Arctic Wildlife

Prompt Part I. List your favorite words.
frazzled
urbane
franchise
dismember

Prompt Part II. Create a scary story, and use all the words listed.

Aboard the arctic fishing vessel, Jeremy pulled in the haul of cod.He had seen several seals that day, but no sign of Rick, his urbane friend who had begun the fishing franchise, and the brains of the small operation.

Hours passed, and the air temperature dropped, the rocking of the boat would not keep the water surrounding it from freezing in these shallows. Jeremy knew he had little time: he would have to decide now if he were going to stay here all night or get underway. But of course, where could he be?

The frazzled polar bear mother returned to the den with the larger part of a seal carcass which she had hunted to feed her lone cub. At least, she thought it was a seal when she came upon it swimming in the bright blue depths: all alone it was, with a strangely-shaped head. Yet, it appeared, with its sleek black body, to be a seal, though sickly, perhaps, which explained why it was swimming all alone. No matter. She had thought very little about it. Food was scarce, and she had hunted for days. 

But as she dismembered it, it tasted so very strange. And it had two strange layers of skin, the outer of which tasted so terrible that she nearly dropped it back into the depths. 

How the Mighty Pen Will Fall

In West Africa, "traditional" West Africa, to write something down is to kill it. As soon as the story is parted from the human mind, the human heart, the human voice, the story has died. People who can afford it hire a family story teller to keep track of the family and to keep them alive in hearts to come.

In Western contemporary culture, writing is tantamount to immortalizing oneself. Oral history is seen as unreliable, silly even. But written history - don't we see? - is stagnant. It does not keep up with the flow of the river. Writing is a pool all its own, becoming more and more removed from the water that flows. Eventually, the collected debris builds up in the little eddy. And sediment collects to form a thin shaft of land. And the story persists forever in its pool. But fewer and fewer people come to visit.

It is only a matter of centuries before one must study for years to even get at the most elementary meaning of the landlocked text. It gets further inland, further from the flow. But it is immortal. But it is alone.

-----------

Stanley Hauerwas calls ours a culture of death.

We laugh at cultures less ornately technological.
They have witch doctors and poor health.
They have missing eyes, or limbs!
They have a strange growth that the "witch doctor" cannot cure,
It must have come from an angry neighbor,
Never considering food allergies.

We must visit a "real doctor," and have a battery of tests completed.
"Of course a smile will not cure what you have!
Not a hug, nor the air--
This is exceedingly rare!"

Somehow or other, hopefully by regular visits to the prophet doctor
and worshiping at the hospital shrine, we may satisfy death while living,
and never face it head on.

We write a moment so it will go on living forever.
We take a picture so the moment will have the posterity that we do not.
And only the camera's eye will know the moment.
What a shame! that the camera has not our heart!

What a shame the god science has not found a way to transplant a human heart
into a camera, so that the pain and joy - the beautiful transience of the human condition -
will be
perfectly preserved,
forever.

If You Come Back

If you come back

I will write you a poem for every picture of a tree
you deign to send me.

I will go to see that stupid Hulk movie and find a replacement for work.

I will chat online for more than a few minutes: reviewing our chats, I always seemed to be pressed for time.

I will sit with you in your Jeep on the way to your friend's wedding,
and let myself think about your profile against the sunset.

I will not run so hard or so far.

I will let you catch me, hold me, keep me.

But

I know I wouldn't

if you could

Come back.

I Doubt It

When I got back from London,
you gently demanded (how could you do that?)
a get-together.
We would decide what to do
when you got here.

You picked me up.
Sunroof open, sun in our hair,
We went to the park.

[My park. My favorite park.
How did you know? Did I ever tell you?
You never forgot a single thing I said.]

"I was thinking we could go fly kites," you said
As you pointed to two kites in your backseat.

[How odd, I had just been thinking about kites, I remember.
Did you know? Did I ever tell you?]

