know the right kind of way to be quiet. as do children. sometimes, and not just when they're watching the newest spongebob movie. i think i witnessed that a few years ago in september and couldn't help but try to honor that in words. i come back to that picture often. when i think about my grandfather. when i think about the kids i work with. the importance of quietness. young backs. old faces. crooked backs. walking canes. moses.

found him between a sermon on the torah. such a great load of words. of life for one man to hold. i wonder about moses when he was old, mostly about his face and his walking cane. old with a crooked back. needing that cane that had dragged across so much. turned water into something else. held him up. scolded his grandchildren. made magic. tripped someone at the store. all smooth and smudged from the weight of his fingers resting. scratched from bumping against rock canyon sea bottoms.

do you think his face looked like he was in love. all shining and dark from deity and the desert sun. do you think his face had ordinary wrinkles. around the eyes, but, oh, they had seen so much greater hurt. at the corner of the mouth, where so many syllable had pushed out their nearly true prophecies. near the bones in the cheek, had he laughed at the sight of gold slipping magic and so many frogs.

maybe in the end. he was an old man with his cane that had dragged across so much. that fit into his fingers. that made him look like any old man you might find at the water. at the store. sitting on a wall. with wrinkles at his corners. with a crooked back. enjoying the silence of a child and his cane.

*photograph by christian kerber, grandpas accordian, more at http://www.lomography.com