Don’t stop remembering

The memorial is tended, with love and tokens are curated because it is a physical way to pour out the loveangergriefconfusionsorrow we are collectively carrying. I made my pilgrimage to visit the historical landmark identified on Google Maps as 3343 Portland which is where you told him you weren’t mad at him, but he didn’t believe you and in fear and power he memorialized your name as a symbol of resistance against tyranny. It is not good, to be a martyr and make a widow and orphans. But it is good to remember and write poetry and try to pray. Maybe God smelled like fermeldehyde and was a fad to this dear poet, but the God I know is weeping here with me as one who was also killed at the whims of empire, the God of embracing the immigrant and poor and forgotten no matter what what has been plagiarized. The painted rocks and posters, embroidery and artwork, they’re all prayers, don’t forget and don’t stop remembering.

A question about an alternative future

 Do believers in Jesus really care about envisioning a better future?

The podcast of Michael Mezz and Heather Plett/Holding Space are having this conversation. 

But are believers? 

My favorite quote pre-Jesus was "be the change you wish to see in the world" Ghandi- and then I got "freed" from the slavery of work's righteousness, guilt and shame of never doing enough to make the world better/save the world. Jesus saved the world so I don't have to. 

And I still believe that, but now, I want a hope for a better future. And I don't know what my faith is saying about that. 

I need an alternative story, Lord. 

As the bombs drop. 

As the poor suffer. 

As we ignore the pain and buy more. 

Why [it takes so long]

It takes so much longer than I think it should take. 

Completing a task, as on the way to the kitchen I'll do pick up the brush and throw away the accumulated cat hair, followed by loading the dishwasher, returning to my desk, then going back to fill the cup I began with.  

Or making a new habit, paving these important neural routes in my brain to into routine. 

Or de-cluttering, re-organizing, all the accumulated hand-me-downs and inherited things that hold deep meaning and significance. 

Or loving someone, which often begins with taking a breath before I react defensively, or noticing and tending to where I'm feeling pain. 

Why, in this rushed life, am I still so slow at learning and doing what is right. 

What if these missteps are the way, and it is taking exactly as long as it needs to take. 

Slow down, love, and walk, one foot at a time. 

More alive

The February sun is drooping to the horizon like a heavy rind, 

Radiating like a bubbling pot of pumpkin stew,

The golden flicker between the black silhouette of trees

It radiates at an angle so that the snow becomes a blue more like water

More alive.

The sun looks so close and potent, not in the hazy distance, but near and reachable

If I could pluck it up between my fingers, it would drip like flaming honey on my tongue.

Like trees

One day we walked by the shores of the Mississippi together, in the sand by the downed cottonwoods and remains of bonfires. The river that’s still flowing, partly frozen, today, passed the broken hearts, the angry souls, the confused, the disconnected, the fearful. I’m remembering the strength of the river that’s remains but is new and ever changing. May Minneapolis (its people) receive the strength needed be like trees, planted by this river, resilient and watered and growing regardless of the weather. May justice flow like waters. 

The machine

I didn’t have a machine write this

Who can Right this?

I wrote this

I wrote this on a machine: 

but it was not filtered through the machine

Rage against the machine/the institution/the system, 

Are we separate or a part of it? 

Like snow

I want to let you go, like snow

Let you melt and flurry, be compactable or slurry, whatever you need to be 

I want this friendship, long and enduring 

Though I grieve the distance 

Can I accept these conditions?

Let them be,

Like snow