In the Rye and Elsewhere

silver lining, angie tan

Of Catchers (for andy)
by Anthony Abbott

In the rye and elsewhere I can only say
It is a matter of timing. These kids,
You know, running through the deep field,
Not seeing the cliff and you there, noble you,
With your big hands grabbing one. Great.
But the next tumbles screeching down below
Into whatever. The field is too damnned
Big, the kids are everywhere. You see?
Watching her fingers one last time stretching
for you and she falls.

Catching. It’s bruised thumbs
And busted bones in every joint and a cold
Smack in the soul every time you lose one.

So drop it, son, so to speak. Now.

Here, in these piles of leaves and chapped finger fires, I find myself wanting to be a chaplain. I started drinking coffee without sugar. A gift one morning from a bedside friend. I need to be awake so I can hear people. God doesn’t always show up where you expect him, but some people see him all the time. Dollar bills, billboards, that sort of thing. I try beginning Buechner books and seminary applications but never finish either of them. (“He who has a slack hand becomes poor. The hand of the diligent makes rich.”*)
I want to spend days studying through stories, I want to pull the shoestrings together between the dedicated and dismissed. I want to collect mana and other things that come from the sky. gather all the rain. cynics. kites daydreamers. leaves. And put them in apple picking baskets. I want to be a catcher.

music to listen to today: trapeze swinger, iron and wine

*proverbs 10:4

I Dream a Highway Back to You

bouchon, by bernd hofbauer


"Loving God is like coming, without passion neither one is any good."*

We picked apples today. That and the traffic jam have me thinking about God. We pass a Baptist billboard, “god answers knee mail.” laughs. a few comments. "I've seen worse I mumble." Cars are walking like old men across the interstate and the same bumper sticker “it’s a child not a choice” goes back and forth across the windshield.
Did you see the man driving?
Yeah, he’s holding a crucifix and blood’s dripping down it.
I wince and look out the window. say something about being carsick but I am really thinking about god and the intangibility of faith and all the ways we try to hold it.
I don’t feel like I fit. In the car. In the traffic jam. in my substitutions of harmony for truth. In my beliefs in a book passed down for too many years and now sold in 56 different covers at Barnes and Noble.
I keep my eyes closed and remember playing hide and seek by closing my eyes and thinking no one could see me. faking naps in kindergarden. falling asleep when my mom read me The Bearenstein Bears Go on a Picnic. my mom always reads good books, holds to the family christmas tradition every year, lets me choose, gives all the important advice. My mom says “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

I think God listened to my mom when he came down here. Pencil traced his words into the journals of his best friends for them to remember and for us. Drew with crayons. knew we, none of us, would believe any of it. Too much the same. Too many contradictions. Too unsuspected and far fetched.

I think that between the censored Spanish inquisition and texts buried deep in the sand by now there is truth in that book. That Christ sometimes spoke to specific people and sometimes in metaphors and sometimes he said exactly what he wanted to say. I think jesus would have loved English class, Shakespeare, ee cummings as much as Peter Jennings, CBS, and The Economist. so, in my theory, there is much shifting through of stories and intentions to arrive at belief. All is not literal, god leaves space for change and new generations to hear. All is not pick and choose. We are too good at picking the comfy pages and end up reading “love is patient, love is kind” to ourselves all day long. we are stubborn and hear what we want to. god speaks of great waters and broken desert people. He speaks about sheep and sandals. He speaks of evil and swimming. Motivational speaking. Metaphor. Fact. I believe it is ours for fumbling through but not for forgetting or chalking up to misinterpretation of our forefathers. I think even the hardest passage has its core truth passed from the whispering lips of his best friends and we should listen.

This makes me different than the people in the car with me. my parents. and paige.

The traffic lessens but I keep my eyes closed and pretend to sleep against my hand. Smoke and Medeski Martin and Wood blow in my face. it’s like always looking for home and never finding it.

anothony abbott, from night crazies, a small thing like a breath