We ran about wildly inexperienced, getting our kites in the air.
Up they flew. Up. Bright. Sun in our hair, on our faces!
I was so relieved
That you had no confessions,
And I no heartbreaks
To share today.

I entangled my kitestring with yours and tried to pull it down.
You smiled and laughed, not to be bothered.
I loved you for it.

[Did you know? Did I ever tell you?]

Melange

I just finished Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. I find that it all blends together. There is no separation between my own thoughts, the book, the music I am listening to (David Crowder, Intoxicating); the people I saw this morning (Joella, Jodi, Becky); the conversations I had, my aspirations, and disappointments. They all blend together.

Imagine, a rabid dog sitting on the back of a swimming cow, discussing death and God's purpose for life, to the sound of a twanging guitar; in the sky, a ribbon of possibilities written on a banner, waving behind a light airplane.

I don't know if it's mentally sound that characters in books should become so real to me. I don't know if it's a mark of soundness that conversations should be repeated verbatim (I really think so...) in my mind. Maybe I've been getting too much sleep. Or not enough.

A Place to Match

Grace sits at a clean window. She has time to pray as she knits
blue, green, purple together.

Carla bellows to the boys to keep it down, and sighs
cream, lavender, cream, lavender crochet.

Lilly has her papers before her, memorizes the next week's case studies
bright orange, light orange, bright orange, light orange.

Rhoda sits up in bed this week, finally able to contemplate her dying sister
royal blue straight through.

Kim adds white rows between each woman's strand, yarn to tie life to life.
And they give the blanket to Hazel, who feels gentle hands, soft threads.
Hazel is blind now, but she sees Grace at a window. Carla with her three sons. Lilly at a work desk. Rhoda in a sickbed. Kim in a rocking chair.

And they all dance with Hazel as she sits back finally, wrapped in precious, quiet actions which pass through time.

As the family divides her treasures one month later, the blanket does not match any room of any house. It comes to rest in the mismatched house on Pine Street, on a used couch and an armchair worn out by other owners. The blanket wraps anyone who wants it, anyone who will consent to be blind for a moment. And it warms neatly to tense shoulders; hands holding hot tea and books, in a cold room.

Easter Sunday

Voices awaken me. Whispered words in the dark blue dawn. Or is it still night? I strain to hear.

Easter morning, 2009. Micah Berthold had died just three days before. My new pastor and his wife were struggling to bear the weight of this burden. Struggling to know what their good and gracious Lord would do with them now, so broken.

One man's whisper, just audible, "empty," he says. The horizon is just visible, the grass still does not shutter, thick with paralyzing dew.

We brought our praise to the Lord, offering him our thoughts, even our vicarious grief. We thought of sin and love's sacrifice. And we sang through throats choking on sobs.

I raise my head, still bleary from confusion and crying that had taken up the days since His death. No comfort came in sleep, just a place to lay the profound heaviness. We had entrusted all our hopes to Him. The loss we felt was more than that of a friend, or even a brother. We had lost the one who held the sky.

How did Pastor Josef do it? I don't know how he and Brenda bore greeting so many people. They remembered. I don't remember the song we were singing when one man said what we were thinking, "We love you, Josef."
"We love you, too, Bill," responded Josef as he and Brenda held one another's hands. Weight. Glory. Grief and pain were weight in our hearts. And God's glory was turning that weight into something somehow more precious than breathing.

More than one person now is talking, word is spreading. Something has changed, "Empty," "With their own eyes!" "She thought He was a gardener at first." Dawn is full blown day, and the word escapes every person's lips with more emotion and incredulous hope than I can bear, "ALIVE..."

"We shall not die," goes the song. And we sing it. And we believe it. Soul-cracked glory, the weight of the sky presses in. And we still believe it: we are ALIVE because He is also.

The moment when all fear is enveloped in hope--when you finally know you have seen the worst of it--it begs pause. And then, knowing, believing, seeing the promises of life unfold in the presence of my Lord, whose face I had despaired of ever seeing again--the soul leaps to joy.